# Croatian: third person singular and third person plural



## wanipa

Question again:

In present tense, if verbs for 3. person singular end with i, then for 3. person plural with e:
on traži -> oni traže

In present tense, if verbs for 3. person singular end with e, then for 3. person plural with u:
on nađe -> oni nađu

1. Is this a rule or not? Any exceptions if yes?

2. And what is the rule on deciding whether it's i or e for 3. person singular?


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## Panceltic

Hello wanipa,

Croatian verbs fall into three large conjugation groups, the 3rd person singular can end with *-a*, *-e* or *-i*. When you learn a new verb, you'll also have to learn which group it belongs to, but generally the rules are:

1) verbs in -ati > -a
2) verbs in -nuti > -e
3) verbs in -jeti or -iti > -i

There are also irregular verbs, which usually take -e.


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## wanipa

Thanks, it helps a lot!

How about then 3. person plural?


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## Panceltic

I think it's best to learn all the forms of one conjugation group (all persons and numbers), and then go on to another.

For the first group, they are: -am, -aš, -a, -amo, -ate, -aju
For the second: -em, -eš, -e, -emo, -ete, -u
For the third: -im, -iš, -i, -imo, -ite, -e

There is also a subgroup (-jem, -ješ, -je, -jemo, -jete, -ju) for verbs in -ovati/-ivati.

The auxiliary verbs 'biti' and 'htjeti' have their own irregular conjugations.


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## Panceltic

You should also pay attention to sound changes taking place in various forms (palatalization, iotation).


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## wanipa

I'm so much grateful!

Vielen, vielen Dank!


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## wanipa

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trajati
trajem    trajemo   
traješ    trajete
traje    traju

differ from
1) verbs in -ati > -am, -aš, -a, -amo, -ate, -aju

Is that an exception?


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## Panceltic

Maybe, I'm not sure ... There's always a thing that screws up the whole system


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## Zerdav

You have more on this in detail in resources pinned on the front of this subforum. Things are a lot more complicated than just 3 simple verb types. For instance verbs ending in -ati can take all 3: -a, -e, -i, in present stem, and that's not irregular.


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## wanipa

I'm afraid, you're absolutely right. 

zaspati, značiti are the case hence.

So no pain no gain.

Thanks again to all of you!


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## ivanone

if my high school memory still serves me right, at least for Serbian - the ending of 3rd person plural depends on the relation between the ending of 

1. prezentska osnova

2. infinitivna osnova

Tabanović - Infinitivna i prezentska osnova

for different pairs of endings different rules applies for 3rd person plural.

Something along the lines below, though I do not pretend here to fully elaborate it as I do not recall exact details.

RADITI 
prezentska osnova: RADI
infinitivna osnova: RADI

oni radE

PEĆI
prezentska osnova: PEČE
infinitivna osnova: PEK

oni pekU


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## Daniel.N

The rules are quite simple for almost all verbs.

3rd pers sg *-a* (e.g. čit*a*)
3rd pers pl *-aju* (e.g. čit*aju*)

3rd pers sg *-e* (e.g. piš*e*)
3rd pers pl *-u* (e.g. piš*u*)

(Historically, these two types were one.)

3rd pers sg *-i* (e.g. uč*i*)
3rd pers pl *-e* (e.g. uč*e*)

The exceptions are:

verbs with inf. on -*ći* and 3rd pers. sg on -*če*, e.g. *vući* - *vuče*: they have *-ku* in 3rd pers pl, not -*ču*: *vuku*. other such verbs are *peći*, *reći*, *sjeći*, *teći*,* tući*, *obući*.

irregular verbs *htjeti*, *moći*, *biti*
You can also read this: Plural


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## wanipa

Hvala lijepa!


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