Word
Novinari su pisali da je razvod samo trač.
Meaning
The journalists wrote that the divorce was just gossip.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Novinari su pisali da je razvod samo trač.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
samo
only
pisati
to write / to say, be stated (in a text)
da
that (conjunction)
Questions & Answers about Novinari su pisali da je razvod samo trač.
Why does the Croatian sentence use je (is) when the English translation says "was"?
This is a major difference between English and Croatian! In English, when the main verb is in the past tense ("wrote"), we shift the reported verb to the past ("was"). Croatian does not backshift tenses. You report exactly what was originally said or thought. The journalists originally wrote "Razvod je samo trač" (The divorce is just gossip), so Croatian keeps the present tense je.
Why use the imperfective verb pisali instead of the perfective napisali?
Using the imperfective pisali implies that this was an ongoing topic. The journalists were writing about it over a period of time, perhaps across multiple articles. If they had published one single, final statement, napisali would fit better.
Can I drop da like we sometimes drop "that" in English?
No. In English, you can say "The journalists wrote the divorce was just gossip," dropping the word "that." In Croatian, you must always include da to introduce a reported statement.
What case is trač in, and why?
Both razvod (divorce) and trač (gossip) are in the nominative case. When you connect two nouns with the verb "to be" (here, je), the second noun just describes or renames the first one, so it stays in the nominative.