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Showing posts with label Genetive in Serbian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Genetive in Serbian. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Greetings from Genitive - Part 2

If you really had fun learning Genitive yesterday, I'm sure you'll have a blast  today:


Made with ToonyTool.com

As you can see, there's a bunch of characters speaking to you in Serbian (written both in the Cyrillic and Latin alphabet :) Because they are talking about where they are right now, they are using (guess what?) the Genitive case. Now, I have a few tasks for you. Let's find out:

A. Who is saying what? = Ko šta kaže?

  1. Sunce kaže: 
  2. Majmun kaže:
  3. Ptica kaže:
  4. Dečko kaže:

B. Where are = Gde su...

  1. dečko (a boy)
  2. devojčica (a girl)
  3. pingvin (a penguin)
  4. ptica (a bird)
  5. majmun (a monkey)
  6. sunce (the sun)
  7. mačka (a cat)

C. One Cyrillic text is missing - which one? Write it in the comment below:


Serbian Genitive with Sg. Feminine Nouns


I hope you have mastered your Genitive with Sg. Masc. nouns. That's why we are working on  the nouns which are Fem. Sg. today. Look at the examples:

  1. Ja sam iznad zgrade! Ko sam ja? Da li sam ja ptica?
  2. Danas sam ispred zgrade! Ko sam ja? Da li sam ja mačka?
  3. Oni su iznad mene! Ko su oni? Ko sam ja?
  4. On nije iznad mačke! Ja sam iznad mačke! Ko sam ja?
What happens with the following nouns?
  1. zgrada = building
  2. ptica = bird
  3. mačka = cat
  4. devojčica = girl
  5. voda = water
when they follow the prepositions: 
  • iznad = above or over
  • ispod = below or under
  • iz = from
  • pored = near or beside
By looking the examples, you can see that the final -a disappears, becoming an -e:

  1. Iznad zgradE = above the building
  2. Ispod pticE = under the bird
  3. Pored mačkE = beside the cat
  4. Iza devojčicE = behind the girl
  5. Iznad vodE = above the water

Asking simple questions with the verb TO BE in Serbian

I am sure you have noticed two types of questions in this exercise:
  1. Wh-? questions: Ko sam ja = Who am I and Ko su oni? Who are they?
  2. Yes-no questions: Da li sam ja pingvin? = Am I a penguin? 
With the verb to be=biti, it is obvious that there is
  1. a wh-? question word before an inversion (ja sam becomes KO sam ja)
  2. da li question phrase before an inversion (ja sam becomes DA LI sam ja)
Yes, it's that simple :)

Rešenje = Solution


Now that you understand EVERYTHING, it's time to solve the mystery...

Thursday, June 09, 2011

Genetive in Serbian Language - Lesson 1

Saturday, February 06, 2010

Serbian Adjectives and Nouns in Genitive Case

After doing the exercise in Nominative, both Singular and Plural, let's move onto
Genetive case: (to find out which case is Genetive ask the following quiestons: ‘Of whom, whose’ (od koga) or ‘of what’ (čega)

Example: Some 'se' verbs require Genetive, like to be scared OF 'plašiti se' or to take hold OF 'dočepati se'
Singular: Plašim se skupog automobila.

adjectives: LEP / JAK / VISOK / VELIK / SKUP

  1. ___________ knjigE. (book)
  2. ___________ momkA. (young man)
  3. ___________ automobilA. (car)
  4. ___________ nosA. (nose)
  5. ___________ zgradE. (building)
  6. ___________ kućE. (house)
  7. ___________ stoLA. (table)
  8. ___________ torbE. (bag)
  9. ___________ deteTA. (child)
  10. ___________ zrnA. (grain)
Adjectives + Plural Nouns in Genetive:

adjectives: LEP / JAK / VISOK / VELIK / SKUP

(beautiful/strong/tall/big, large/expensive)

*Try to use all the adjectives that collocate with the nouns as follows:
Example:
Plural: ...od lepih knjiga.

  1. ___________ momakA.
  2. ___________ automobilA.
  3. ___________ nosEVA.
  4. ___________ zgrada.
  5. ___________ kuća.
  6. ___________ stoLOVA.
  7. ___________ torbI.
  8. ___________ decE.
  9. ___________ zrnA.
  10. ___________ devojAkA.
The audio answer has been recorded :o)
(in case you are asked for your username, click 'log in as a guest')
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What I don't like to do when teaching Serbian grammar is to actually give the kind of exercise I just posted above - mixing up all the genders, so you cannot infer the rule (which majority of textbooks do). That's why for more elementary students, I'd group words in an exercise like the following one:

Nominative Fem. Sg. KUĆA, DEVOJKA, TORBA, KNJIGA, ZGRADA
+ Adjective: velikA kućA, velikA devojkA, velikA torbA, velikA knjigA, velikA zgradA
(so that your ears come to like this A-A concordance)
Genetive Fem. Sg: od kućE, od devojkE, od torbE, od knjigE, od zgradE
+ Adjective: od velikE kućE, od visokE devojkE, od skupE torbE, od jeftinE knjigE
(so that your ears come to like this E-E concordance)
etc. etc.
I think that so many (meaningless) suffixes like 'a' 'e' 'ih' 'og' 'u' 'om' ... can be learnt only through drill and immersion. What do you think, how many seconds/minutes would it take for you to think about all the categories (and their corresponding suffixes) involved in the following sentence in order to utter it fluently and accurately: 'Koliko lepih devojaka u ovom divnom gradu!' ?

Advanced Serbian - Srpski kao drugi jezik

Gde je ključ? Где је кључ? - Učimo srpski sa Marinom
Gde je ključ? ...
Where is the Key?-...
By Marina Petrović
Photo book