Learn Serbian

Learning Serbian with exercises, video lessons and online courses

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Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Free Serbian Language Course

If you have followed my blog posts this summer, you have noticed fun photos with short dialogues. These mini lessons grew into the first course, which can help you learn Serbian greetings. It is at the beginner level, so that is why I named it Super Easy Serbian - Greetings A1!

It took me quite a while to create it, as I flicked through thousands of photos, downloaded them and then put everything together. I have had problems with my low quality headset, because of which I had to heavily edit the videos. I hope to get a new cam in October and continue making such courses much faster. My plan is always to offer you three versions of the course:

In order to access the course, you can simply click here to see it online, or download it:



It is visible online, fully accessible from any device and you can play the videos while flicking through it. If you prefer a PDF file, you can download it here, but when you want to watch the video, when you click play, the video will open in the new window, so you will have to restart the PDF file again.

Although there is the list to the additional exercises, which are made for this course, I'll list them below:

Greetings Practice
  1. Flashcards - link
  2. Learn- link
  3. MicroMatch- link
  4. Gravity- link
  5. Test- link




Friday, September 08, 2017

Advanced Serbian - Detecting Synonyms

For all of you who are advanced learners of Serbian, here comes a challenging exercise based on this lovely song:


The idea is for you to listen to this song and in each part of the song to detect 3 words which are synonyms with the words written in the capital letters above that part. Srećno!

KAFANA - NEDAVNO - NEOBIČAN
Znate l' priču o Vasi Ladačkom
i ja sam je tek onomad čuo
jednom devet dana nije izlazio iz birtije
kažu da je bio čudna sorta
BOLESTAN - SELJAK - MAJKA
Otac mu je bio sitni paor
'ranio je sedam gladnih usti
mati mu je bila plava
tiha, nežna, jektičava
umrla je s trideset i nešto
STO - NEKOLIKO - UVEK
Imali su par jutara zemlje
malu kuću na kraju sokaka
na astalu navek hleba
taman tol'ko kol'ko treba
al' je Vasa hteo mnogo više
KOČIJE - CRNI - BOGAT
Želeo je konje vrane, po livadi razigrane
sat sa zlatnim lancem i salaše
želeo je njive plodne, vinograde blagorodne
u karuce pregnute čilaše
ali nije mog'o da ih ima


OŽENIO - VOLIŠ - SIROMAŠAN
Voleo je lepu, al' sirotu
uz'o bi je samo da je znao
voles jednom u životu
sad bogatu il' sirotu
to ne bira pamet nego srce
PRESTATI - BOGATA DEVOJKA - ZA STALNO
Sve se nad'o da će ljubav proći
zanavek je otiš'o iz sela
nikad nije pis'o nikom
venč'o se sa mirazdžikom
jedinicom, kćerkom nekog gazde
KONJI SIVE DLAKE - RAZDRAGAN - DŽEPNI SAT
Dobio je konje vrane, po livadi razigrane
sat sa zlatnim lancem i salaše
dobio je njive plodne, vinograde blagorodne
u karuce pregnute čilaše
sve je im'o - ništa im'o nije


LJUDI KOJI PROVODE VREME U KAFANI - VRAG -  POČETI PITI
Propio se, nije prošlo mnogo
dušu svoju đavolu je prod'o
znali su ga svi birtaši
tražio je spas u čaši
ali nije mog'o da ga nađe


INFARKT - PALA - NA SREDINI

Mlad je, kažu, bio kad je umro
'sred birtije od srčane kapi
klonula mu samo glava
ko da drema, ko da spava
i još pamte šta je zadnje rek'o
KOČIJA - BOGAT - BESPOTREBNO

Džaba bilo konja vranih, po livadi razigranih
džaba bilo sata i salaša
džaba bilo njiva plodnih, vinograda blagorodnih
džaba bilo karuca, ćilasa
kada nisam s onom koju volem
kada nisam s onom koju volem






Thursday, September 07, 2017

Serbian Pronunciation - Č vs. Ć

I guess this is something you have been waiting for: Č vs. Ć. In this video you'll be able to:
  • Hear these two sounds pronounced in many different examples
  • Understand how to pronounce them and where your tongue should be in order to hear the difference
  • Hear the minimal number of minimal pairs (really, there are just a few examples where mispronunciation will cause the difference in meaning)

If you want to practice your pronunciation in the same way I do and get my feedback, you are welcome to join my Patreon supporters!

To access the complete PPT with the video, check this out:







Monday, September 04, 2017

Imperative of Give in Serbian

Today, our topic is practising asking for food both in formal and informal way in Serbian.

  • DAJ MI = give me (informally)
  • DAJTE MI = give me (formally)
  • MOLIM TE = please  (informally)
  • MOLIM VAS = please (formally)



If you are not sure why the words for food mentioned in the exercise change, check the previous posts about the Accusative case!

Exercise with the Imperative of Give in Serbian

Let's learn together:

Let's play together:

If you want to practice in the same way I do and get my feedback, you are welcome to join Patreon supporters!


Saturday, August 12, 2017

How to Practice Speaking Serbian?

If you'd like to practice speaking Serbian and you don't have a clue how, the best way is to do the following:

  1. Pick any of the video lessons I created on my Youtube channel SerbianLessons. For example this one: adjectives in Serbian  
  2. After listening and repeating after me (for as many times as you wish), play the video again, but mute it
  3. Turn on the www.Vocaroo.com / or any other voice recording platform/service and record yourself speaking while watching the muted video
  4. Save your Vocaroo (click Save, and you'll see a shareable link below - don't share it with the world, but simply send it to me to check it out and give you the video feedback - this can be arranged while I still have time)

Speaking Exercise Video - Informal Greetings




With this video the idea is to read the dialogue and fill in the gaps yourself, until the end where you have to remember everything on your own :) The version with the explanation and slow pronunciation is coming tomorrow!

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Learning Cyrillic with Greetings in Serbian


While I am working on my new series of courses, let me share with you some beautiful photos with short dialogues written both in the Serbian Cyrillic and Latin script. Based on the photo below, can you tell me what is missing in the gaps in the first photo?


Useful vocabulary:

  1. to bi bilo - that would be
  2. sve - all
  3. laku noć - good night
  4. hvala - thanks
  5. poseta - visit
  6. hvala na poseti - thanks for the visit
  7. hvala što ste nas posetili - thanks for visiting us
For the pronunciation of some words, check out this video:


Tuesday, July 04, 2017

Modal Verbs in Serbian - Can 2

In the one of the previous lessons we practiced the verb CAN in the Present Tense in Serbian. Let's revise it once again:
When you practised the verb MOĆI long enough, you are ready to solve the following mystery:

Which words are missing?

p.s. The response you can see here is from the famous song by Zdravko Čolić. If you like the song, let's learn how to sing it together :)

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Adjectives in Serbian - Part 6

While I am working on my new series of Serbian language courses, I prepared for you a video lesson with a bunch of adjectives, with the verb TO BE and forming simple sentences such as:
  1. DA LI SI LEP/LEPA? - Are you beautiful?
  2. DA LI JE ON UPLAŠEN? - Are you scared?
  3. DA LI STE ZDRAVI? - Are you healthy?
  4. DA LI JE TVOJ SIN GLADAN? - Is your son hungry?
  5. DA LI JE TVOJA ĆERKA GLADNA? - Is your daughter hungry?
  6. DA LI SU TVOJE ĆERKE GLADNE? -Are your daughters hungry?
  7. DA LI SU TVOJI SINOVI GLADNI? - Are your sons hungry?
  8. DA LI JE TVOJ AUTO STAR? - Is your car old?
  9. DA LI JE HLEB JEFTIN? - Is bread cheap?
  10. DA LI SU PSI STARI? - Are the dogs old?



Although I didn't write down my short answers, pay attention to them :)

JESAM - NISAM
JESI - NISI
JESTE -NIJE

JESMO -NISMO
JESTE - NISTE
JESU - NISU

For all of you who told me you LOOOOOVE my new cartoons, here's one covering this topic:

Your task is to figure out which word is missing?

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Serbian Greetings Challenge

Maybe you have noticed that I started creating a series of different video lessons recently. They are going to make up a completely new course, which is based on all your wishes and needs you've been sharing with me since January.


The idea behind the course is for you to:
  • learn the vocabulary sets first 
  • try to guess what's missing in the series of fun and colourful comics with captions in Serbian Cyrillic, Latin script and English.
  • do lots of fun exercises based on the dialogues and texts
  • become proactive by sending me your short texts, dialogues and voice recordings to get my feedback. 
Hope you like my first video lesson. Before to listening to me, mute the audio first and try to guess which words are missing :) Have fun!









Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Why not Having Fun Learning Serbian Verbs?

Monday, June 19, 2017

Verb Conjugations in Serbian - Present Tense of Go

Present Tense of to Go



Here comes a short lesson with the verb IĆI = TO GO to in the Simple Present tense. The conjugations are as follows:

  1. Ja idem - ti ideš - on/ona/ono ide ///// mi idemo - vi idete - oni / one  / ona idu

Common Serbian Phrases with this Verb


How can you use the verb IĆI to create the most common phrases:

  1. Gde ideš? = Where are you going?
  2. Kada ideš u školu? = When are you going to school?
  3. Gde ideš u kupovinu/prodavnicu? = Where are you going shopping?
  4. Zašto ideš na posao tako kasno? = Why are you going to work so late?
  5. Gde ideš na odmor svake godine? = Where do you go on holiday every year?
  6. Kad idete na odmor? = When are you going on holiday?
  7. Ko ide u školu? = Who is going to school?
  8. Ko ide sa mnom? = Who is going with me?
  9. Ko ide ka Beogradu? = Who is going to (towards) Belgrade?
  10. Kada ideš u Beograd sa mamom? = When are you going to Belgrade with me?
As you can see, this is a tricky verb, because it can be followed by nouns in different cases. The most common are:

1. Accusative with the preposition "u / na" = in or to, as in GO TO

examples:
a. Idem na posao.
b. Idemo u školu u 8 ujutro.
c. Idemo na odmor  u avgustu.
d. Svake godine idem na odmor u Grčku.
e. Sutra idem u Beograd sa tobom.
f. Idem ( u Beograd) sa mamom u petak. 
g. Deca idu u školu.

2. Instrumental with the preposition "sa" =with, as in GO with a friend

examples:
h. Baka ide sa mnom.
i. Idem ( u Beograd) sa mamom u petak. 
j. Zato što idem biciklom.

3. Less frequently it will be followed by the Dative, with the preposition "ka / prema" = towards, as in GO TOWARDS.

examples:
k. Mi idemo ka Beogradu. Možete li da nas povedete?


Your task

Try to match the questions 1 to 10 with the answers a to k. and record them with www.Vocaroo.com. You can send them to me and get your replies via Patreon.

Thursday, June 15, 2017

Daily Routines in Serbian



Daily Routines in Serbian

1. PRATI RUKE = to wash hands
2. PRATI SUDOVE = to wash the dishes
3. SPAVATI = to sleep
4. UČITI = to learn
5. DRUŽITE SE = to hang out (with friends)
6. DORUČKOVATI = to have breakfast
7. RUČATI = to have lunch
8. VEČERATI = to have dinner
9. PITI VODU = to drink water

For the video lesson, check out my Patreon blog. Thanks for learning with my lessons :D HVALA! .

Let's Practice DAily Routines with Quizlet





Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Serbian Adjective HAPPY - Part 5

Serbian Adjective HAPPY

In the previous lessons about the adjectives in Nominative, we learnt the forms of the adjective HAPPY just for Sg. Masc and Feminine. Here comes the list with all the forms:

Masc. Sg. SREĆAN
Fem. Sg. SREĆNA
Neut. Sg. SREĆNO

Masc. Pl. SREĆNI
Fem. Pl. SREĆNE
Neut. Pl. SREĆNA

Let's expand our short sentences into longer ones, by combining it with the reason - why someone is happy:


Conjugation of the Verb to Go to

In order to figure out how to make the previous sentences, take a look at the conjugations of the verb TO GO = ići:


The full video with the slow pronunciation and explanation and exercises will be posted for my Patreons. Many thanks for supporting these short n fun video lessons - Hvala!

Monday, June 12, 2017

Where is Marko Now - Serbian Locative 3

In our fun Serbian comics we can learn where people are, or where they were in the past. Today we are using the same case, the Locative case to express where we are in a house and after that we can also say what we are doing in the house.




Instead of a comic, I recorded a video for you, so you can practice saying simple sentences:


  • Ovo je HODNIK. Ovo je Marko. Marko je u hodnikU. On ne radi ništa u hodniku.
  • Ovo je KUHINJA. Ovo je Marko. Marko je u kuhinjI. On pravi doručak u kuhinji.
Can you listen to the rest of the story and make similar sentences for:

  1. KUPATILO
  2. TRPEZARIJA
  3. SPAVAĆA SOBA
  4. RADNA SOBA
  5. TERASA
  6. TAVAN
  7. DNEVNA SOBA

Singular Nouns in Locative in Serbian

Before thinking about the grammar, try to hear how I am using these words with the prepositon U or NA. If you are not sure, here comes a bit of advice:

Sg. Masc >>> add -U (u hodniku, u Londonu, u muzeju)
Sg. Fem >>> add - I (u kuhinji, u Moskvi, u galeriji)

Exercises and Practice


For more exercises with the activities and the locative case, check out my Patreon blog!

Friday, June 09, 2017

Common Phrases in Serbian - Destinacija broj jedan

Today we are learning two simple phrases in Serbian:


For the pronunciation and additional exercises, check out my Patreon blog :)

Thursday, June 08, 2017

Listening Comprehension - Advanced Serbian, Numbers

Let's listen to this short piece of news and jot down the numbers you hear!







Many thanks to Kratke vesti portal for sharing the news on a regular basis!

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