Ako budemo bušili zid danas, prvo ćemo provjeriti ima li iza njega kabela.

Because Croatian normally uses future II after ako when talking about a future condition.

• ako budemo bušili = if we drill / if we are going to be drilling
• not usually ako ćemo bušiti

This is a very common pattern:

• Ako budem imao vremena, doći ću. = If I have time, I’ll come.
• Ako bude padala kiša, ostat ćemo doma. = If it rains / if it’s raining, we’ll stay home.

Here, budemo bušili is the future II form of the imperfective verb bušiti.

It is made from:

• budemo = a form of biti used for future II
• bušili = the past active participle of bušiti

So:

• ja budem bušio / bušila
• ti budeš bušio / bušila
• on/ona/ono bude bušio / bušila / bušilo
• mi budemo bušili / bušile
• vi budete bušili / bušile
• oni/one/ona budu bušili / bušile

In this sentence, mi budemo bušili matches the implied we.

Because bušiti is imperfective and focuses on the action/process of drilling rather than on a completed result.

• bušiti zid = to drill the wall / to be drilling into the wall
• izbušiti zid = to drill through / to finish drilling the wall

In the clause Ako budemo bušili zid danas..., the idea is if we’re going to do some drilling today, not necessarily emphasizing completion. That is why the imperfective verb fits well.

Because zid is the direct object of bušiti, so it is in the accusative singular.

For masculine inanimate nouns like zid, the accusative singular is the same as the nominative singular:

• nominative: zid
• accusative: zid

So:

• bušiti zid = to drill the wall

If it were a masculine animate noun, accusative would usually look like genitive, but zid is inanimate.

Because the main clause uses the ordinary future I:

• prvo ćemo provjeriti = we will first check

A very common Croatian pattern is:

• Ako + future II, future I

So:

• Ako budemo bušili zid danas, prvo ćemo provjeriti...

The if-clause gets future II, while the main result clause gets future I.

Provjeriti is perfective, so it means to check once / to verify / to make sure. That fits this context well, because the action is a single completed check before drilling.

• provjeriti = check, verify, make sure
• provjeravati = be checking, check repeatedly, check from time to time

Here the sentence means:

• First we’ll check whether there are cables behind it.

That is a one-time action, so provjeriti is the natural choice.

Here ima li means whether there is / whether there are.

So:

• provjeriti ima li... = to check whether there is/are...

This is a very common way to introduce an indirect yes/no question in Croatian.

Examples:

• Ne znam ima li vremena. = I don’t know whether there is time / if there is time.
• Pitali smo ima li mjesta. = We asked whether there was space.

In your sentence:

• ima li iza njega kabela = whether there are cables behind it

In Croatian, li is a clitic particle used in questions and indirect questions. It usually comes right after the first stressed word, often the verb.

So:

• Ima li...? = Is there / Are there...?
• Znaš li...? = Do you know...?
• Može li...? = Can it...?

That is why you get:

• ima li iza njega kabela

not something like li ima.

Because after ima in an existential meaning (there is / there are), Croatian often uses the genitive, especially when talking about the existence or non-existence of something.

So:

• ima kabela = there are cables / there is cable
• nema kabela = there are no cables

Here kabela is the genitive plural of kabel.

This is very natural in Croatian when you mean any cables rather than a specific known set of cables.

The standard form is kabela, from kabel.

In practice, you may sometimes hear different forms or pronunciations in everyday speech, but for a learner, kabela is the form to remember here.

So the standard sentence is:

• ima li iza njega kabela

Because the preposition iza here expresses location: behind it. With location, iza takes the genitive.

• iza zida = behind the wall
• iza njega = behind it / behind him

If a preposition expresses movement toward a position, Croatian may use a different case, but here there is no movement. It is just location, so genitive is correct.

It refers to zid.

• iza njega = behind it
• literally: behind him/it, but since zid is masculine in Croatian, the pronoun is masculine too

So even though English says it, Croatian uses the grammatical gender of the noun:

• zid is masculine
• therefore: njega

It could. Both are possible.

• iza zida = behind the wall
• iza njega = behind it

Using njega avoids repeating the noun and sounds natural, just like English often prefers it instead of repeating the wall.

Prvo means first.

It shows the order of actions:

1. prvo ćemo provjeriti = first we’ll check
2. then the drilling happens

So the sentence is emphasizing that checking for cables comes before drilling.

Croatian word order is fairly flexible, but some versions sound more natural than others.

The original sentence:

• Ako budemo bušili zid danas, prvo ćemo provjeriti ima li iza njega kabela.

is very natural.

You could also hear:

• Ako danas budemo bušili zid, prvo ćemo provjeriti ima li iza njega kabela.
• Prvo ćemo provjeriti ima li iza njega kabela ako budemo bušili zid danas.

But the original order is clear and neutral.

Not directly. Danas just means today and gives a time reference.

The tense choice is mainly controlled by the structure:

• future condition with ako → future II
• main clause result → future I

So danas adds timing, but it is not the reason for budemo bušili.

In everyday speech, some speakers use da li, but in this sentence ima li is more standard and stylistically better.

So:

• provjeriti ima li kabela = preferred
• provjeriti da li ima kabela = heard in speech, but often avoided in more careful standard usage

For learners, ima li is the safer and more natural model.

In this sentence, it most naturally means are there cables.

That is because kabela is understood as plural, from kabel. In context, we are talking about electrical cables behind a wall, so English would normally translate it as:

• whether there are cables behind it

Croatian often leaves this a little less explicit than English does, but the context makes it clear.

A good way to think of it is:

• Ako budemo bušili zid danas = If we’re going to drill into the wall today
• prvo ćemo provjeriti = we’ll first check
• ima li iza njega kabela = whether there are any cables behind it

So the overall grammar pattern is:

• If X happens, we will do Y first.

That pattern is very common in Croatian, especially with ako + future II.