Breakdown of Mediji su pisali da ga ona vara.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
on
he
ona
she
pisati
to write / to say, be stated (in a text)
Questions & Answers about Mediji su pisali da ga ona vara.
Why is vara in the present tense when the English translation says "was cheating"?
In English, when we report something said or written in the past, we usually shift the tense backwards ("wrote that she was cheating"). In Croatian, you keep the exact tense the original text used. The media originally wrote "She is cheating on him" (Ona ga vara), so the reported part stays in the present tense: da ga ona vara.
Why does ga come before ona?
ga (him) is an enclitic, which is a short, unstressed word that strictly needs the second position in its clause. In the dependent clause da ga ona vara, the conjunction da takes the first position. Therefore, ga must immediately follow it, pushing the subject ona (she) further down the sentence.
Is mediji treated as a plural word in Croatian?
Yes, mediji is a masculine plural noun (the singular is medij). You can tell it is plural in this sentence because the past tense verb uses the plural helper su and ends in the masculine plural suffix -li: su pisali.
What case is ga and why is it used here?