Breakdown of Lozinka je ukradena od strane anonimnog hakera.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
od
from
ukrasti
to steal
strana
side
Questions & Answers about Lozinka je ukradena od strane anonimnog hakera.
Why do we use od strane here instead of just od to mean 'by'?
Both od and od strane followed by the Genitive case express the agent (the doer) in a passive sentence. While od strane literally means 'from the side of' and is very common in journalism or formal texts, you could also just use od. Some grammarians actually prefer using just od if a passive construction must be used.
Is it natural to use this passive structure in everyday conversation?
It is grammatically correct but sounds quite formal or bureaucratic, much like a police or news report. In everyday speech, Croatians strongly prefer the active voice. A native speaker would more likely say Anonimni haker je ukrao lozinku (An anonymous hacker stole the password).
What case is used for anonimnog hakera and why?
It is in the Genitive case. The preposition od (and therefore the compound preposition od strane) always requires the Genitive case for the noun phrase that follows it. This is why the masculine adjective ends in -og and the masculine noun ends in -a.
Why does the verb form ukradena end in -a?
In the passive voice, the passive participle (ukradena) acts like an adjective and must agree in gender and number with the subject of the sentence. Because the subject lozinka (password) is a feminine singular noun, the participle takes the feminine singular ending -a.