Wouldn’t it be fun to learn Croatian while playing games? Now you can!
We know that our language can sometimes be… daunting for foreigners, to say the least, especially English speakers, because Croatian is full of harsh sounds and consonant clusters that seem impossible to pronounce.
I’ve been asked where the bus for aitch-var was and how far away the island of kay-ar-kay was, and I remember the laugh I got when a Brazilian tourist asked me to pronounce trg so they can learn it too. Recently, when I said that we were walking down Strossmayer Promenade, while standing next to the sign that said “Strossmayerovo šetalište,” I got a reply “Oh, so you don’t pronounce –ovo in Croatian.”
Even though it took me a while to realise that these were, in fact, Hvar and Krk, in the first two examples, made me frustrated when they wouldn’t even try to pronounce it in the third, or made me start thanking God that cases come naturally when they’re part of your own language, I could see that people weren’t all that interested in my lengthy descriptions of how you pronounce every letter as it is written in Croatia (“But I pronounced aitch as aitch”) and didn’t seem too interested in Croatian (OK, fine, maybe it has something to do with my method of explaining things). Don’t get me wrong – I don’t blame or judge them, Croatian is a very difficult language to learn (and pronounce).
Flash forward a few months ago, Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon a FUN and colourful (what else do you need?) way of learning Croatian.
I give you, Crocards.
Crocards by Krečionica (which is a brilliant pun taking the first part of the word from the Croatian word for creative, and the second from the Croatian word for classroom, and meaning something like a paint place when you put the two together) includes 100 illustrated cards divided into nine topics: numbers, occupations, colours, places, fruit, vegetables, clothes, weather, and transport.
The pack is intended for beginners, but as repetition is the mother of all learning, it won’t hurt if you’re already at an intermediate level.
Learning new words without context is a big no-no, so the creators of this brilliant game have that covered as well – each word is followed by an example of a sentence of a question where that word or phrase is used.
The pack costs HRK 200 and you can buy it here.
Now there are really no excuses for you not to learn our beautiful language, so what are you waiting for? Let’s get studying!
Find out more about Krečionica here and like it on Facebook here.
All photos from Krečionica.
