Breakdown of Seoski zrak je čist, a smeta nam gradsko onečišćenje.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
a
and / but
čist
clean / pure
nam
to us
Questions & Answers about Seoski zrak je čist, a smeta nam gradsko onečišćenje.
Why is the clitic nam placed after smeta instead of directly after a?
Coordinating conjunctions like a, ali, nego, and ili are "invisible" to clitics. They do not count as the first position in a clause. The first "real" word of the second clause is the verb smeta, so it takes the first position, and the clitic nam goes right after it.
The translation uses "and", so why does the Croatian sentence use a instead of i?
In Croatian, a is used to show contrast, translating as either "and" or "but" depending on what sounds best in English. Here, it highlights the contrast between the clean rural air and the bothersome city pollution. If the two clauses were just a list of similar things without contrast, you would use i.
Why do we use nam here instead of nas?
The verb smetati (to bother) always takes the dative case for the person or thing being bothered. nam is the dative clitic form of "us", so the sentence literally says the city pollution is a bother to us.
In the first clause, why is the clitic je placed after the second word (zrak) rather than the first word (Seoski)?
Seoski zrak (rural air) acts as a single, inseparable noun phrase. Clitics usually go into the second position of a clause, which can mean either after the first single word or after the first complete phrase. Keeping the adjective and noun together here sounds much more natural.