Thursday Column - Croatia Lifestyle 8: Croatian Language - Months of the Year

I’ve been putting off learning the months of the year in Croatian for a while now, mostly because the words are quite difficult for an English speaker to remember. However I have now finally cracked it with the help of constant repetition and the most bizarre hybrid mnemonic that you could imagine. I felt I should share it with you, for what it’s worth, but if anyone has a better one please let me know.

My mnemonic is SVOT SLS KORULIS STUD PRO – almost as difficult to remember as the month’s themselves! This is how it works:

Siječanj
Veljača
Ožujak
Travanj
Svibanj
Lipanj
Serpanj
KOlovoz
RUjan
LIStopad
STUDeni
PROsinac

Sounds complicated and my Croatian teacher told me this evening that, in her teaching courses, she learnt that it was easy to remember with mnemonics but easy to forget as well. Still, at least I passed the test!!

I also learnt that the words for the months were very descriptive and will be expanding further on this in a future posting.