How learning Croatian became a lifelong promise

The secret code that sparked curiosity

As a young girl, Saskia would watch with frustration as her mother and grandparents slipped into Croatian conversations she couldn’t understand. “When I grow up, I’ll learn Croatian – and then I’ll understand your secret language!” she declared one day, arms crossed in determination. Years later, the 26-year-old German has kept that childhood vow, stubbornly refusing to let the promise fade.

Originally from Germany’s Rhineland-Palatinate region, Saskia balances her industrial job in a plastics manufacturing company with weekend business economics studies. Yet it’s the Croatian language – heard in fragments throughout her childhood – that represents her most personal pursuit.

Stage lights and student life

When she’s not conjugating Croatian verbs, Saskia finds creative expression through her village theatre troupe, where performers of all ages deliver comedies in local dialect. “It’s my first year participating, but they’ve been performing for 22 years,” she explains. “It’s funny, entertaining, and brings together the whole community.”

This theatrical pursuit is just one element of her packed schedule. Between her full-time manufacturing job, weekend economics studies, and theatre rehearsals, she admits it can become overwhelming. “Sometimes it’s too much, sometimes it’s good,” she reflects. “My mum says I always want to do everything.” Whenever the stress mounts, she reminds herself that both theatre and Croatian bring genuine joy – they’re labours of love, not obligation.

Finding patterns in a new language

Initially, Croatian seemed intimidating. Saskia’s first attempt at formal learning in 2014 faltered when her instructor couldn’t adequately explain concepts in German. It wasn’t until 2023, when she discovered a school with bilingual teachers, that everything clicked.

“I’m actually more of a maths person,” she confesses, explaining why language acquisition doesn’t come naturally to her. The breakthrough arrived when she finally understood the logic behind Croatian’s seven grammatical cases. “When I understood why words change and why a u or an i appears, when I noticed there are masculine, feminine and neuter – suddenly I understood the whole meaning behind it.”

Family roots planted across borders

Saskia’s connection to Croatia runs deep through family ties. Her grandmother comes from Pristava near Tuhelj, while her grandfather hails from Zagreb. They emigrated to Germany in the 1960s, but Croatian remained the primary language at home until Saskia’s mother started kindergarten.

Every summer as a child, Saskia visited Croatia, where her grandmother owned a house. “Even if we couldn’t communicate properly, we knew the whole village,” she recalls. “It always felt somehow homely because we heard it all the time.” Now when she visits, she challenges herself to speak despite finding it difficult to form complete sentences. “When I’m there and the rest of the family doesn’t speak German, I have to speak Croatian.”

From industrial pigments to seaside dreams

In an unexpected twist, Saskia’s language studies have even benefited her professional life. Working in a plastics company that produces colorants, she recognized the Slavic origins of many pigment names. When asked to order “naranja,” she immediately identified it as an orange pigment, surprising her colleagues.

While she can’t imagine working in Croatia yet due to language barriers, Saskia does dream of perhaps retiring there someday. Until then, she makes a point of visiting annually, driving down in her own car whenever possible. “Why do you do that?” her family asks. “I want to see the family,” she replies simply, enjoying the independence of making the decision herself.

Whether it’s hunting down her childhood favorites – burek pastries and ice cream – or collecting memories with each visit, Saskia’s connection to Croatia grows stronger with every Croatian sentence she masters. Her story demonstrates how a child’s stubborn promise can bloom into a lifelong journey, connecting her past to her future through language, family, and determination.