Grammar book

Croaticum publishes textbooks, workbooks, grammar book and other useful materials for learning Croatian as a second and foreign language at different levels according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, as well as textbooks about Croatia and Croatian culture. 

Basic Croatian Grammar: For Croatian Language Learners

Autor: Darko Matovac

Izdavač: Croatian University Press, 2022. ISBN: 978-953-169-459-9

Basic Croatian Grammar: For Croatian Language Learners is a grammar book of the Croatian language written in English. It offers a basic grammatical description of the Croatian language and is intended to be used by basic and intermediate level learners of Croatian as a second and foreign language.

About this book

This book offers a basic grammatical description of the Croatian language and is intended to be used by basic and intermediate level learners of Croatian as a second and foreign language.

What does basic grammatical description mean?
It means that this book does not provide the most comprehensive or the most detailed description of all the rules shaping the Croatian language, but that this book tries to present a picture of the Croatian language which is suitable and, hopefully, easily accessible to persons learning the language, either on their own or guided by a teacher. If compared to traditional grammar books, some parts of this book resort to generalisations or simplifications and some terms are used more loosely (e.g. ending) or not used at all (e.g. zero morpheme). However, this is a conscious decision, made in order to present specific topics in a more accessible and learner-oriented manner.

Who are basic and intermediate level learners?
The grammatical description of the Croatian language presented in this book is suitable for learners at levels A1 (beginner), A2 (elementary) and B1 (intermediate) of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL). Furthermore, the grammatical description of the Croatian language presented in this book does not presuppose knowledge of any linguistic terms and concepts. Therefore, the book is suitable to be used by all types of learners.

How to use this book?
The order in which grammatical topics are presented follows the way in which grammatical topics are introduced in the Croatian language teaching books and described in reference level descriptors. In other words, the book should be read chapter after chapter as each of the following chapters presupposes knowledge of the previous ones. Furthermore, information is often repeated when necessary, in order to make explanations more accessible and understandable. This all, however, does not mean that this book cannot be used for a quick review, especially as several chapters present an overview of specific grammatical topics.