This proverb is a small case-system showroom: in nine words it puts a relative pronoun, a dative, an accusative direct object, an intensifier, and a preposition-plus-accusative-pronoun all on display, each doing exactly one job. It is an outstanding B2 specimen precisely because nothing is wasted — every word's ending tells you its grammatical role, and once you can read those endings the moral logic of the sentence ("the harm you aim at others rebounds onto you") falls straight out of the syntax.
The proverb
Tko drugome jamu kopa, sam u nju pada.
He who digs a pit for another falls into it himself; (he who digs a pit for others falls into it himself).
Word by word
| Word | Meaning | Note |
|---|---|---|
| tko | who / he who | relative pronoun heading the subject clause; "whoever" |
| drugome | for another / to another | dative sg. m. of drugi; the beneficiary (here, victim) of the digging |
| jamu | a pit / a hole | accusative sg. of jama (f.); direct object of kopa |
| kopa | digs | 3rd-sg present of kopati; gnomic present |
| sam | himself / on his own | intensifier agreeing with the subject — "he himself" |
| u | into | preposition; with the accusative it means motion "into" |
| nju | (into) it/her | accusative of ona, referring back to feminine jama |
| pada | falls | 3rd-sg present of padati; gnomic present |
The literal order is "Who for-another a-pit digs, himself into it falls." Read off the endings and the whole structure is transparent: drugome is dative (the person you dig for), jamu is accusative (the thing you dig), nju is accusative after the directional u (the thing you fall into). The two verbs, kopa and pada, are both bare 3rd-singular presents. The sentence is a relative clause (tko… kopa) serving as the subject of the main clause (sam… pada).
What it means and when to say it
The meaning is the classic warning that malice backfires: if you set a trap for someone else, you are the one who ends up caught in it. The pit you dig for another becomes your own grave. It is the direct counterpart of English "he who digs a pit for others falls into it himself" (a biblical proverb, Proverbs 26:27) and the everyday "what goes around comes around" / "the biter bit."
The register is neutral and moralising — it suits a warning, a comeuppance, an "I told you so." Use it when someone's scheme against another rebounds onto them, or to caution against plotting in the first place.
Širio je laži o kolegici da dobije njezino mjesto, a otpustili su njega — tko drugome jamu kopa, sam u nju pada.
He spread lies about his colleague to get her job, and they fired him — he who digs a pit for another falls into it himself.
Namjestio je susjedu kaznu, pa je sam dobio veću: tko drugome jamu kopa, sam u nju pada.
He set his neighbour up for a fine and got a bigger one himself: what goes around comes around.
Pazi što smišljaš protiv njih — tko drugome jamu kopa, sam u nju pada.
Watch what you're plotting against them — he who digs a pit for another falls into it himself.
Grammar focus 1: the relative tko and the gnomic present
The opening tko is the relative-headless pronoun "who / he who / whoever." It introduces a clause that is itself the subject of the main clause — "[the one] who digs a pit… falls into it." In modern Croatian tko (not Serbian ko) is the standard form, and it is animate and singular by default: "whoever, the person who." There is no separate "he" word in the main clause; tko covers both "the who-clause" and its referent, and the verb agrees with it in the 3rd singular.
Both verbs — kopa ("digs") and pada ("falls") — sit in the gnomic present, the present of timeless general truth. The proverb does not report one person digging on one day; it states a law that holds for anyone, always. This is why a generic tko pairs so naturally with the gnomic present: a universal subject and a universal tense.
Tko rano rani, dvije sreće grabi.
The early bird catches two strokes of luck. (tko + gnomic present, same shape)
Tko pita, ne skita.
He who asks doesn't go astray. (tko = whoever, generic subject)
Grammar focus 2: the dative drugome ("for another")
Drugome is the dative singular of drugi ("other, another"), and it marks the person the action is aimed at — here, the intended victim. The dative is Croatian's case for the indirect object / recipient / beneficiary: the "to" or "for" person. You dig a pit for someone, and that "for someone" is exactly what the dative encodes, with no preposition needed. English uses a preposition ("for another"); Croatian uses the bare dative ending -ome.
Note the irony built into the case: the dative usually marks the person who benefits ("I bought a gift for him"). Here the "beneficiary" is the one meant to be harmed — and the proverb's whole point is that the harm boomerangs. The dative drugome names the target; the main clause shows the target was, in effect, yourself.
Kupila je sinu novi bicikl.
She bought her son a new bike. (sinu = dative, the beneficiary)
Nemoj drugome raditi ono što ne želiš da tebi rade.
Don't do to another what you don't want done to you. (drugome = dative)
Grammar focus 3: the intensifier sam ("himself")
The little word sam here does not mean "alone" in the lonely sense; it is the intensive/emphatic "(he) himself, on his own" — the same idea as Latin ipse or the -self in "he himself." It underlines that the very person who dug the pit is the one who falls in: not someone else, he himself. It agrees with the subject in gender and number (sam for a masculine subject; sama for a feminine one, Tko drugome jamu kopa, sama u nju pada if the subject were specifically female — though the generic tko defaults to masculine sam).
This intensifier is what gives the proverb its sting. Strip it out and you still have "falls into it," but sam drives home the poetic justice: the digger, himself, ends up in his own trap.
Sam sam to napravio, nitko mi nije pomogao.
I did it myself, nobody helped me. (sam = (my)self, emphatic)
Najbolje da to sam provjeriš.
Best you check it yourself. (sam = yourself, intensifier)
Grammar focus 4: u + accusative nju (motion "into it")
The phrase u nju is the grammatical hinge of the comeuppance. The preposition u means "in/into," and — this is the key — it takes the accusative when there is motion toward something, and the locative when the location is static. Falling into a pit is motion, so u takes the accusative: u nju = "into it." The pronoun nju is the accusative of ona ("she/it"), feminine because it refers back to jama ("pit"), which is a feminine noun. So nju is not "her" (a woman) but "it" (the pit).
This two-case behaviour of u (and of na, o, među, etc.) is one of the most important things at B2: the same preposition, two cases, two meanings. Pada u jamu (accusative) = "falls into the pit"; leži u jami (locative) = "lies in the pit." The proverb's u nju pada is unambiguously the directional, accusative one.
Ključ mi je upao u rijeku, nisam ga stigao uhvatiti.
My key fell into the river, I couldn't catch it in time. (u + accusative = into, motion)
Stavi knjige u torbu prije nego krenemo.
Put the books into the bag before we leave. (u torbu = accusative, motion into)
How this differs from English
Three contrasts stand out. First, case replaces prepositions and word order: where English says "a pit for another" and relies on position to mark the object, Croatian inflects — dative drugome, accusative jamu — so the words can move freely (Tko drugome jamu kopa) without ambiguity. Second, the directional accusative has no English echo: English "into" is a single word, but Croatian signals "into" partly through the case (u nju, accusative) versus "in" (u njoj, locative). Third, the pronoun has grammatical gender — nju is feminine not because the pit is female but because the noun jama is feminine; English "it" carries no such agreement. And, as always, Croatian has no articles — jamu stands bare for "a pit."
Common Mistakes
❌ Tko drugoga jamu kopa, sam u nju pada.
Wrong case — the victim is the dative beneficiary drugome ('for another'), not the accusative/genitive drugoga.
✅ Tko drugome jamu kopa, sam u nju pada.
He who digs a pit for another falls into it himself.
❌ Tko drugome jamu kopa, sam u njoj pada.
Wrong case — falling is motion into, so u takes the accusative nju, not the locative njoj ('in it', static).
✅ Tko drugome jamu kopa, sam u nju pada.
What goes around comes around.
❌ Ko drugome jamu kopa, sam u nju pada.
Wrong form for Croatian — standard Croatian is tko, not the Serbian/colloquial ko.
✅ Tko drugome jamu kopa, sam u nju pada.
He who digs a pit for another falls into it himself.
❌ Tko drugome jamu kopa, sam u nju padne.
Wrong aspect/tense — a timeless maxim takes the imperfective gnomic present pada, not the perfective padne ('will fall, on one occasion').
✅ Tko drugome jamu kopa, sam u nju pada.
He who digs a pit for another falls into it himself.
Key Takeaways
- tko = "who / he who / whoever" (standard Croatian, not Serbian ko); headless, it heads a subject clause and takes a 3rd-sg verb.
- drugome is the dative "for/to another" — the bare case marks the beneficiary (here, the victim), no preposition needed.
- jamu is the accusative direct object of kopa; nju is the accusative of ona, feminine because jama is feminine.
- u + accusative = motion "into" (u nju = "into it"); u + locative = static "in" (u njoj). Same preposition, two cases.
- sam is the emphatic "(he) himself," agreeing with the subject — it delivers the poetic justice.
- kopa and pada are the gnomic present — a timeless truth, not one event; don't switch to the perfective padne.
- Meaning: malice rebounds on its author — "what goes around comes around."
Now practice Croatian
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Croatian→Related Topics
- Interrogative Pronouns: tko, što, kojiA1 — Question pronouns 'who', 'what', 'which' and their cases.
- Dative: The Indirect ObjectA2 — The recipient/beneficiary role — 'to/for someone'.
- Accusative: FormsA1 — Accusative endings, with animacy and the acc=nom/gen rules.
- Accusative for Motion and DirectionA2 — Prepositions of destination that take the accusative.
- Relative Clauses in DepthB1 — How koji, što and čiji build relative clauses — agreement, case from the clause, pied-piped prepositions, and the restrictive/non-restrictive comma.
- Proverb: Svaka ptica svome jatu letiB1 — A grammatical close reading of Svaka ptica svome jatu leti (birds of a feather flock together) — the distributive svaka with a singular noun and verb, the dative of goal svome jatu, the reflexive-possessive svoj, and the gnomic present leti.