Learning Croatian sayings and phrases – #1 

Is the Croatian language hard to learn? If you ask most people new to the language they would say it definitely is. 

But that does not mean you still can’t impress locals and make a few people laugh by learning some well-known Croatian sayings or phrases. 

In this series we will teach you commonly used sayings in Croatia which are not typically found in language learning material.

Today’s saying:

Da ga nema trebalo bi ga izmisliti – pronunciation [Dar-gar-nemar-trebarlo-be-gar-ease-miss-leet]

English: If he didn’t exist you would have to invent him

The saying “Da ga nema trebalo bi ga izmisliti” is commonly used to describe a person who is a real character. Someone who will do unique things and can even brighten your day by the fact that they just exist.

Words/conjunctions

da -yes/if

ga – him

nema – none/gone

trebalo – need/ought

Izmisliti – invent/make up