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Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 53 Giving Orders 306 / 600

53 Giving Orders

Croatian has special forms of verbs used to give orders: imperatives (imper for

short). In English, the imperative is just a verb without a personal pronoun:

Wait for me!

In Croatian, there’s a special verb form (it’s quite similar to the present tense forms):

Čekaj me A ! Wait for me!

1

Imperatives exist only for the 2nd person singular and plural (I can give orders to

you) and for the 1st person plural (I can give orders to us).

If you know the imper-2 form, it’s very easy to get other forms – all are regular –

and it’s easy to get the imper-2 if you know its pres-3pl:

pres-3pl imper-2 imper-1pl imper-2pl

-u, -e -i -imo -ite

-ju, (-je) ® -j -jmo -jte

-ku -ci -cimo -cite

For example, here are the imper-2 forms of some frequent verbs:

gledati watch → gledaj

učiti learn → uči

pisati (piše) write → piši

ići (ide, išao, išla) go → idi

The imperative gledaj watch! is often shortened to just gle. There’s one completely

irregular imperative:

biti (je² +) be → budi

Most verbs have stress in imperatives like in the infinitive. Verbs in -iti which, in the

standard stress scheme, shift their stress left in the present tense, don’t do it in the

imperative, and that distinguishes some forms which are equal in writing:

govoriti («) speak →

govori = pres-3

govori = imper-2

(Std. stress scheme!)

Only a handful of otherwise ‘irregular’ verbs have the pres-3pl ending in -ku. Such

commonly used verbs are:

reći (reče, rekao, rekla) perf. tell → reci

tući (tuče, tukao, tukla) beat, smack → tuci

vući (vuče, vukao, vukla) pull → vuci

The verb reći is almost never used in the present tense, but its imperative is often

used:

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