It is a good idea to use at least two Serbian phrases from the very first lesson:

• Šta znači? = What does ... mean?
• Molim? = Pardon?

Why Step by Step Serbian?

Having made hundreds of quizzes and exercises in Serbian, I thought of posting them here on this blog on a daily basis, starting from the easiest ones. This will make it easier for you to learn regularly and have some kind of continuity.

How Step by Step Serbian?

First, you can read more about these two alphabets in the previous posts:

• Listening and seeing both alphabets, published back in 2008 :)
• Super easy guide to Serbian Cyrillic Script, from 2009
• Switching from the Latin alphabet to the Cyrillic script and back, dated 2010

Biti in Serbian

The verb "TO BE" in Serbian is something you should learn at the very beginning, because you'll need it not to express the most essential facts about yourself, but also because it is used as an auxiliary verb in the Simple Past tense.

That's why this post dedicated to the different conjugations, i.e. forms, of the verb to be can be useful both for the beginners and more advanced students.

A few short videos and exercises with the verb Biti in Serbian

While watching this video say "This is a... These are ...s" using these structures:

• Ovo je ... (+ nominative Sg)

Exercise 2:

• Ovo su ...(+ nominative Pl) 
• Ovo je...(+ nominative Sg)

Using these full forms of the verb TO BE, give the positive and negative answers with 

the full form of the verb to be:

Links to the previous posts about the verb Biti in Serbian

There are so many different online tools for making tests, quizzes and fun video exercises and I think you noticed I like experimenting with them while creating various tasks for learning Serbian. Funnily enough, it takes time for some tools to develop and in the meantime, I completely forget about them. One of these is certainly Quizlet, which I joined three years ago, but haven't realized its potential until recently, thanks to my student, Paul! Hvala, Pavle :)

Here comes an ancient song called "Za treću smenu" = "For (people working) night/third shift" by Djordje Balašević. I want to share it with you here because this version is easy to follow, especially with the lyrics in the proper Latin script (not the "ošišana verzija", which is commonly found on Youtube - guess not many people heard of this lovely SlovoMajstor remedy).

How to spread the word about floods in Serbia?

How to help Serbia?

• Mondo.rs Portal in Serbian
• HelpSerba portal in English

Thank you!
Hvala!

If you are familiar with numbers in Serbian, here comes a new lesson from Serbian 102 course which is a bit more complicated. It is about how to pronounce large numbers.

If this simple exercise is too easy, watch this video survey about the year of the Battle of Kosovo and jot down all the numbers you hear:

In one of my more advanced Serbian lessons there came up a few expressions which I wanted to share with you today. I will copy-paste a part of the text about Jeremija, with whom you can learn Serbian from the very start.  I'll list the tasks below this short excerpt:

Jeremija je bio veoma srećan tog jutra, jer je bio potpuno siguran da će dobiti povišicu na poslu. Njegov šef je u nekoliko navrata natuknuo Jeremiji da će od sledećeg meseca omastiti brk, kao i da je to potpuno zaslužio. Jeremija se pravio lud i uspešno se uzdržavao da ne vuče šefa za rukav i postavlja dodatna pitanja. Bio je svestan da sve što bude dobio jeste rezultat njegovog sopstvenog rada i da nije jednostavno palo s neba. Posebno mu je bilo milo što ovaj put nije morao da se kiti tuđim perjem. Njegova zasluga je bila očigledna. Kada je tog jutra stigao na posao i otvorio svoju kancelariju, imao je šta da vidi. Na stolu je stajao potpuno nov kompjuter i pored njega još noviji mobilni, a šef je sav sijao od sreće! "Šta sam ti rekao? Borio sam za tebe kao vučica... i izborio sam se! Najnoviji model? Hm? Šta kažeš?" Jeremija nije morao da se pretvara - na njegovom licu se videlo da su mu sve lađe potonule... Bio je 100% siguran da će dobiti veću platu, a sada mu je postalo jasno da je ostao kratkih rukava! Šta će mu sada Spomenka reći?

Happy Easter to all the followers of LearnSerbianBlog.com who are celebrating Uskrs today. Let me share with you the links to the useful info, songs and pronunciation of the greetings for Serbian Easter:

• Pronunciation of the Easter greeting in Serbian
• Easter Morning song
• Video about Easter
• This song dedicated to Uskrs (if it's invisible, try to switch to Firefox browser)

Very popular "Državni posao" series are perfect for highly advanced Serbian lessons. One can learn a lot of common Serbian phrases and expressions.  The fun part is to detect mistakes made by famous Đorđe Čvarkov, Dragan Torbica and Boškić (e.g. "lapsitops" instead of "laptop" or "Jututu" instead of "Jutjub").

Let's watch just the first three minutes and try to do the following tasks:

Task 1: Tick the phrases you hear

• Do juče se nisam brinuo
• To je samo fol
• Digneš narod na noge 
• Prazne duše
• Bez i zrna energije, bez i zrna poleta
• I ne bi se digli
• Pogledajte šta nam rade
• Za mnogo manje sitnice
• Nikom ništa
• Mož' misliti
• Čime se ti baviš
• Ukinuli seriju
• To je neka mutna radnja
• Ako nisu umešali prste 
• Imao (seriju) pa nemao
• Nije to bilo koja serija
• Neko će odgovarati
• Nema milosti

a. Da li je Dragan Torbica mislio da je ukidanje serije istina ili ne?
b. Da li Đorđe Čvarkov misli da je narod u depresiji, ili pun energije?
c. Koje reči je Boškić čuo kada je ušao u kancelariju?
d. Na koje tekuće probleme je Boškić mislio kada je pričao o "dizanju naroda"?
e. Ko se čudi Boškiću?
f. Ko objašnjava u čemu je problem i kojim rečima?

Additional slides on this topic in the Serbian Cyrillic script:

If you have been in Novi Sad, I am sure you  will enjoy doing this fun speaking/writing exercise which can be done along with  Pharrell Williams'  Happy [WE ARE FROM NOVI SAD] version:



You can make simple sentences when you recognize the places where the people are:

• Ovo je autobus. On igra u autobusu.
• Ovo je trg. On igra na trgu. 
• Ovo je kej. Oni igraju na keju....

If you enjoy learning Serbian with easy texts, here comes a very simple one, which is actually a part of Serbian 102 course:



Vocabulary you might need:

Here comes the same text, but in the Cyrillic script:

Regardless of the fact that if you learn Serbian, you will be able easily understand Croatian, Bosnian and recently Montenegrin, (so called BCS language) spoken in the region of ex Yugoslavia, I'm sure you'll appreciate to hear the different accents. Today, I chose this interesting story from a Montenegrin news Youtube channel about a musician physicist :) and transcribed it into Montenegrin/Serbian:



The follow-up exercise for this video can be received via Advanced Activator

If you're learning Serbian, you'll surely need these commonly used phrases (on a daily basis LOL):

• Ostaviti (nekoga) na miru = Leave (someone) alone (e.g. ostavi me na miru! = leave me alone)
• Poludeću = I'll go crazy
• Učiniću sve da + present tense = I'll do everything to...
• Možda i grešim = maybe I'm mistaken
• Samo nebo zna koliko + phrase = (only) heaven knows how much ...

While making a short video exercise based on one of our previous lessons I also came across this short video which can teach you a variety of common collocations connected with tourism and hospitality. Let's listen to the video and try to jot them down.


In case it's too fast, do watch my subtitles in Serbian, which will be integrated in the videos on this blog from now on :)

You may remember some of the funny Kefalica videos from my past posts. This time, the video is about "Kafana", which is combined with very nice story about what a pop singer wanted to become when she was a little girl. I added subtitles under her story in this video:

Finally a great Youtube channel dedicated to teaching you both the Serbian language and customs :)


Besides English subtitles, you can also choose French, Italian, Russian, German and Spanish!!!

Please do support Naša Snajka by sharing her videos  and liking her FB page with anyone interested in learning Serbian :)
Hvala, Martina!
*****
Edit: Here is the same video with the Serbian subtitles:

One of the ways to express that you "use" something or something is "useful" in Serbian is to learn all the speech parts of the verb #koristiti, which is connected with our previous post with Present Simple conjugations.

Čovjeku koji je intelektualno viši od drugih, samoća pruža dvogubu korist; prvu, što je sam, i drugu, što nije s drugima :)))) 

Here are a few interesting common phrases and idioms with koristiti & korist:

• Gde se dvojica svađaju, treći se koristi (verb=glagol) = two dogs strive for a bone, and a third runs away with it (similar to "zavadi pa vladaj" = divide and rule, which is more often used)
• Izvući korist iz nečega =  to turn sometning to good account (Moj prijatelj iz svake situacije izvuče korist )
• Raditi u korist nečega =in favour of someone, to someone's benefit/advantage (Sud je doneo presudu u našu korist) 

If you need to practise writing Serbian Cyrillic script, it's a good idea to either


read these beautiful poems by Mika Antić...

...and type down while reading...

or simply click pause and write it in your diary :)

If you want a more difficult practice, simply listen Mika and jot down what he's saying :)