trebati

Serbo-Croatian

Alternative forms

• tribati (Ikavian)
• trjebati (obsolete)

Etymology

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *terbati.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /trêbati/
• Hyphenation: tre‧ba‧ti

Verb

trȅbati impf (Cyrillic spelling тре̏бати)

1. (intransitive) to be needed, to be required (+ dative: by (someone))

   Treba mi novi auto. ― I need a new car.

2. (transitive) to need, require

   Mislila sam da trebaš pomoć. ― I thought you might need help.

3. (impersonal) to be necessary, should

   Trebao bih o tome razgovarati s ocem ― I should discuss it with my father.

   Jesi li siguran da bismo trebali raditi ovo? ― Are you sure we should be doing this?

   Nismo to trebali učiniti. ― We shouldn't have done it.

4. (impersonal) to be supposed to, to have to

   Samo mi trebaš v(j)erovati. ― You just have to trust me on it.

   Tko ga je trebao zaustaviti? ― Who was supposed to stop him?

Conjugation

Conjugation of trebati

infinitive		trebati
present verbal adverb		trȅbajūći
past verbal adverb		—
verbal noun		trȅbānje
		singular			plural
		1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
present		trebam	trebaš	treba	trebamo	trebate	trebaju
future	future I	trebat ću1 trebaću	trebat ćeš1 trebaćeš	trebat će1 trebaće	trebat ćemo1 trebaćemo	trebat ćete1 trebaćete	trebat ćе̄1 trebaće
	future II	bȕdēm trebao2	bȕdēš trebao2	bȕdē trebao2	bȕdēmo trebali2	bȕdēte trebali2	bȕdū trebali2
past	perfect	trebao sam2	trebao si2	trebao je2	trebali smo2	trebali ste2	trebali su2
	pluperfect3	bȉo sam trebao2	bȉo si trebao2	bȉo je trebao2	bíli smo trebali2	bíli ste trebali2	bíli su trebali2
	imperfect	trebah	trebaše	trebaše	trebasmo	trebaste	trebahu
conditional	conditional I	trebao bih2	trebao bi2	trebao bi2	trebali bismo2	trebali biste2	trebali bi2
	conditional II4	bȉo bih trebao2	bȉo bi trebao2	bȉo bi trebao2	bíli bismo trebali2	bíli biste trebali2	bíli bi trebali2
imperative		—	trebaj	—	trebajmo	trebajte	—
active past participle		trebao m / trebala f / trebalo n			trebali m / trebale f / trebala n

¹   Croatian spelling: others omit the infinitive suffix completely and bind the clitic.
²   For masculine nouns; a feminine or neuter agent would use the feminine and neuter gender forms of the active past participle and auxiliary verb, respectively.
³   Often replaced by the past perfect in colloquial speech, i.e. the auxiliary verb biti (“to be”) is routinely dropped.
⁴   Often replaced by the conditional I in colloquial speech, i.e. the auxiliary verb biti (“to be”) is routinely dropped.
  *Note: The aorist and imperfect were not present in, or have nowadays fallen into disuse in, many dialects and therefore they are routinely replaced by the past perfect in both formal and colloquial speech.

Derived terms

• potreba
• upotreba
• ùstrebati
• zàtrebati

References

• “trebati”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025