Breakdown of Vjeruje se da su guske opasne životinje.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
vjerovati
to believe
opasan
dangerous
životinja
animal
da
that (conjunction)
se
impersonal/passive particle (as in "it is believed that")
guska
goose
Questions & Answers about Vjeruje se da su guske opasne životinje.
Why is se used in Vjeruje se, and who is doing the believing?
This is an impersonal construction, similar to the English passive "It is believed" or "People believe." The pronoun se makes the verb vjerovati (to believe) impersonal, meaning there is no specific subject explicitly performing the action.
Why does the verb su come immediately after da instead of after the subject guske?
In Croatian, enclitics (unstressed words like the verb su) must take the second position in their clause. In the dependent clause da su guske opasne životinje, the conjunction da counts as the first position, so the enclitic su must immediately follow it. Saying da guske su sounds very unnatural to a native speaker.
What case are guske and opasne životinje in, and why?
They are both in the nominative plural. The noun guske is the subject of the dependent clause, and opasne životinje is the predicate noun describing it. Because they are linked by a form of the verb biti (to be), both the subject and the description must remain in the nominative case.
If I wanted to say "People believe that geese are dangerous," would I still use Vjeruje se?
Yes, absolutely. While Vjeruje se literally means "It is believed," it is the most common way to express general statements like "People believe" or "They believe" in Croatian. Using the literal word for people (Ljudi vjeruju) is grammatically correct but often sounds less natural for broad generalizations.
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