Breakdown of Naša tajna je sigurna, nitko je ne može otkriti.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
ona
she
siguran
sure
ne
no, not
Questions & Answers about Naša tajna je sigurna, nitko je ne može otkriti.
Why are there two negative words, nitko and ne, when the English sentence only says 'nobody'?
Croatian uses mandatory double negation. Whenever you use a negative pronoun like nitko (nobody) or ništa (nothing), the verb must also be negative. You are literally saying 'nobody not can discover'.
Is the word je in the second half of the sentence the verb 'is' again?
No, in this case, je means 'it'. It is the short object form of the pronoun ona (she). Because tajna (secret) is a feminine noun, Croatian uses the feminine pronoun to refer back to it.
Why does the pronoun je come before ne može instead of after?
The word je is a clitic, meaning it is a short word that must go in a specific structural place. In this clause, it takes the second position, right after nitko. It cannot go after the verb here.
Why is the word Naša used instead of Naš?
Because tajna (secret) is a feminine noun. The possessive pronoun for 'our' must match the gender of the noun it describes, so it takes the feminine form Naša.