Stories, audio, and videos can all help you learn Croatian when you can follow what they mean. That is the idea behind comprehensible input: learning from Croatian you can mostly understand. Croatian made for learners can take some looking for. One learner on r/croatian, who learned Spanish this way, found very little for beginners, and even cartoons were too hard at first.
These apps and sites help you find Croatian at your level, or make the Croatian you choose easier to follow. For courses, speaking practice, and tutors, see our Croatian app comparison.
Custom Lessons Made for You
Bubblegum
Learn Croatian with a path made just for you. Start with your level, what you like, and why you want to learn. Your path grows as you learn, with new lessons that fit you. Bubblegum also has news and stories, so you can read and listen to a mix of Croatian about music, food, family, or travel.
Poppy, your AI tutor, writes each lesson for you. If a sentence is hard to follow, just ask her to explain the words or why an ending changed.
The trade-off is that Bubblegum can't help you read Croatian you found yourself. For a book, an article, or a video you already picked, the apps in Read and Watch Croatian You Choose are the better fit.
- Read and listen to lessons, news, and stories about things you like.
- Regenerative Review™ brings saved words back in new lessons, so you review them by reading instead of using flashcards.
- Ask Poppy for help as you read.
- AI voices read each lesson, not recordings of Croatian speakers.
- You cannot bring in your own books, shows, or articles.
- A new custom lesson costs us real money to make, so you can ask Poppy for a free one, and Bubblegum Pro gives you unlimited custom lessons. The lesson library is free for everyone, because we believe everyone should be able to learn.
- Regenerative Review™
Mobile
Read and Listen to Stories for Learners
LingQ
LingQ lets you read and listen to Croatian from its library or bring in your own. It highlights the words you have not met yet and the words you are still learning. A learner on r/croatian says the Mini Stories can take you to about A2 if you play each one many times.
- Start with Mini Stories, more than 60 short lessons for beginners.
- Listen to each lesson while you read along.
- Move on to more Croatian courses, such as audiobooks, children's stories, and news from 24sata.
- Flashcards
MobileWeb
Hear the News and Radio in Croatian
SBS Audio
SBS Audio is the audio app of SBS, Australia's public broadcaster. Its Croatian team makes Lagani hrvatski with the Croatian Studies Centre at Macquarie University, for people who are learning Croatian or brushing it up. Learners on r/croatian suggest it for listening practice, and SBS Croatian's news at full speed is the next step.
- Lagani hrvatski (Easy Croatian) tells the news in shorter, simpler sentences, read slowly.
- Read along with a transcript of each episode.
- Listen in the SBS Audio app, on the web, or as a podcast.
MobileWeb
HRT radio
HRT radio brings Croatian public radio to your phone. A commenter on r/croatian suggests the show Hrvatski naš svagdašnji, which answers listeners' questions about the Croatian language.
- Listen live to the national and regional stations of HRT, Croatia's public broadcaster.
- Hear Glas Hrvatske (Voice of Croatia), HRT's station for Croatians abroad.
- Catch up on shows on your own schedule.
- Its shows are made for people who already speak Croatian.
MobileWeb
Read and Watch Croatian You Choose
These tools help you learn from Croatian articles, books, and videos you pick yourself. They suit learners who already know what they want to read or watch.
Language Reactor
Language Reactor adds learning tools to Croatian videos on YouTube. It is free to install, with paid extras.
- Find Croatian YouTube videos on its site, and filter them by how hard their words are.
- See Croatian subtitles beside a translation, with a pop-up dictionary.
- Pause and replay one line when it goes too fast.
Browser extension
Readlang
Readlang helps you read Croatian on the web and in texts you upload. A learner on r/croatian who reads at A1 and A2 says it was the one good reading tool they found, though they had to upload their own texts.
- Tap a word or phrase on a Croatian web page to see what it means.
- Read short texts that other learners shared in its Croatian library, each marked with a level.
- Review words with flashcards.
- Flashcards
WebBrowser extension
More Croatian to Watch, Hear, and Read
For listening, Ćakula Café is a slow Croatian podcast at levels A2 to B1, made for adults who grew up hearing some Croatian at home. Its host, Tihana Klepač, is a Croatian teacher and an associate professor at the University of Zagreb, and a new episode comes out most weeks. Easy Languages filmed 22 street interviews in Croatian with subtitles between 2014 and 2018. They suit learners who are past the basics.
For watching, Juhuhu, HRT's site for children, has cartoons dubbed into Croatian, such as Pepa Praščić (Peppa Pig). Some of its videos play only in Croatia, but its YouTube channel posts short children's shows and songs. HRTi streams HRT's TV channels, though some shows are limited outside Croatia. Commenters on r/croatian also suggest the classic cartoon Profesor Baltazar.
For reading, Croatian Made Easy by Ana Bilić has short novels for learners at seven levels, from A1 to C2. Many come with an English word list, and some come as audiobooks or as e-books with audio. A learner on r/croatian calls the free Tako Lako textbook the closest thing to a comprehensible input course they have seen.
Learn Croatian in Your Language
These counts cover menu-language choices, including script variants. Other apps’ counts and full lists come from their iPhone listings, except Language Reactor (Chrome Web Store) and Readlang (its help forum). The podcasts, videos, and books above are in Croatian, some with English. Word meanings, lesson explanations, and other platforms may differ.
| App | Supported Display Languages | Full List |
|---|---|---|
| Bubblegum | 74 | Full list
|
| LingQ | 17 | Full list |
| SBS Audio | 1 | Full list |
| HRT radio | 1 | Full list |
| Language Reactor | 27 | Full list |
| Readlang | 1 | Full list |
Other Apps We Looked At (7)
- Lingo7Croatian books with an English translation beside every sentence, and narration that follows the text.
- ErlaShort Croatian stories, listening practice, and videos, plus chats with an AI tutor. It is new and growing.
- Fluent Fiction: CroatianShort audio stories set in places such as Dubrovnik and the Plitvice Lakes, with bilingual audio and a word list for each one.
- Language PlayerCroatian YouTube videos with dual subtitles you can tap, on the web, on phones, and in a Chrome extension.
- DWDW's Croatian service has news and videos about Croatia, Germany, and Europe, and its app offers Croatian menus.
- Let's Learn CroatianA long-running podcast, with a puppet show on YouTube, that teaches Croatian words and phrases by topic.
- AnkiA free flashcard app that Croatian learners on Reddit use to review words from what they read and hear.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I learn from Serbian or Bosnian shows and songs?
Yes. Standard Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, and Serbian are close enough for speakers to understand one another. One difference you will hear a lot is that Croatian says mlijeko (milk) and lijepo (pretty), while Serbian often says mleko and lepo. Serbian may also be written in Cyrillic letters. If you plan to take an official Croatian exam, a commenter on r/croatian suggests keeping to Croatian sources.
How much of a text should I understand?
Pick something where you already know almost every word. In one study, readers needed to know about 98 out of 100 words in a story to follow it well. If you stop on almost every line, try something easier.
Is Bubblegum free?
Yes. The lesson library is free for everyone, because we believe everyone should be able to learn. It holds lessons that other learners asked Poppy for. A new custom lesson costs us real money to make, so you can ask Poppy for a free one, and Bubblegum Pro gives you unlimited custom lessons.
Sources
- Hu and Nation (2000), Unknown vocabulary density and reading comprehension
- University of Cambridge Language Centre: Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin & Serbian
- r/croatian: Advice for Learning Croatian from Zero with Comprehensible Input?
- r/croatian: Will using Serbian/Bosnian etc. resources/native content mess up my Croatian?
- r/croatian: Tips for learning Croatian from scratch
- r/croatian: Croatian podcast recommendations?
- r/croatian: Easy books/TV shows/movies to learn Croatian?
- SBS Learn: Introducing SBS Podcasts: Slow Japanese and Easy Croatian
- Ćakula Café: Slow Croatian Podcast
- Croatian Made Easy: mini novels by level
- Bubblegum
- LingQ
- SBS Audio
- HRT radio
- Language Reactor
- Readlang
Checked on October 8, 2026 against each app's own pages.
