Learn Hardcore Croatian: Teško je opisati susjedstvo nekome tko ga nikad nije vidio. - It is hard to describe the neighborhood to someone who has never seen it.

Teško je opisati susjedstvo nekome tko ga nikad nije vidio.

It is hard to describe the neighborhood to someone who has never seen it.

Breakdown of Teško je opisati susjedstvo nekome tko ga nikad nije vidio.

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Questions & Answers about Teško je opisati susjedstvo nekome tko ga nikad nije vidio.

Why is it “Teško je opisati …” and not “Je teško opisati …” or some other word order?

In this impersonal construction, Croatian normally puts the predicate adjective/adverb (teško) first, then the verb je, and then the infinitive:

Teško je opisati… = It is hard to describe…

You cannot start the sentence with je here:
✗ Je teško opisati… – ungrammatical.

You can move the infinitive to the front for emphasis:

Opisati susjedstvo nekome tko ga nikad nije vidio je teško.

This is grammatically correct but sounds more marked/emphatic. The neutral, most natural version is:

Teško je opisati susjedstvo…

Why is “opisati” used and not “opisivati”?

Both are infinitives, but they differ in verbal aspect:

opisati – perfective: “to describe (once, as a whole act)”
opisivati – imperfective: “to be describing, to describe repeatedly / in general”

In this sentence, the idea is about the whole act of giving a description (as a single task), so the perfective opisati is preferred:

Teško je opisati susjedstvo… – It’s hard to (manage to) describe the neighborhood.

If you used opisivati, it would stress the process or repeated action:

Teško je opisivati susjedstvo… – It’s hard to be describing / to keep describing the neighborhood.

That’s possible, but the nuance is slightly different and less typical for this context.

What is the case and gender of “susjedstvo”, and why does its form not change here?

Susjedstvo is:

gender: neuter
base form (nominative singular): susjedstvo
in the sentence, it is in the accusative singular (direct object of opisati)

For neuter nouns ending in -o, the nominative and accusative singular look the same:

Nominative: susjedstvo je mirno – The neighborhood is quiet.
Accusative: opisati susjedstvo – to describe the neighborhood.

That’s why the form doesn’t visibly change here.

What exactly is “nekome” and why that form?

Nekome is the dative singular of netko (“someone”), but in a more general sense it’s functioning like “to someone / to somebody”.

base: netko – someone
dative singular: nekome – to someone

You use the dative here because in Croatian the person you explain or describe something to is in dative:

opisati susjedstvo nekome – to describe the neighborhood to someone
objasniti nešto nekome – to explain something to someone

Other forms to compare:

nominative: netko – someone
dative: nekome – to someone
genitive: nekoga – of someone / someone (as direct object in some contexts)

Why is there no comma before “tko ga nikad nije vidio”?

In Croatian, a restrictive relative clause (one that defines/limits who we’re talking about) usually does not get a comma.

Here “tko ga nikad nije vidio” (“who has never seen it”) specifies which “someone” we mean: specifically, someone who has never seen the neighborhood. That’s restrictive, so:

nekome tko ga nikad nije vidio – no comma

If the relative clause were just additional, non-essential information, then a comma would be used, but that’s not the case here.

What is the role of “tko” here, and how is it different from “koji”?

Here tko means “who” and introduces a relative clause:

nekome tko ga nikad nije vidio – to someone who has never seen it.

Differences:

tko – “who” (for people), doesn’t change its form for gender/number in this relative use.
koji/koja/koje – “who/which/that,” behaves like an adjective and agrees in gender, number, and case with the noun it refers to.

You could roughly paraphrase:

netko tko ga nikad nije vidio ≈ “someone who has never seen it”
osoba koja ga nikad nije vidjela – “a person who has never seen it” (using koja agreeing with osoba, which is feminine singular).

In your sentence, tko is the natural choice because the antecedent is the vague pronoun nekome (“to someone”).

What does “ga” refer to, and why is it “ga” instead of “njega” or “to”?

Ga is a clitic form of the pronoun on (“he/it”), in the accusative singular masculine.

In this sentence, it refers back to susjedstvo (“the neighborhood”):

susjedstvo (neuter) → but grammatically treated with masculine pronoun here as ga.

Why ga?

ga – unstressed clitic form used inside the sentence:
tko ga nikad nije vidio – who has never seen it.
njega – stressed form, used for emphasis or after prepositions:
nikad nisam vidio njega, nego nju – I never saw him, but her.

To is a different pronoun (“this/that/it” in a general sense), and wouldn’t be used here to refer back to susjedstvo in this relative clause. The natural object pronoun is ga.

Why is the word order “tko ga nikad nije vidio” and not “tko nikad ga nije vidio”?

Croatian has fairly strict rules about the position of clitics (short unstressed words like je, ga, mi, se, ne).

Ga is a clitic, and clitics generally go in the second position in the clause, immediately after the first stressed word or phrase. In this clause:

first stressed word: tko
clitics then follow: here, ga
then the rest of the verb phrase: nikad nije vidio

So:

✓ tko ga nikad nije vidio – correct
✗ tko nikad ga nije vidio – wrong placement of the clitic ga

You might also hear:

tko ga nikad nije vidio
tko ga nije nikad vidio

Both are acceptable, but ga must come early as a clitic.

What’s the difference between “nikad” and “nikada”, and why is the verb also negated (nije)?

nikad and nikada both mean “never”.
Nikada is slightly more formal/complete; nikad is more colloquial/shortened. Meaning is the same.

In Croatian, negative adverbs like nikad, nitko, ništa are usually used with a negated verb. This is called double negation, and it’s normal and required:

Nikad ga nisam vidio. – I have never seen him.
Nikada ga nisam vidio.

Using a positive verb here would be ungrammatical or change the meaning:

✗ Nikad ga jesam vidio. – incorrect for “I have never seen him.”
Ikad (“ever”) would be used with a positive verb:
Jesi li ga ikad vidio? – Have you ever seen him?

Why is it “nije vidio” (masculine) and how would this change for a female subject?

The verb form nije vidio is:

nije – 3rd person singular past of biti (to be), negative.
vidio – masculine singular past participle of vidjeti (to see).

In Croatian, past tense is formed with auxiliary + participle, and the participle agrees with the subject in gender and number.

Here the subject is tko (“who”), but it is implicitly male or generic, so masculine is used by default in such neutral examples:

tko ga nikad nije vidio – who has never seen it (masc. assumed / generic).

If you explicitly refer to a woman, you would use feminine:

Žena koja ga nikad nije vidjela. – A woman who has never seen it.
If you replaced tko with a clearly female noun, the participle would be feminine.

For mixed or unknown gender in more specific contexts, masculine plural or masculine singular tends to be used as the default grammatical form.

Could the word order “Teško je nekome tko ga nikad nije vidio opisati susjedstvo” also work? How does it sound?

Yes, this is grammatically correct:

Teško je nekome tko ga nikad nije vidio opisati susjedstvo.

Differences in feel:

Teško je opisati susjedstvo nekome tko ga nikad nije vidio.
→ More natural, neutral flow. “It’s hard to describe the neighborhood to someone who has never seen it.”
Teško je nekome tko ga nikad nije vidio opisati susjedstvo.
→ Focuses a bit more on “to someone who has never seen it” early in the sentence. Still fine, just a different emphasis.

Both are acceptable; the first is slightly more straightforward for most speakers.

Is “susjedstvo” the only possible word for “neighborhood” here? Could I say “kvart”?

You can also use kvart, but it’s more colloquial and often used in everyday speech, especially in some regions and cities:

Teško je opisati kvart nekome tko ga nikad nije vidio.

Both sentences are correct:

susjedstvo – a bit more neutral/standard.
kvart – more informal, urban-sounding.

The grammar in the rest of the sentence stays exactly the same.