Breakdown of Ovo polje nije zaštićeno ni od suše ni od mraza.
ovaj
this (m) / ova (f), ovo (n)
nisam
am not (nisi, nije, nismo, niste, nisu)
od
from
polje
field
ni
neither, nor
zaštićen
protected
suša
drought
mraz
frost
Questions & Answers about Ovo polje nije zaštićeno ni od suše ni od mraza.
Why does the Croatian sentence use nije (is not) when the English translation says "is protected"?
This is because Croatian strictly enforces double negation. Whenever you use a negative construction like ni... ni... (neither... nor), the main verb of the sentence must also be negative. A literal translation would be: "This field is not protected from neither drought nor frost."
Why do we repeat the preposition od to say ni od suše ni od mraza?
In Croatian, when you use ni... ni... alongside a preposition, you must repeat that preposition before each noun in the list. You cannot group them after a single preposition like we often do in English ("from neither drought nor frost").
Why does the word for protected, zaštićeno, end in -o here?
It ends in -o to agree with the subject of the sentence. The noun polje (field) is neuter, so the adjective describing it must also take the neuter singular ending.
Which grammatical case is used for suše and mraza?
They are both in the genitive case, which is required after the preposition od (from). Their base dictionary forms are suša (drought, a feminine noun) and mraz (frost, a masculine noun).
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