Do You Know How To Have A Basic Conversation In Serbian?

Dear learners,

I know that learning a language can be a scary experience. You might feel like you’re not willing to learn or you’ll never be able to learn how to speak it; However, you’re wrong. Don’t worry, I’ll help you solve this problem and I’ll guide you through this wonderful language trip. You may be asking some questions...

Why do I need Serbian, and who really cares about it?

There are many reasons, but I am going to give you some of them:

1. Serbian is spoken in many countries: like Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Montenegro, in Romania (some places), in Hungary (some parts) in many places in Vienna, in Greece (some parts) etc , so it is always good to know for a bit, so you can communicate with Serbs and impress them.

2. The people - They are really friendly, open minded, communicative, positive and we do our best so that foreign people can feel comfortable. We are almost always at your disposal.

3. The culture - We have many famous scientists: Nikola Tesla, Josif Pančić, etc.; Writers: Jovan Jovanović Zmaj, Ivo Andrić, Mika Antić, etc.; Sportsmen: we are great at waterpolo, tennis, basketball, volleyball, etc.

4. The music - We have great musicians. The best proof for that is that Marija Šerifović won in 2007 on the Eurovision Song Contest with the song „Molitva“ and Željko Joksimović took the 2nd place with the song „Lane moje“.

5. It opens you to a whole world of languages - Serbian uses two alphabets... Cyrilic that can help you with other Slavic languages (Russian, Ukraniane, etc) and Latin (that is used much more in nowadays), but you have a big advantage: We read just like we write and every letter represents only one voice. You can see them here. If you learn Serbian, you will automatically know: Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin as well since languages are similar pretty much and every Serb knows the languages that I mentioned.

Because learning new languages is so contagious, once you start to learn other language, you cannot stop doing that, especially if you do it in an interesting and fun way with interesting people that are able to help you.

How can I learn Serbian?

It doesn’t matter what languages would you like to learn, it doesn’t matter what reason is, definitely you should take in consideration these things:

1. You should NEVER start learning it with “bad language” because it’s not good at all.

Nobody likes to be insulted indeed in any case. ” I think that would be better if you would learn “please”,  “Can you help me”, “What is your name” , I mean “Normal phrases” first. Then once your language level becomes  “intermediate”, yes, you could learn even bad language, just to understand if somebody says something bad and so you can know how to deal with that.

2. You should never put limits… at least, not too short “deadlines”, because languages are just like flowers.

You need to put your love (love includes: time, caring, dedication every day… +big pleasure + big joy). If it is not like this, then your flower is going to “die” and you’ll forget even a few things that you learned in the target language. So, just like flowers need some time, that’s how learning a new language requires some time. That’s why, there’s no “magical spell” that you can learn “super-fast” and “super easy”. However, I think you should dedicate at least 30min – 1h every month to study your target language. If you skip days constantly, there is going to be no effects. That’s why, I think “big breaks” aren’t good. You should, at least” try to speak in a target language, to listen to the audio books or to watch some useful video materials.

3. Never say: “I don’t want to learn grammar” or “Who cares about that” because language without grammar is “a flower without Sun”, like “Human without soul” etc.

I know, you can be understood even without caring about grammar that much, but then, all the whole beauty of that language vanishes little by little.

4. Never say: “I am stupid”, “I won’t make it”, “I can’t” because IT'S NOT TRUE.

Believe me, you’re not stupid if you make mistakes – totally opposite. If you don’t make mistakes, you’ll never learn. If you say “I won’t make it” or “I can’t” you would be right ONLY if you don’t give it a try at all. I think, languages are worth of learning them. You might be surprised positively with the beauties that you can discover once you decide to learn it indeed and to be brave and go every day deeper and deeper into this.

How do I greet someone?

Here you can here how to pronounce them. Let’s analyze them:

Dobro jutro - Good morning (morning: 6am - 12pm)

Dobar dan - Good (literally: “day”) afternoon (after 12pm - 7pm)

Dobro veče - Serbian ---- Good evening   

Dobro veče - Croatian ---- Good evening (7pm - 9pm)

Zdravo --- not too informal-not too formal

Ćao –--- very informal (say that only with the people you know. P.S. This is something we took from Italians. In Italian, they write it like this: „Ciao“.

Laku noć - Good night

(I wish you - Želim ti … have an easy night - laku noć)

Note: Have an easy night in the sense: “Sleep tight” and “be relaxed” , so “don't get up that much.

Pronouns in Serbian

How to ask about someone's identity?

In order to answer you on this question, I’ll give you a dialogue between two people and then we're going to analyze them:

Dialogue with Latin Alphabet 

Person 1: Ćao

Person 2: Ćao

1: Kako se zoveš?

2: Zovem se Martina, a ti?

1: Zovem se Petar. Drago mi je.

2: I meni takođe.

1: Vidimo se.

2: Vidimo se  

Let’s analyze what’s written:

Kako se zoveš?  – What is your name (literal translation would be: „How do you call yourself“)

„Zovem se“ – My name is (literal translation: „I am call myself ....“) and here we skiped the personal pronoun. I know you are wondering „How can we know you refered on „ I „ and not on „she“ or something like this... and I am going to answer you right now.

If we want to skip the pronoun, you can put „to call“ in the appropriate form and then you put „se“. (Zovem se, zoveš se, zove se, ...)

a ti? - "And you?" for returning the question asked to you. 

Drago mi je – Nice to meet you. I could also say: Drago mi je da smo se upoznali  - I am glad we met each other.

You would respond: I meni takođe – me too 

Ćao and Vidimo se are greetings and goodbye from the earlier vocabulary list. 

How do I thank others?

Hvala is Thank you. If you want to be polite a bit more you can say „Hvala lepo“ that means „Thank you nicely“. However, we like to emphisize, so we like to say „thanks to whom“.

For instance:

„Hvala ti – I thank you“ – informal, hvala vam – I thank you (more people)

or „Hvala Vam“ – informal speech

If somebody said „thank you“ you need to know how to answer:

Nema na čemu – Not at all    

Molim – you’re welcome

Molim, I drugi put. – This is even more polite way to answer and it means “You’re welcome, it’d be a pleasure to me to do it again, next time”)

How do I make basic questions?  

We have four words that we can use for asking questions:

Šta – what

Koliko – How much/how many

Kako – How

Gde – Where

Examples:

Šta radiš/radite?

-učim – I am learning.

Kako si? / Kako ste?  – Informal speech / formal (or for a group of people) speech

Ja sam dobro/odlično – I am good/great

Ja sam gladan / gladna – I am hungry

Ja sam žedan/žedna – I am thirsty

Ja sam umoran / umorna – I am tired

Koliko to košta – How much does it cost?

To košta ….  – It costs ….

Then you say the number of the price (and then you say the currency – if the price is finished with 1 it stays the same…otherwise it changes to A. The exception are the currencies they are finished with A like for example: “Kuna”. In this case we should change it --- for 1 to U, for everything else to E. )

To košta dvadeset jedan evro / to košta petnaest evra.

To košta sto dolara / to košta jedan dolar.

To košta jednu kunu / to košta tri kune.

Another question and answer with “koliko” we already had when we studied “what time is it”. Feel free to check it out here.

How to find where you need to go?

So, in order to answer on this question, follow the pattern:

pronoun + verb „to be“ + something from the list

How to say what you need?

The easiest way to express it is with “Hteti da – To want to …. “

Ja hoću...

TI hoćeš...

On,ona,ono hoće...

Mi hoćemo...

Vi, vi hoćete...

Oni,one,ona hoće...

For example:

Activities for you to practice!

1. Ask your friends what are their age and write down their answers (in the discussion part)

2. Write down “Where are you” and the answer on this question

3. How would you introduce yourself

4. Ask somebody “How are you” and write it down in the “discussion part

I know Serbian isn’t easy, but I’m really willing to help you. I know, we can pass through everything together! I’m with you, no worries. Plus, it’s only beginning of your language journey. There are more exciting and interesting topics to come.

Thank you so much for reading this. I hope you liked it. If you have any question, don’t hesitate to ask me. I’ll be glad to help you. Also, I’d like to read your feedback!

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Learn Serbian with Suzana

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