Word
Policija je pronašla drogu.
Meaning
The police found the drugs.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Policija je pronašla drogu.
biti
to be
policija
police
pronaći
to find
droga
an illegal drug; narcotics
Questions & Answers about Policija je pronašla drogu.
Why is policija treated as singular when English often says the police?
In Croatian, policija is a singular noun. Grammatically, it works like the police force or the police service in English, not like the plural noun police.
So Croatian says:
- Policija je pronašla... = literally The police force found...
Because policija is singular, the verb is also singular.
Why does the verb use pronašla and not pronašao or pronašli?
Because policija is a feminine singular noun.
In the Croatian past tense, the main verb appears as a past participle that agrees with the subject in gender and number:
- pronašao = masculine singular
- pronašla = feminine singular
- pronašlo = neuter singular
- pronašli = masculine personal plural / mixed plural
- pronašle = feminine plural
Since policija is feminine singular, the correct form is pronašla.
Why is the past tense made with two words: je pronašla?