Word
Svi podaci ukradeni su od anonimnog hakera dok se nismo probudili.
Meaning
All data was stolen by an anonymous hacker until we woke up.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Svi podaci ukradeni su od anonimnog hakera dok se nismo probudili.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
ne
no, not
od
from
probuditi se
to wake up
Questions & Answers about Svi podaci ukradeni su od anonimnog hakera dok se nismo probudili.
Why is od used here instead of just the Instrumental case to express 'by an anonymous hacker'?
In Croatian passive constructions, when the agent (the doer of the action) is a person or living being, you must use od or od strane followed by the Genitive case. Here, od anonimnog hakera indicates who stole the data. If the cause was an inanimate object or a tool, you would use the Instrumental case without a preposition.
Could I say od strane anonimnog hakera in this sentence?
Yes, absolutely. Both od and od strane followed by the Genitive case are used to express the agent in the passive voice. Using od strane (literally 'from the side of') sounds slightly more formal, which is very common in news reports or technical contexts like discussing stolen data.
Why is the plural form ukradeni su used when the English translation says 'data was'?
The Croatian word for data, podaci, is a masculine plural noun (the singular is podatak). Because the subject is plural, the passive participle ukradeni and the auxiliary verb su must also be in the masculine plural form to agree with it.
Why does dok se nismo probudili use the negative word nismo when the English translation 'until we woke up' is positive?
To express 'until' an action happens, Croatian uses the structure dok followed by a negative verb. Literally, it means 'while we did not wake up'. If you used the affirmative form without the negative particle, it would translate to 'while we were waking up' instead of establishing the endpoint of the action.