Nadie conoce el secreto.

Nobody knows the secret.

Breakdown of Nadie conoce el secreto.

• conocer: to know
• nadie: nobody
• el secreto: the secret

Questions & Answers about Nadie conoce el secreto.

Why does nadie mean nobody or no one, and how is it used?

Nadie is a negative pronoun meaning nobody / no one.

In Nadie conoce el secreto, it works as the subject of the sentence:

• Nadie = no one
• conoce = knows
• el secreto = the secret

A useful point: when nadie comes before the verb, Spanish does not add another no:

• Nadie conoce el secreto. = No one knows the secret.

But if nadie comes after the verb, Spanish normally uses no as well:

• No conoce nadie el secreto.
  This is less neutral in everyday use, but it shows the double-negative pattern common in Spanish.

Why is the verb conoce singular and not plural?

Because nadie is grammatically singular.

Even though nadie refers to zero people, Spanish treats it as a singular subject, so the verb is in the third person singular:

• Nadie conoce...
• not Nadie conocen...

This is similar to English no one knows, not no one know.

Why is it conoce and not sabe?