Since we in our Verbosari Team are all translators native in Croatian.

It is appropriate that we start our little language corner with a common issue we often come across in the everyday usage of the Croatian language.

One of the most frequent errors we have noticed in everyday speech and writing is the usage of expressions such as ispravan odgovor, ispravno rješenje, ispravna odluka etc.

But the meaning of the adjective “ispravan” is “not defective, working properly” and it is predominantly used to describe working machinery or technical devices in examples such as ispravan motor, ispravan sustav hlađenja, ispravan električni pogon etc.

When we would like to emphasize that something is correct or in accordance with the rules or facts, in Standard Croatian instead of the adjective “ispravan” we should use the adjectives “pravilan” or “točan”.

Therefore, the correct form of the abovementioned examples would be pravilan/točan odgovor, pravilno/točno rješenje, and pravilna/točna odluka.

The answers to all language questions related to the Croatian language should always be looked primarily in reliable linguistic sources such as jezicni-savjetnik.hr, pravopis.hr, bolje.hr etc. 😊