Breakdown of Budala je onaj tko vjeruje u takve laži.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
u
in, into
vjerovati
to believe
laž
lie
takav
such, that kind of
onaj tko
he who
budala
fool
Questions & Answers about Budala je onaj tko vjeruje u takve laži.
How does onaj tko function here, and could I just say tko?
Onaj tko translates to 'he who' or 'the one who'. In Croatian, it is much more natural to use the demonstrative pronoun onaj as an anchor in the main clause before starting the relative clause with tko. While you might occasionally hear just tko in casual speech, the onaj tko structure is the standard and expected way to express 'whoever' or 'the person who' in these types of sentences.
Budala is grammatically feminine. Why does the sentence use the masculine onaj instead of ona?
Although budala declines as a feminine noun because it ends in '-a', it is a noun used for a person of any gender. Because this sentence makes a general statement about 'anyone' who believes such lies, Croatian defaults to the masculine onaj tko to mean 'a person who'. You would only use ona koja if you were explicitly referring to a specific female.
Why is laži in the accusative case after u? Doesn't u usually take the locative?
The preposition u takes the locative case when describing a static location. However, when paired with the verb vjerovati to mean 'to believe in', it always requires the accusative case. Here, takve laži is the accusative plural.
What is the difference in nuance between using takve laži instead of te laži?
Te laži simply means 'those lies', pointing to specific statements that were just discussed. By using the pronoun takav, takve laži translates to 'such lies' or 'lies of that kind'. It broadens the statement, implying that the person is a fool for believing that specific type of nonsense, not just those specific words.
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