Two hours a week where nobody switches to English.
There comes a point where another course is not the answer. You have the cases. You have read the texts. What you do not have is enough hours in a room with people who will not slow down for you, talking about something worth disagreeing over.
That is the whole of Colloquium. Not a ladder. A table.
Wednesdays 08:00
Zagreb time
for founding members
What it is, and what it is not
One subject a week, prepared properly, and two live hours of talking about it in Croatian with people at your level.
If you make a mistake I will tell you quickly why it was a mistake, and we carry on talking. That is the correction you get, and in my experience it is the one that sticks.
Not a grammar course. There is no lesson, no recap of the aspect system, no slide with the locative on it. You will have a grammar overview in your materials every week, and it is there for reference, not for teaching.
Not for beginners, and not a replacement for the Quadrant™.
A week, from the inside
Here is the first week, as it will actually arrive. The subject is Dolac, the market above Zagreb's main square, because it is where the city does its talking.
Your materials appear in your group on the platform: an essay on the market and what it is for; a Croatian text at B2, Ivan ide na plac; a rječnik of the words that will actually come up; a grammar overview for reference; and a bank of tasks to come with, so nobody arrives empty.
Sixty minutes, live, in Croatian. We take the subject apart: what you read, what you noticed, what you would have said differently. You talk considerably more than I do.
Sixty minutes again, the same subject, further in: the argument, the joke, the thing you could not say on Monday and have been turning over since.
The recordings stay in your group until the next subject opens, so a session you could not reach live is not a session lost.
Then a new subject, and the same shape again. Twenty-six of them across the year.
Two hours, chosen for where you live
Monday at 20:00 in Zagreb is the early afternoon on the American east coast and the late morning on the west. Wednesday at 08:00 in Zagreb is the early evening in Sydney and mid evening in Auckland.
Come to both if you can. Come to one and watch the other if you cannot. The subject is the same either way, so one hour never leaves you behind the room.
Everything that comes with the table
The two live hours are the heart of Colloquium. Around them you also get two things that make the hours go further.
Croatian Circle Plus
The Croatian Circle, with more in it. It is a private library of things to read, watch, hear and cook, so that Croatian goes on in your week between the sessions. Four rooms:
Hall of Minds
Masterclasses on learning languages as an adult, including one on the long middle at B1 and B2, and why it feels as though nothing is happening, and one on verbal aspect.
Croatian Cinema
Lessons built around Croatian landmarks and lives, from the Frankopans and Dragojla Jarnević to Samobor and the Klis Fortress.
Film Watchlist and Croatian Library
A watchlist of Croatian films, from Šegrt Hlapić and Smogovci to Lisice, and a library of Croatian novels and plays at B level, from Kamov and Gjalski to Šojat and Novak.
Student Canteen
Croatian recipes in Croatian and English, from fritule and štrukli to pašticada, to practise the imperative and attach language to taste.
Recall & Repeat, the chunks app
A practice programme for phrases and chunks, with its own PDF. It rests on two ideas. Fluency is largely an inventory of ready-made pieces that you reach for without building them, and a piece you meet once has gone by the end of the week unless you recall it again. Recall & Repeat gives you the pieces and the schedule for bringing them back.
Who this is for
You have finished the Croatian Quadrant™, or you are far enough into Nexus™ that the reading is no longer the hard part. Or you arrived with family Croatian that is strong at the table and has never been asked to argue, explain, or hold its own in a room of strangers.
If you are nearer the beginning, this is not the room for you yet, and you would be unhappy in it. Start with Croatian Entry Point, or the free masterclass, and come back when the courses stop being the thing holding you up.
€69 a month
Instead of €89, for everyone who puts their name down before Colloquium opens. The rate stays yours for as long as you stay.
- Nothing is charged now, and nothing is charged until January 2027.
- You will get one email when enrolment opens, with the payment link, and you decide then.
- Month to month after that. Stop whenever you like.
Keep me a place
Put your name down and you hold the founding rate. That is all this does. There is no payment, no commitment, and no flood of email: one note when the doors open, and the Saturday Letter in between.
Group size is kept small on purpose, so places are limited and founding members are taken first.