Learning to Speak Croatian

Aug 19, 2012 110 0 0

Southern Dalmatia, Croatia

When planning to cruise in Croatia, we worried about how difficult it would be to learn the language. We looked at translation books, mastered the basics: “Dobar dan” (hello); “Koliko?” (How much?); “Govorite li engleski?” (Do you speak English?). Once we got there, we realized that everyone in Croatia speaks English. Perfecto! Calls us lazy, but that ended the language lessons, with the exception of trying to learn to pronounce the names of islands and towns correctly (otherwise we might end up in a completely different location than we wanted). Croatian is a very complex language, with words that sound nothing like they look. A “j” is pronounced as “y” and “c ” is really “ts.” Then there are accents and squiggly lines above letters that even change those rules.

Take Korcula for instance. We planned to meet Pam and Steve on Eirene (friends and fellow Hylas owners) there, but they pronounced Korcula differently than we did so no one was really sure where we were going to rendezvous. They were saying it correctly (KOHR-choo-lah), we eventually worked it out and got together for a few nights of fun and catching up in the quaint town and beautiful anchorage.

Then there is the Peljesac Peninsula, where we popped into the Loviste anchorage to wait for some better weather. This area is renowned for its wines, so we tried to book a wine tour while we were there. It took 10 minutes and most of our cell phone time to make them understand what area we wanted to tour, and that was after carefully researching the correct pronunciation (PEHL-yeh-shants). After all the effort, we were told they were fully booked, as it was August high season, so we had to settled for trying the wines at a local restaurant with fresh seafood, which was probably better anyway.

You would think Sipan would be a simple pronunciation, but no, it is actually SHIP-an. We didn’t even find that out until after we had been to the island. And it actually turned out to be one of our favorite places, with a casual town and restaurant where Gino asked if we wanted “meat, or fish?” That was it, no menu, no choices. But everything he gave us was excellent. It was like we had gone to a friend’s house for dinner and they served us what they had cooked that day. Unlike our friends though, Gino did give us a check at the end of the meal, but it was worth every penny.

Probably the most difficult name to pronounce was Mljet. It was hard to even imagine how to say the word. But most of the island is a national park, so we were able to muddle through it with people as long as we said “National Park” after we destroyed the actual name of the island, which is actually pronounced muhl-YET. Though Mljet is one of Croatia’s largest islands, it has fewer than 1,500 residents. Nearly three-quarters of the island is covered in forest. We anchored in Polace and walked into the park, where we hiked and biked around two scenic saltwater lakes. It was such a departure from our usual cruising life, a little escape from the big adventure. So while the name Mljet is just impossible, in the end, we simply called it “the beautiful island.”