Croatian/Main Contents/Fundamentals

The Croatian alphabet
Croatian is an easy language to spell and pronounce. Each letter is pronounced separately and clearly in any position and each word is spelt as it is pronounced.

The Croatian alphabet is a "subset" of the Latin alphabet and consists of 30 letters.

The following table lists all of the letters, together with pronunciations and "as in..." notes for easier pronunciation.

Note: Because of their similarity in pronucation, most Croatian children don't learn to differ Č and Ć, Đ and DŽ or "je" and "ije" before fifth grade.

To oversimplify, remember six rules:

1. For the "c" without a hat, remember "cats." In English we pronounce the cat's head ("c") but in Croatian the tail is pronounced ("ts").

2. A hat on a "c," "s," or "z" becomes an English "ch," "sh," or "zh." Pronounce "ć" like "č" if you think no one expects Americans to speak foreign languages correctly.

3. DŽ is an English "j," as in "John." If you pronounce "Đ" and "đ" the same way, note rule #2.

4. For "h" pretend you're Scottish and saying "loch" or German saying "Bach."

5. The "i" and "u" vowels are always long, never short.

6. The "j" is pronounced like "y" in English.

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