Learn Croatian: Ostat će nervozna dok ne sazna istinu. - She will stay nervous until she finds out the truth.

Ostat će nervozna dok ne sazna istinu.

She will stay nervous until she finds out the truth.

Breakdown of Ostat će nervozna dok ne sazna istinu.

no, not

htjeti

to want (intent, will)

Questions & Answers about Ostat će nervozna dok ne sazna istinu.

Why is 'ostati' written as 'ostat' here?

When forming the future tense and the infinitive verb comes right before the helper verb (će), the final -i of the infinitive (ostati) is dropped. This makes it flow better and is pronounced together as ostat će.

There is no word for 'she' in the sentence. How do we know it is a woman?

The adjective nervozna (nervous) ends in -a, which is the feminine form. If the subject were male, it would be the masculine form nervozan. Croatian often drops pronouns like ona (she) because the endings of other words already show the gender of the subject.

Why is there a ne before sazna? Doesn't that make it negative?

This is a very common trap! In Croatian, the concept of 'until' is expressed with dok ne when you are waiting for a specific event to happen. It literally looks like 'until she doesn't find out,' but it just means 'until she finds out.' The ne here does not actually make the action negative.

Why is sazna (present tense) used if she will find out the truth in the future?

Saznati (to find out) is a perfective verb, meaning it describes a completed action. Even though it is conjugated in the present tense here, perfective verbs are naturally used after dok ne to talk about a specific action that will be completed in the future.