Word for the Travel Wise (05/15/06)

Since Neil has started the process of pooling the masses for recommendations and tips for his upcoming trip to Croatia, Albania and Montenegro I'll use this fine opportunity to enhance our lingo skills from each of the three areas. I imagine there aren't many of you out there studying any of three countries everyday vernacular or street slang, so I'll keep it fairly simple this evening and stick to a word that may come in handy for our dear Neil or anyone else with big travel departure plans to Croatia.

Today's word is a Croatian word used in Croatia:

kolodvor - railway station

Falling under the western group of south Slavic languages, the Croatian language is used primarily by the Croats and is written in the Croatian alphabet. Croatian is an official language of Croatia as well as Bosnia and Burgenland (Austria). Wiki is the perfect starting point to learn all the background notes on the language as well as an example of the language as found in The Lord's Prayer. This Hrvatski jezik website has a few lists of useful words and phrases for the traveler looking to get by in the country. Things like days of the week, shopping, sightseeing, customs, and basic greetings are all covered. Learn-Croatian.com is another good tool for picking up enough to make due and offers a number of links to help those interested in learning further. As always two of my personal language learning fav's include the BBC Quick Fix Guide to Croatian with audio for download and LP's pocket sized Croatian phrasebook.

Filed under: Learning, Europe, Croatia