Questions & Answers about Ne vidim ništa kroz prozor.
Croatian uses negative concord: when the verb is negated with ne, any indefinite like “nothing/nobody/nowhere” also appears in its negative form. So ne + ništa is required and standard.
- Correct: Ne vidim ništa.
- Incorrect in standard Croatian: “Ne vidim išta.” Use išta (“anything”) mainly in questions/conditionals: Vidiš li išta?, Ako išta vidiš…
Yes. All are grammatical, with different focus:
- Ne vidim ništa kroz prozor. Neutral.
- Ništa ne vidim kroz prozor. Emphasizes “nothing.”
- Kroz prozor ne vidim ništa. Emphasizes the “through the window” part (i.e., via that route I see nothing).
- Ništa kroz prozor ne vidim. Strong focus on “nothing through the window.”
It’s accusative singular because kroz (“through”) governs the accusative. For masculine inanimate nouns like prozor, nominative and accusative singular look the same:
- Nominative: prozor
- Accusative: prozor But in the plural the accusative changes: kroz prozore (“through the windows”).
Here ništa is the direct object in the accusative (its base form). It does decline in other cases:
- Genitive: ničega (e.g., bez ničega = without anything)
- Dative/Locative: ničemu (e.g., o ničemu = about nothing)
- Instrumental: ničim (often with “ni s čim” = with nothing)
- kroz prozor = “through the window” (line of sight or passage through the opening/glass).
- s/sa prozora = “from the window (as a vantage point).” Example: S prozora ne vidim ništa = From the window, I can’t see anything.
- iz prozora is unusual for vision; iz means “out of/from inside.” You might say gledam iz prozora to mean “I’m looking out from inside the window,” but for what you can see, kroz or s/sa prozora are used.
Yes. kroz invariably governs the accusative:
- kroz park
- kroz tunel
- kroz prozor
Croatian has no articles. prozor can mean either “a window” or “the window.” Context decides:
- If you already know which window, English will use “the,” but Croatian keeps prozor.
- vidjeti = to see (perception, often unintentional): Ne vidim ništa.
- gledati = to look/watch (intentional action): Gledam kroz prozor = I’m looking through the window. You can combine them: Ne mogu vidjeti ništa iako gledam kroz prozor.
Yes, nuance:
- Ne vidim ništa = Right now, I don’t see anything (a factual state).
- Ne mogu vidjeti ništa = I can’t see anything (emphasizes inability/impediment: it’s too dark, the window is dirty, etc.).
Present tense:
- ja vidim
- ti vidiš
- on/ona/ono vidi
- mi vidimo
- vi vidite
- oni/one/ona vide
Past: vidio/vidjela sam. Future: vidjet ću. For habitual “see,” Croatian often uses the imperfective viđati: Često ga viđam.
Use išta in questions:
- Vidiš li išta kroz prozor?
- Neutral word order alternative: Da li vidiš išta kroz prozor?
- ništa has š (sh sound): NEE-shta.
- r in prozor is tapped/trilled.
- In fast speech, final consonants may devoice before voiceless ones across word boundaries; you might hear kroz prozor with the z sounding more like s before p (i.e., “kros prozor”). Careful speech keeps the z.
- Stress is typically on the first syllable of each word: NE vi-dim NI-šta KROZ PRO-zor.