What's good to know about the infinitive in Croatian?

The infinitive ending of all Croatian verbs is either -ći or -ti.
This is how you will encounter them when you look something up in your Croatian dictionary.
💡 For example:
biti – to be
pitati – to ask
pomoći – to help


Finding the infinitive stem of a verb:

It will come in handy (later on, when we take a closer look at the different tenses in Croatian) if you are able to quickly find the infinitive stem of a verb.

If the verb ends in -ti: drop the ending -ti
💡 For example:
pitati – to ask → infinitive stem: pita-
 
If a verb ends in -sti or -ći:
The infinitive stem is identical with the present stem of the verb.
(The present stem of a verb consists of what's left if you erase the personal ending for the present tense.)
💡 For example:
jesti – to eat → infinitive/present stem: jed-
pomoći – to help → infinitive/present stem: pomog-

In what context will you use this knowledge again?
We will come back to the infinitive stem of a verb when talking about building the past tenses in Croatian and the conditional mood of a verb.


 

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