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Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / A3 Verbs 508 / 600

mostly used

bojati (boji)

brojati (broji)

strujati (struji)

zujati (zuji)

Std. Cro.

bojiti

brojiti

strujiti

zujiti

(Google search of the .hr domain will show you the a/i-verb forms of these four

verbs are 3-4 times more common than the i-verb forms.)

All verbs that end in infinitive in -jeti belong to the je/i-verbs, except for the

following common verbs, which belong to the je/ije-verbs:

dospjeti (dospije, dospio, dospjela) perf. end up

razumjeti (razumije, razumio, razumjela) understand

smjeti (smije, smio, smjela) be allowed

uspjeti (uspije, uspio, uspjela) perf. succeed

However, many verbs that in Standard Croatian belong to the je/i-verbs are

reshaped as plain i-verbs in colloquial communication, even in newspapers. This

does not affect their present forms, only the infinitive and past forms. The following

verbs are seldom seen with -je- in infinitive and past, -i- forms prevail even in

newspapers (only infinitives are listed for sake of brevity, you can work out other

forms):

gnjiljeti rot

hlapjeti evaporate

starjeti age, grow old

strepjeti fear, quail

šumjeti whirr, hum

tamnjeti darken

(For example, Google gives 1250 hits for hlapiti on the .hr domain, but just 87 for

hlapjeti.) Therefore, don't be surprised that Standard Croatian dictionaries list only

forms starjeti, starjeli, but you hear are read just stariti and starili all the time. Of

course, this applies to all verbs derived by prefixing from the verbs above, e.g.

instead of ostarjeti you will mostly see just ostariti.

For the following common verbs, i-forms prevail in casual communication, while

je/i-forms prevail in written communication, newspapers, etc. (again, only infinitives

are listed):

gorjeti burn

grmjeti thunder

smrdjeti stink

štedjeti save (money)

šutjeti be quiet

trpjeti suffer

vrtjeti spin, turn

visjeti hang

vrvjeti swarm

žudjeti yearn

With a possible sound shift in present

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