Breakdown of Zasadili smo sjeme usprkos tome što nemamo gnojivo.
nemati
to not have
sjeme
seed
usprkos tome što
in spite of the fact that
zasaditi
to plant
gnojivo
fertilizer
Questions & Answers about Zasadili smo sjeme usprkos tome što nemamo gnojivo.
Why do we need the words tome što after usprkos?
The preposition usprkos means despite and must be followed by a noun or pronoun in the dative case. Because we want to attach a full verb clause (nemamo gnojivo) rather than a single noun, we use the dummy pronoun to in the dative (tome) combined with the conjunction što to bridge the preposition and the clause.
Could I use unatoč instead of usprkos in this sentence?
Yes, you could say unatoč tome što nemamo gnojivo. The prepositions usprkos and unatoč are completely interchangeable, carry the exact same meaning, and both require the dative case.
Why is the second half in the present tense (nemamo) when the planting happened in the past (zasadili smo)?
Clauses introduced by usprkos tome što use regular indicative tenses that reflect reality. The present tense nemamo is used because the lack of fertilizer was a fact at the time of planting and remains a fact right now.
We translated sjeme as the seed. Does it refer to one single seed here?
Not usually. The neuter noun sjeme often acts as a mass noun representing seeds or grain in general, just like the mass noun seed in English. If you wanted to emphasize planting individual, countable seeds, you would typically use the feminine noun sjemenka in its plural form, sjemenke.
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