Breakdown of Nikada ga nisam sreo.
nisam
am not (nisi, nije, nismo, niste, nisu)
nikada
never
ga
him, it (accusative clitic)
sresti
to meet (encounter)
Questions & Answers about Nikada ga nisam sreo.
Why is the word ga placed right after nikada?
ga is a clitic, which is a short, unstressed pronoun. In Croatian, clitics almost always want to be in the second position of a sentence or clause. Here, it naturally drops in right after the first word, nikada.
Is ga the only word for "him"?
No, but it is the most common one. ga is the short, everyday accusative form of on (he). You use the accusative case here because "him" is the direct object of the verb. There is also a longer form, njega, but you generally only use that when you want to strongly emphasize "HIM".
This translates literally to "Never him I am not met." Why is there a double negative?
Croatian requires double negation. Whenever you use a negative word like nikada (never) or nitko (nobody), the verb must also be in its negative form. That is why we must use nisam instead of the positive sam.
Does the word sreo change if a woman says this sentence?
Yes. sreo is the masculine past tense form of the verb meaning "to meet". If a woman were saying "I never met him", she would change the verb to the feminine form and say Nikada ga nisam srela.
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