Breakdown of Bez obzira na to što je pokus kratak, oni ga pažljivo ponavljaju svaki dan.
Questions & Answers about Bez obzira na to što je pokus kratak, oni ga pažljivo ponavljaju svaki dan.
Literally, bez obzira na to što means something like “without regard to the fact that”.
Functionally, it introduces a contrastive clause and is best translated as “although / even though / regardless of the fact that” in English.
So in the sentence:
Bez obzira na to što je pokus kratak, oni ga pažljivo ponavljaju svaki dan.
Although the experiment is short, they carefully repeat it every day.
bez obzira na to što = “although / even though / despite the fact that”.
They’re part of a fixed structure:
- bez obzira na = “regardless of / without regard to”
- to što = “the fact that…”
Put together: bez obzira na to što → “regardless of the fact that / although”.
You can think of it as:
- bez obzira – “without regard”
- na to – “to that”
- što – “which/that (introducing a clause)”
You generally don’t remove to here; the idiomatic phrase is bez obzira na to što when followed by a full clause (with a verb).
Often yes, but there are nuances.
You can say:
- Bez obzira na to što je pokus kratak, oni ga pažljivo ponavljaju svaki dan.
- Iako je pokus kratak, oni ga pažljivo ponavljaju svaki dan.
Both mean “Although the experiment is short…”.
Differences:
- iako is a straightforward “although” conjunction.
- bez obzira na to što is a bit more emphatic and formal, and closer to “regardless of the fact that / no matter that”.
In everyday speech iako is shorter and very common; bez obzira na to što can sound a bit more elaborate or emphatic.
In što je pokus kratak, the word pokus is in:
- nominative singular masculine
This is because pokus is the subject of the clause:
- (to) što je pokus kratak = “(the fact) that the experiment is short”
Subject → nominative case, just like in English: “the experiment is short”.
Both orders are possible, but in this specific structure it’s common to start the clause after što with the verb je:
- što je pokus kratak (more typical in this idiomatic subclause)
- što pokus je kratak (unnatural)
- što pokus je kratak is not how you’d say it; pokus je kratak is fine in isolation.
Word order in Croatian is flexible and often influenced by rhythm, emphasis, or the type of clause. After expressions like bez obzira na to što, you’ll very frequently see:
- što je + subject + predicate
e.g. što je film kratak, što je knjiga dugačka, etc.
ga is a clitic object pronoun, 3rd person singular, masculine accusative.
- It refers back to pokus (“experiment”).
- So oni ga ponavljaju = “they repeat it”.
Form:
- on (he/it) → ga in the role of direct object (“him/it”).
So:
- oni ponavljaju pokus – “they repeat the experiment”
- oni ga ponavljaju – “they repeat it”
Because ga is a clitic, and clitics in Croatian follow strict word-order rules:
- They want to be in second position in the clause.
- “Second position” generally means after the first stressed word or phrase.
In the clause oni ga pažljivo ponavljaju:
- oni – first stressed word (subject)
- ga – clitic, so it comes right after oni
- pažljivo ponavljaju – rest of the predicate
Hence: Oni ga pažljivo ponavljaju…, not Oni pažljivo ga ponavljaju.
No, that sounds ungrammatical or at least very unnatural in standard Croatian.
Because ga is a clitic, it should not be pushed later in the sentence. Correct options include:
- Oni ga pažljivo ponavljaju svaki dan.
- Oni ga svaki dan pažljivo ponavljaju.
- Svaki dan ga pažljivo ponavljaju. (if you drop oni because it’s implied by the verb)
But you would not place ga at the very end: ✗ ponavljaju ga svaki dan is only acceptable if oni is omitted and ga then becomes the first clitic after the initial word:
- Oni ga pažljivo ponavljaju svaki dan.
- Ponavljaju ga svaki dan. – here ponavljaju is first, ga second.
ponavljaju is the present tense, 3rd person plural of the imperfective verb ponavljati (“to repeat”).
Imperfective aspect is used because:
- The action is habitual / repeated over time: “they repeat it every day”.
- With expressions like svaki dan (“every day”), Slovene/Slavic languages normally choose the imperfective for this kind of ongoing or repeated action.
A perfective counterpart would be ponoviti (“to repeat once, to do a repetition”), but you wouldn’t use that here with svaki dan in this habitual sense.
pažljivo is an adverb meaning “carefully”.
In oni ga pažljivo ponavljaju, it modifies ponavljaju:
- pažljivo ponavljaju – “(they) repeat (it) carefully”
It can move around somewhat freely, but it usually stays close to the verb:
- Oni ga pažljivo ponavljaju svaki dan.
- Oni ga svaki dan pažljivo ponavljaju.
- Oni pažljivo ponavljaju pokus svaki dan.
Less natural: splitting the verb and the clitic too much. The adverb shouldn’t disturb the clitic position.
- svaki dan = “every day”, literally “each day”.
- svakog dana also means “every day”, literally “of each day”.
Both are correct and very common:
- Oni ga pažljivo ponavljaju svaki dan.
- Oni ga pažljivo ponavljaju svakog dana.
The difference is tiny:
- svaki dan – accusative; slightly more neutral/colloquial.
- svakog dana – genitive; can sound just a little more formal or stylistic in some contexts.
In everyday talk, svaki dan might be heard more often, but both are fine.
Both can translate as “experiment”, but there are nuances:
pokus
- Often used for scientific or laboratory experiments, tests, trials.
- Feels a bit more native/Slavic in flavor.
eksperiment
- A loanword from “experiment”.
- Also common, and often used in scientific, technical, or abstract contexts, or when speaking about “experimentation” in a broader sense.
In this sentence, pokus is perfectly natural if you imagine a lab setting where they repeat a specific experimental trial every day.
From context and agreement:
- ga is masculine singular accusative.
- The only suitable masculine singular singular noun in the prior context is pokus.
Croatian pronouns don’t show gender fully in the same way adjectives do (they’re more limited), but the number (singular) and semantic context tell you:
- There is one thing they are repeating: pokus.
- So ga = “it” = “the experiment”.
Yes, Croatian often omits the subject pronoun because it’s encoded in the verb ending.
- Bez obzira na to što je pokus kratak, ga pažljivo ponavljaju svaki dan. – ✗ incorrect (clitic can’t start the clause like this)
- Bez obzira na to što je pokus kratak, pažljivo ga ponavljaju svaki dan. – ✓ correct
Here ponavljaju (3rd person plural) already tells you “they”.
So a natural version without oni is:
Bez obzira na to što je pokus kratak, pažljivo ga ponavljaju svaki dan.
Meaning remains the same; it just sounds slightly less explicit about the subject.
No. Croatian has no articles (“a/an/the”).
- pokus by itself can be “a(n) experiment” or “the experiment” depending on context.
- ga is simply “it/him” as a direct object.
So in translation:
- Bez obzira na to što je pokus kratak…
could be either “Although the experiment is short…” or “Although an experiment is short…”, depending purely on the situation described, not on grammar markings in the Croatian.