Breakdown of Dado que el agente es clandestino, nadie sabe su nombre.
ser
to be
su
his/her/its/their/your (formal)
saber
to know (facts) / to hear from (someone)
nadie
no one
el nombre
the name
dado que
given that
el agente
the agent
clandestino
clandestine
Questions & Answers about Dado que el agente es clandestino, nadie sabe su nombre.
Why does this sentence use sabe instead of the pronominal se sabe?
Our current lesson focuses on how adding se changes a verb's meaning. While saber means to know a fact, saberse often means to know by heart or to memorize. Saying nadie se sabe su nombre would imply nobody memorized his name. Additionally, se sabe is often used as an impersonal phrase meaning 'it is known', but here we already have a specific subject doing the knowing: nadie.
Dado que translates to since or given that. Does it always trigger the indicative mood, like es here?
Mostly, yes. When dado que introduces an established fact or the cause of something, it takes the indicative mood. Because the agent being clandestine is a declared fact causing the second part of the sentence, we use the indicative es. You would only use the subjunctive if the cause was hypothetical, which is rare with this specific phrase.
Could I use como instead of dado que to mean since?
Why isn't there a double negative here, like no sabe nadie?
In Spanish, if a negative word like nadie comes right before the verb, you drop the no. You only need a double negative if the negative word comes after the verb. If you changed the word order, you would have to say no sabe su nombre nadie, but since nadie leads the clause, a single negative is all you need.
Learn Dado que el agente es clandestino, nadie sabe su nombre and more in Spanish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free