Breakdown of Iskreno, nije mu do ogovaranja i površnosti.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
on
he
i
and (additive)
do
to, until, up to / in the mood for (as in "I'm not in the mood for")
Questions & Answers about Iskreno, nije mu do ogovaranja i površnosti.
How exactly does the phrase nije mu do translate to 'he is not in the mood for'?
This is a common Croatian idiom for expressing mood or desire, which is the focus of your current lesson. It uses the dative case for the person experiencing the mood (mu, meaning 'to him'), followed by the preposition do and the genitive case for the thing they do or don't want. Literally, it translates to 'it is not to him up to', but it is naturally understood as 'he doesn't feel like' or 'he is not in the mood for'.
Both ogovaranja and površnosti are in the genitive case here. Why do they have different endings?
They belong to different noun declension groups. Ogovaranje (gossiping) is a neuter noun, so its genitive singular ends in -a, becoming ogovaranja. Površnost (superficiality) is a feminine noun that ends in a consonant, rather than the typical '-a' ending. For these feminine nouns (often called i-declension nouns), the genitive singular always ends in -i, making it površnosti.
If I wanted to say 'I am not in the mood' instead of 'he is not', what part of the sentence changes?
You only need to change the dative pronoun. Instead of mu (to him), you would use mi (to me). The phrase becomes nije mi do ogovaranja i površnosti (I am not in the mood for gossiping and superficiality).
Why does the dative pronoun mu come directly after the verb nije?