Learn Serbian

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Serbian Language Tests - Accusative Plural

Marina Accusative in Serbian , Serbian language 365

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 :)

If you flicked through Serbian School website, you probably noticed that I started adding videos and Serbian language tests made with this tool. I even started making classes at different levels, to group the tests, so feel free to join in!

Let me see if I can share some of the tests on this blog as well! This particular exercise is a follow up of a video lesson explaining which phrases to use when shopping:

želeti = to want to
kupiti = to buy
videti = to see
želim da kupim = I want to buy
želim da vidim = I want to see

Kupiti/videti is followed by the Accusative (čaša - želim da vidim čašu), but in this exercise we practise asking general questions with the Plural noun form, in the Accusative. That's why the idea behind this exercise is for you to turn : I + want + buy + a glass into I want to buy glassES or in Serbian: JA + ŽELETI + KUPITI + ČAŠA into ŽELIM DA KUPIM ČAŠE

Sooooooo, let's give it a try! How well did you do it?

Serbian for Beginners - Let's Conjugate Together

Marina Accusative in Serbian , free Serbian lessons

Video with Verb Conjugations

This video is made for you to practise conjugating Serbian verbs in the Simple Present tense. For more advanced students, this video lesson can be also used for making sentences in the past or future tense or in the conditionals.

imati = to have
videti = to see
voleti = to like

together with nouns which denote:

places
plants and animals
colours
entertainment

Conjugations

Learn Serbian Really Quickly

Marina exercises in Serbian , Serbian for beginners

This is another fun exercise for real beginners in Serbian. I am sure it won't be difficult for you to figure out which words are missing :) Have fun!

For some help check out the previous posts with some grammar explanations for beginners in Serbian.

Active and Passive Voice in Serbian

Marina Listening comprehension , listening comprehension skills

Listen to this interesting story about Filip Vukša, a modest Belgrade hero, and try to do the following exercises dedicated to the verb forms in active and passive voice in Serbian.

a. Exercise 1 - filling in the gaps with the appropriate verb form in active voice.
b. Exercise 2 - turning the verbs which were in the active voice from into passive voice.

For some more exercises about the passive voice verb forms (trpni glagolski pridevi), here come two drills:
a. Lakša vežba
b. Teža vežba

Jesam or Sam in Serbian?

Marina how to learn Serbian , Learn Serbian online

After uploading a hundred of videos both from Serbian 101 and Serbian 102 course, and revising each of them, Ivan decided to help me with his 3D effects vidos. So far he's made 30 short videos with the verbs used in the course, in the present and past tense so far, but he plans to make 5 more each day.

I'll post some of them here on the blog, but for the complete version, refer to the Serbian101-102 course. Here comes its short description:

Serbian 101 &102 is perfect for absolute and false beginners in Serbian. It is organized in such a way that you can either follow it chronologically, or choose only the topics you are interested in. Each topic consists of an explanatory video lesson and then video exercises with links to follow-up quizzes with instant feedback.

There are more than 100 lessons making well over 10 hours of video lessons and exercises which take you from the very start to the pre-intermediate level, covering:

Tenses: Present Simple and Past Simple Tense
Cases: Nominative, Accusative, Instrumental and Locative
Modals: Can, Must
Pronouns: Personal and Possessive Pronouns
Adjectives: Possessive Adjectives and Noun-adjective Agreement
Numbers: Cardinal and Ordinal

as well as basic:

functions such as:
- Greetings
- Introductions
- Asking for Clarification/Explanation
- Asking about Directions
- Giving Directions
- Requesting
- Offering
- Expressing Likes and Dislikes
- Asking about Likes and Dislikes
situations such as:
- - Meeting People
  - Small Talk
  - In a Restaurant
  - Shopping
  - Arranging a Meeting
  - Talking about Family
  - Talking about Routines
  - Talking about your Life
vocabulary topics such as:
- Family members
- Numbers
- Food
- Souvenirs
- Places in a city
- Countries and Cities
- Means of transport
- Colours
- Jobs and occupations

Shift = Smena

Marina Serbian language 365 , serbian songs

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 Help Serbia?

Marina floods in Serbia , Serbian language 365

How to spread the word about floods in Serbia?

How to help Serbia?

Thank you!
Hvala!

Large Numbers in Serbian

Marina free video lessons of Serbian , Serbian for beginners

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:

Serbian Fun Expressions and Idioms

Marina Advanced Serbian , reading comprehension

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?

Right, now there are three tasks for you:

The easiest task: Can you find the synonyms for these words in the text:

drago
aludirao
apsolutno
pravi
narednog
jako
blesav
totalno
puta
shvatio
sasvim
samo

2. The more difficult task: which phrases and idioms mean:

down in the dumps/ in the doldrums
fight like a wolf
to be absolutely certain about something
keep asking for something
get a raise
take an advantage of something
to deck oneself in borrowed finery
to get the worst of a bargain/ to come away empty-handed

3. The most difficult task: what will Spomenka say to him when he arrives back home? Try to come up with a suitable idiom or expression. Let me help you with a few ideas, and you try to guess which ones are the most appropriate:

ko drugome jamu kopa sam u nju upada
svako nosi svoj krst
nema ti ravna
prvo skoči pa reci hop
nije zlato sve što sija
ko rano rani dve sreće grabi
doterao je cara do duvara
poklonu se u zube ne gleda

Easter in Serbian

Marina Easter , Happy Easter in Serbian

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)

Advanced Serbian Lessons with Državni Posao

Marina Advanced Serbian , Listening comprehension

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

Task 2: Even if you don't understand each and every word, can you understand what the problem is?

Task 3: After watching the first part (0:20 - 1:30 - I added the subtitles to make things easier), try to answer the following questions:

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?

Serbian for Kids - Šuma blista, šuma peva

Marina Serbian for children , Serbian for kids

Additional slides on this topic in the Serbian Cyrillic script:

Suma from Gordana Janevska

New Serbian Lesson - HAPPY in Novi Sad

Marina Serbian language 365 , speaking drills in Serbian

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....

The verbs you can use are as follows:

igrati/ plesati u/na + Loc = to dance (deca igraju na ulici)
nalaziti se + Loc= there is/are (oni se nalaze u parku)
prepoznati + Acc = to recognize (prepoznajem Frušku goru)
biti u/na + Loc = to be (bio/bila sam na ovom mestu)
videti + Acc = to see (vidim or video/videla sam tvrđavu)

The idea is not to stop the video while making these short sentences :)

Exercise with Instrumental Case in Serbian

Marina comprehension exercises , exercises in Serbian

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:

PUTOVATI - to travel

NA MORE - to the seaside

U ZAVISNOSTI OD - depending on

ODREDIŠTE - destination

IĆI - to go

A - and/but

NAJVIŠE VOLETI - to love most of all

ZATO ŠTO - because

ZAUSTAVITI SE - to stop

ZAŽELETI - to wish

SVE VREME - all the time

SVAĐATI SE - to argue

MENI - to me

MOM SUPRUGU - to my husband

POŠTO - because

MIRAN - peaceful

TRAJATI - to last

DUGO - long

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

Learning Montenegrin?

Marina listening comprehension skills , Montenegrin language

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

Serbian Phrases through Songs

Marina Listening comprehension , reading comprehension

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 ...

Let's learn them while singing this oldie song by Oliver Mandić:

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Wednesday, November 12, 2014

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Video with Verb Conjugations

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