Ljudi u kafiću razgovaraju o tome radi li vlada dovoljno dobro.

O tome literally means “about that / about it.”

• o = about (preposition)
• to = that / it (pronoun)
• tome = locative form of to (used after o)

In Croatian, after verbs like razgovarati (to talk, to discuss), you normally say razgovarati o nečemu – to talk about something.

In this sentence, o tome is a “placeholder” object for the conversation, which is then specified by the indirect question radi li vlada dovoljno dobro. It’s roughly like saying:

• “People in the café are talking about whether the government is doing a good enough job.”

You wouldn’t normally drop o tome here;
✗ Ljudi u kafiću razgovaraju radi li vlada dovoljno dobro.
sounds unnatural, because razgovarati strongly wants o + (something).

Radi li vlada is an indirect yes/no question built with the particle li.

Basic, neutral statement word order would be:

• Vlada radi dovoljno dobro. – The government is doing a good enough job.

To turn the verb radi into a yes/no question inside a larger sentence, Croatian:

1. Takes the finite verb (radi)
2. Puts li right after it
3. Then comes the subject (vlada)

So:

• radi
  • li
    • vlada → radi li vlada
      does the government do / is the government doing

This is standard literary word order for embedded yes/no questions. Compare:

• Ne znam radi li vlada dovoljno dobro.
  I don’t know whether the government is doing a good enough job.

The overall sentence is not a question; it’s a statement describing what people are doing:

• Ljudi u kafiću razgovaraju o tome …
  People in the café are talking about …

Inside that statement, we have an indirect question (radi li vlada dovoljno dobro), but the whole sentence is still declarative, so it ends with a period, not a question mark.

Compare:

• Radi li vlada dovoljno dobro? – direct question → ?
• Razgovaraju o tome radi li vlada dovoljno dobro. – statement containing an indirect question → .

Yes, you will often hear:

• … o tome da li vlada radi dovoljno dobro.

Differences:

1. Style / register

   • radi li vlada… – more standard / formal / written
   • da li vlada radi… – more colloquial / everyday speech, especially in some regions

2. Word order

   • radi li vlada: verb + li
     • subject
   • da li vlada radi: da li
     • subject + verb

Both are widely understood. In careful written Croatian, radi li vlada… is usually preferred, but da li… is not “wrong,” just more informal.

The verb raditi can mean both:

1. to work (as in having a job)

   • On radi u banci. – He works in a bank.

2. to do / to function / to perform its job

   • Stroj radi dobro. – The machine works well.

In radi li vlada dovoljno dobro, the meaning is:

• radi = does its job / functions / performs

So the clause means something like:

• radi li vlada dovoljno dobro
  ≈ whether the government is doing its job well enough / functioning well enough.

U kafiću uses the locative case:

• u
  • locative = in / at a place (when something is located there, not moving to it)

Kafić (café) is masculine singular:

• Nominative: kafić (basic form, subject)
• Locative: kafiću

So:

• Ljudi su u kafiću. – People are in the café. (location → locative)

If there were movement into the café, you’d use the accusative:

• Idem u kafić. – I’m going to the café. (motion → accusative)

Masculine nouns ending in -ć often decline like this (singular):

• Nominative: kafić
• Genitive: kafića
• Dative: kafiću
• Accusative: kafić
• Locative: kafiću
• Instrumental: kafićem

The locative (used after u for location, and after o, etc.) is kafiću, with -u at the end. That’s why we say:

• u kafiću – in the café
• o kafiću – about the café

All three exist, but they differ slightly in nuance:

• razgovarati (razgovaraju) – to talk, to have a conversation, to discuss (often two‑way, interactive)
• govoriti (govore) – to speak, to talk (more general: ability to speak, giving a speech, etc.)
• pričati (pričaju) – to tell, to narrate, to chat

In this context:

• Ljudi u kafiću razgovaraju o tome…
  suggests they are discussing something, having a conversation about it.

You could say pričaju o tome…, which would feel a bit more like they’re chatting about….
Govore o tome… is possible but sounds slightly more formal / less like a mutual discussion in a café.

Croatian doesn’t have a separate present continuous tense like English. The present tense covers both:

• Ljudi razgovaraju.
  can mean “People talk” (present habitual) or “People are talking” (right now), depending on context.

The verb razgovarati is imperfective, which is what you normally use for ongoing or repeated actions. In this sentence and typical context (describing a current scene in a café), you’d naturally translate:

• Ljudi u kafiću razgovaraju…
  as “People in the café are talking…”

Dovoljno dobro literally is:

• dovoljno = enough, sufficiently (adverb)
• dobro = well (adverb) or good (adjective; here adverbially: well)

Together:

• dovoljno dobro ≈ well enough / good enough

In English the usual order is “good enough / well enough”, but in Croatian the normal order is:

• dovoljno (enough) + adverb/adjective → dovoljno dobro

So radi li vlada dovoljno dobro ≈ whether the government is doing its job well enough.

In Croatian, vlada is grammatically:

• feminine
• singular
• 3rd person

So it always takes a singular verb:

• Vlada radi dobro. – The government works / is working well.
  (literally: The government does well.)

Croatian doesn’t alternate between singular and plural agreement with collective nouns the way English (especially British English) sometimes does. Even if you conceptually imagine many people, the verb still agrees with the grammatical number, not the logical “many individuals.”

Yes, you can say:

• Ljudi razgovaraju u kafiću o tome radi li vlada dovoljno dobro.

Word order in Croatian is relatively flexible. The basic meaning is the same: People in the café are talking about whether the government is doing a good enough job.

Differences:

• Ljudi u kafiću razgovaraju…
  puts early focus on where the people are (in the café).
• Ljudi razgovaraju u kafiću…
  starts with the fact that people are talking, and then adds where they’re doing it.

Both are natural. The original order is perhaps a bit more typical when you first want to set the scene: People in the café…

You could, but it changes the meaning:

• o tome što vlada radi
  = about what the government is doing (open-ended: the content of its actions)

• o tome radi li vlada dovoljno dobro
  = about whether the government is doing a good enough job (a yes/no evaluation)

So:

• što vlada radi – an open question: what does the government do?
• radi li vlada dovoljno dobro – a yes/no question: does the government do a good enough job or not?

The original sentence specifically talks about people evaluating the government’s performance.