Breakdown of Sporazum između NATO-a i SAD-a je važan.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
i
and (additive)
važan
important
između
between
Questions & Answers about Sporazum između NATO-a i SAD-a je važan.
Why do NATO and SAD have -a attached to them with a hyphen?
The preposition između (between) requires the genitive case. In Croatian, capitalized acronyms are usually treated as regular masculine nouns. You attach the standard case endings using a hyphen, so the masculine genitive ending -a gives us NATO-a and SAD-a.
NATO ends in a vowel. Why doesn't the case ending replace the O?
Acronyms are treated as fixed, indivisible units. Even though NATO ends in a vowel, it still declines like a regular masculine noun. Instead of dropping the final letter as you might with a normal noun, you keep the acronym completely intact and simply attach the hyphenated ending to the end: NATO-a.
If SAD stands for Sjedinjene Američke Države (which is plural), why is it treated as a singular noun here?
When an acronym is formed, it takes on its own grammatical gender and number based on how it is spelled, regardless of what the underlying words mean. Since SAD ends in a consonant, it behaves exactly like a singular masculine noun. If you were to write out the full phrase Sjedinjene Američke Države, you would have to treat it as feminine plural.
Why is the adjective važan instead of važni?