Domestic vocabulary begins with the dwelling itself. A kuća is a house, and a stan is a flat or apartment; you might hear živim u malom stanu (I live in a small flat). Inside, the rooms are kuhinja (kitchen), spavaća soba (bedroom), and kupaonica (bathroom), as in gdje je kupaonica? (Where is the bathroom?) or kuhinja je nova (The kitchen is new). Renting a place is iznajmiti, so iznajmili smo stan means "We rented a flat," and a neighbour is susjed (masculine) or susjeda (feminine), as in susjedi su tihi (The neighbours are quiet).
The family is described with a small set of nouns. Husband and wife are suprug or muž and supruga or žena, as in moj suprug radi od kuće (My husband works from home) and njegova supruga je liječnica (His wife is a doctor). The basic word for child is dijete, and its irregular plural is djeca — djeca se igraju vani means "The children are playing outside." The collective noun is obitelj, used in moja obitelj živi u Splitu (My family lives in Split).
Daily routines lean heavily on reflexive verbs. Ustati is "to get up" (ustajem u šest sati — I get up at six o'clock), and ići spavati or leći is "to go to bed" (idem spavati u jedanaest). Washing is oprati se or tuširati se (tuširam se ujutro — I shower in the morning), getting dressed is obući se (brzo sam se obukao — I got dressed quickly), and resting is odmoriti se (moram se odmoriti — I need to rest). To talk about learning, use učiti, as in učim hrvatski dvije godine (I have been learning Croatian for two years). Memory uses zapamtiti or sjećati se (to remember) versus zaboraviti (to forget), as in ne sjećam se njegovog imena (I do not remember his name) and zaboravio sam ključeve (I forgot the keys). Comprehension is razumjeti, used in ne razumijem, možete li ponoviti? (I do not understand, can you repeat?). Two phrases help you manage the conversation itself: možete li govoriti sporije? (Can you speak more slowly?) and kako se kaže... na hrvatskom? (How do you say... in Croatian?).