How a retired doctor discovered Croatian was simply good manners

Finding purpose beyond the practice

Rita spent decades caring for others as both a doctor and psychotherapist in Innsbruck, Tirol. Her days were split between a private practice treating couples and individuals with complex problems, and serving as school doctor to 1,500 technical students. “The school work complemented my practice beautifully,” she explains. “At school, I mainly talked with healthy young people, handling their routine examinations and accidents. In my practice, it was people with real problems – couples wanting divorces, individuals in crisis.”

The variety kept her engaged for years, but retirement brought new freedoms and different priorities. Rita now enjoys a full life with her husband in their mountain home at 1,000 metres, complete with a ski gondola right behind their house. She’s the proud grandmother to five grandchildren – four grandsons and one granddaughter, aged 11 to 21, spread across her three married children’s families. Four of the grandchildren live nearby, and Rita has created a cherished weekly tradition that brings everyone together. Once a week, all the grandchildren come for dinner, with the timing carefully coordinated around their school schedules. They finish school between one and two o’clock, then gather at Rita’s house around 2 PM. With the mothers and whoever else can join, the group often swells to ten people around her table – a lively, multigenerational gathering that forms the heart of their family rhythm.

Weekly gatherings and mountain adventures

Beyond these weekly family gatherings, Rita treasures watching her grandchildren’s genuine friendships with each other. They help one another and truly enjoy each other’s company, something she never takes for granted.

When not hosting family meals, Rita pursues her passion for choral singing. Every Tuesday evening, she joins a 40-year-old choir that tackles ambitious classical works. Recently, they performed Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, and last Christmas featured Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. This summer, they’re preparing Mendelssohn. “It’s become a lovely social gathering as well as musical achievement,” she notes. “The same people have been singing together for decades, and now younger voices are joining us.”

The stone house that changed everything

Rita’s Croatian journey began with a ruin. In 1995, she and her husband purchased a derelict building in rural Istria, about ten kilometres from the coast. The bureaucratic process dragged on for years before they could officially own and renovate the property. Her husband led the restoration efforts, transforming the ruins into a beautiful traditional stone house surrounded by olive trees and a vegetable garden.

Now they visit every six weeks, making the seven-hour drive from Innsbruck worthwhile for at least a week’s stay. They’ve cultivated olive trees and a vegetable garden on the property, with their helpful neighbour keeping watch over everything during their absences. The location perfectly balances accessibility with tranquillity – close enough to the sea but far enough from the tourist crowds that plague coastal areas. “In our village, it’s quite peaceful,” Rita appreciates. “We don’t get caught up in all the tourism commotion.”

A question of politeness and respect

The motivation to learn Croatian struck Rita as fundamentally about respect. “There’s always talk about refugees and people coming to Austria needing to learn German immediately,” she reflects. “Then I thought to myself – we’ve been sitting in Croatia for years and none of us can speak Croatian.” The contrast troubled her enough to take action. She found the situation simply impolite, particularly when locals consistently switched to German to accommodate her family.

The biggest challenge, Rita discovered, was that most Croatians spoke excellent German, often responding faster in German than she could manage in Croatian. Yet she noticed their genuine appreciation when she attempted Croatian or indicated she’d understood something. “I see they’re pleased when I say I understood that,” she observes. This positive reinforcement became crucial motivation to continue, even when progress felt slow.

Embracing an entirely different system

With a background in English, Italian, and French, Rita found Croatian presented an entirely different challenge. Initially, the language felt impossibly complex and unfamiliar, and she didn’t particularly enjoy the struggle. Three years later, her perspective has completely shifted. “Now I love it – it appeals to me tremendously. I’ve begun to understand the system somewhat.” She describes her approach as almost academic: “For me, it’s almost like Latin – figuring out where the subject is, where everything belongs, rather than having everything jumbled together.”

The breakthrough moment came during conversations with neighbours in their Istrian village, particularly one elderly woman who insists on speaking Croatian with Rita, testing her understanding and celebrating her progress. For anyone starting their Croatian journey, Rita offers practical advice: watch films on Netflix, listen to Croatian radio (particularly news programmes), and remember that listening is the foundation – though also the most challenging aspect. Most importantly, she emphasises having the courage to actually speak, taking that crucial step from understanding to production.