Breakdown of Moj muž nije zaboravan; on uvijek provjeri jesmo li zaključali vrata.
Questions & Answers about Moj muž nije zaboravan; on uvijek provjeri jesmo li zaključali vrata.
Moj muž is in the nominative singular, because it is the subject of the sentence.
- muž = “husband”, nominative singular (dictionary form)
- moj = “my”, masculine nominative singular, agreeing with muž
Other forms (like moga muža, genitive) are used when husband is not the subject, e.g.:
- Vidim svog muža. – I see my husband. (accusative)
- Nema mog muža. – My husband is not here. (genitive)
The verb biti (to be) has special negative forms in the present:
- je → nije (is → is not)
- Full set: jesam, jesi, jest/je, jesmo, jeste, jesu
Negatives: nisam, nisi, nije, nismo, niste, nisu
So you must say:
- On je zaboravan. – He is forgetful.
- On nije zaboravan. – He is not forgetful.
You cannot say ne je zaboravan; the negative is fused into nije.
You also cannot say ne zaboravan here, because ne directly negates verbs, not predicative adjectives like this. If you want a negative adjective, it’s usually a different word, e.g. nesretan (unhappy), but nezaboravan means “unforgettable”, not “not forgetful”.
Both are possible, but they do not mean exactly the same:
Moj muž nije zaboravan.
– My husband is not forgetful.
Describes a character trait.Moj muž ne zaboravlja.
– My husband doesn’t forget.
Describes a habitual action (he does not forget things in practice).
In your sentence, the idea is about his character (he’s not a forgetful type), so the adjective zaboravan is natural.
Croatian normally drops subject pronouns because the verb ending shows the person:
- Uvijek provjeri. – (He) always checks.
However, speakers often add the pronoun for:
- emphasis or contrast: “He always checks (other people maybe don’t).”
- clarity after a pause, comma, or semicolon.
Here, the semicolon splits the sentence into two clauses:
- Moj muž nije zaboravan; on uvijek provjeri…
The on picks up “my husband” again and lightly emphasizes he, similar to English “He always checks…” instead of “Always checks…”. It’s not grammatically required, but it’s stylistically natural.
There are two related verbs:
- provjeravati – imperfective (“to be checking”, “to check habitually”)
- present: on provjerava – he (is) checks / keeps checking
- provjeriti – perfective (“to check once / to have checked”)
- present form: on provjeri
In standard aspect explanations:
- uvijek provjerava = he always checks (general habit)
- uvijek provjeri = he always (manages to) check / he always makes sure to check on each occasion
Both are heard in real speech. In many contexts:
- On uvijek provjerava jesmo li zaključali vrata.
is the most straightforward “He always checks whether we locked the door.”
Your version with provjeri is also natural and slightly stresses that on each occasion he does complete that check.
Start from the simple statement:
- Zaključali smo vrata. – We locked the door(s).
This is compound past tense:
- zaključali – past participle (masc. plural)
- smo – auxiliary biti (“we have / we are” in past tense)
To form a yes/no question, you move the auxiliary in front and usually use its full form:
- Jesmo li zaključali vrata? – Did we lock the door?
Now make it an indirect question (object clause) after provjeri:
- on uvijek provjeri jesmo li zaključali vrata
- literally: “he always checks have-we whether locked the door”
So:
- jesmo – “we have” (full form)
- li – question particle
- zaključali vrata – “locked the door(s)”
Two rules are important here:
Full vs. clitic form of the auxiliary
- Full: jesam, jesi, jest/je, jesmo, jeste, jesu
- Clitic: sam, si, je, smo, ste, su In questions, the full form (here jesmo) is normally used at the beginning.
The particle li must be in second position in the clause.
It attaches to the first stressed word.
So:
- Correct: Jesmo li zaključali vrata?
- jesmo (first stressed word) + li (second position).
- *Smo li zaključali vrata? – wrong in standard language; smo is a clitic and cannot stand first.
- *Li smo zaključali vrata? – wrong; li cannot be first.
In the embedded clause, we keep the same order:
- …provjeri jesmo li zaključali vrata.
Not really. Ako and jesmo li are not equivalent here.
jesmo li zaključali vrata = whether we locked the door
→ indirect yes/no question (what he is checking)ako smo zaključali vrata = if we (have) locked the door
→ introduces a condition for something else to happen.
So:
On uvijek provjeri jesmo li zaključali vrata.
– He always checks whether we locked the door. ✅On uvijek provjeri ako smo zaključali vrata.
– Sounds incomplete; “He always checks if we locked the door” in Croatian wants some consequence:
Ako smo zaključali vrata, onda…
For “check whether…”, use je li / jesmo li / jeste li…, not ako.
The action being checked is something that should already be done:
- We lock the door.
- Later / when leaving, he checks whether we did it.
So Croatian uses the past tense (perfect):
- jesmo zaključali – we locked / we have locked
If you said:
- jesmo li zaključavali vrata – were we locking the door (repeated or ongoing in the past)
- zaključavamo vrata – we are locking / we lock (present, ongoing or habitual)
These don’t fit the idea “have we locked them (already)?” A natural direct question is:
- Jesmo li zaključali vrata? – Did we lock the door?
So the embedded clause keeps that perfect tense: jesmo li zaključali vrata.
The past participle zaključali agrees with the subject in gender and number:
- (Mi) smo zaključali vrata. – we (mixed group or all male) locked the door.
- (Mi) smo zaključale vrata. – we (all female) locked the door.
In your sentence, jesmo li zaključali assumes:
- either a mixed group (at least one man), or
- the default masculine plural, which is used whenever gender is unknown or mixed.
If only women are meant and you want to make that explicit, you’d say:
- On uvijek provjeri jesmo li zaključale vrata.
In Croatian, vrata (door) is a plural-only noun (pluralia tantum):
- jedna vrata – one door
- dvoja vrata – two doors (two doorways / two sets of doors)
- Grammar: neuter plural, even when meaning a single door:
- Vrata su zaključana. – The door is locked. (literally “Doors are locked.”)
In your sentence:
- zaključali – they locked
- vrata – the door(s), accusative plural (same form as nominative)
There is no singular vrat meaning “door” in standard Croatian (that would be vrat = “neck”).
The semicolon connects two independent but closely related clauses:
- Moj muž nije zaboravan;
- on uvijek provjeri jesmo li zaključali vrata.
You could also write them as:
- Moj muž nije zaboravan. On uvijek provjeri jesmo li zaključali vrata.
(full stop instead of semicolon), or - Moj muž nije zaboravan, jer on uvijek provjeri jesmo li zaključali vrata.
(“because he always checks…” – explicit causal link, but slightly changes nuance).
The semicolon here:
- keeps the two statements tightly connected,
- avoids repeating “my husband” as a full new sentence,
- is followed by lowercase on, which is normal in Croatian after a semicolon.
All three versions are grammatical; the choice is stylistic. The given one emphasizes a smooth, tight connection between the two clauses.