Breakdown of Nie możemy nic udowodnić, dlatego go nie podejrzewamy.
on
he / it (m)
nie
no / not
móc
to be able to
nic
nothing
dlatego
therefore
podejrzewać
to suspect
udowodnić
to prove
Questions & Answers about Nie możemy nic udowodnić, dlatego go nie podejrzewamy.
Why use dlatego here instead of dlatego że?
Dlatego means "therefore" or "that is why" and is used to introduce the result of a situation. If you wanted to introduce a cause ("because"), you would use dlatego że. Since the second half of this sentence is the result of having no proof, dlatego is the correct choice.
Why does the Polish sentence use both nie and nic?
Polish requires double negation. When you use a negative word like nic (nothing) or nigdy (never), you must also negate the main verb with nie. While English says "we cannot prove anything", Polish literally says "we cannot prove nothing" (nie możemy nic udowodnić).
Since the verb is negated, shouldn't the object nic be in the genitive case as niczego?
That is an excellent observation! The rule of the "genitive of negation" says that direct objects of negated verbs usually switch to the genitive case. Saying nie możemy niczego udowodnić is perfectly correct and more formal. However, in everyday Polish, the short form nic is commonly used as a tolerated exception to this rule.
Could I use the longer pronoun jego instead of go here?
You would only use jego if you wanted to strongly emphasize who you aren't suspecting, meaning "we don't suspect HIM (but we do suspect someone else)". For a normal, unemphasized statement, the short pronoun go is always the natural choice.
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