Learn Serbian

Learning Serbian with exercises, video lessons and online courses

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Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Les mots serbes d'origine française



Following on the English (international + loan words) presentation , here is another presentation of Serbian words, which look or sound similar to their French counterparts.
For the non-French speaking lot out there:
Lavabo - Washbasin
Formulari - Forms
Biblioteka - Library
the rest - you should be able to guess!

Bien sur! Il y a beaucoup de mots français qu'on peut trouver dans la langue serbe. Voici quelques exemples…


International & Loan Words - 'reči stranog porekla'

If you find learning a new language daunting... lost for words.... then don't despair... There are many international & loan words in most languages and Serbian is no exception either.

For the complete Serbian language novices such as myself, it is really nice to encounter "friendly words". To give you a flavour I have included a link to a presentation. Guess what they are!!

There are many more out there!

Nat

Friday, March 27, 2009

Adjectives and nouns in Serbian

In order to make a correct sentence in Serbian, it is wise to learn nouns according to their grammatical gender. There is a thorough explanation of the nouns and adjectives in Serbian on Unilang site in Lesson 2 and Lesson 3 . Since it is useless to learn adjective suffixes in sets which are different depending whether the noun is:
a. in Singular or Plural
b. Masculine/Feminine/Neuter
c. in different cases

I advise you to learn them in the context and practise one group at a time.

Therefore, I will start with a series of simple formulas with exercises. Feel free to ask questions or post the answers in the comment or to my email under the profile.

Here is a kind of formula for Singurlar + Nominative combination of an ADJECTIVE + NOUN:

Singular & Nominative

1. Adjective + Masculine Noun = zanimljiv tekst (interesting text)
2. AdectiveA + Feminine Noun = zanimljivA knjiga (interesting book)
3. AdjectiveO + Neuter Noun = zanimljivO selo (interesting village)

Exercise: add an adjective with the appropriate ending in front of the following nouns:

adjectives: LEP / JAK / VISOK / VELIK / SKUP

  1. ___________ knjiga.
  2. ___________ momak.
  3. ___________ auto.
  4. ___________ kosa.
  5. ___________ zgrada.
  6. ___________ kuća.
  7. ___________ sto.
  8. ___________ torba.
  9. ___________ dete.
  10. ___________ zrno.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Weather conditions in Serbian

Kakvo je vreme = what is the weather like?

Vreme je lepo /užasno (ružno) = The weather is nice /terrible(nasty)
Kišovito = rainy
Vetrovito = windy
Hladno = cold
Toplo = warm
Maglovito = foggy
Oblačno = cloudy
Sunčano = sunny
Olujno = stormy
Kontinentalna klima = continental climate
Blaga klima = mild climate
Umerena klima = moderate climate
Vremenska prognoza = weather forecast
Kiša će! = it is going to rain!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Present Tense in Serbian - questions and negative forms

Prezent u potvrdnom, upitnom i odričnom obliku

a. one example is with a transitive/intransitive verb, while the
b. example is with the 'se' verb (see the explanation in this post)

affirmative
(I sing every day) > Ja pevam svaki dan

(I comb (myself) ) > Ja se češljam

interrogative
(do you sing every day?) > Da li pevaš svaki dan?
(What do you sing every day?) > Šta pevaš svaki dan?
(Do you comb (myself) ) > Da li se (ja) češljam ?
(Who combs (themselves)? ) > Ko se češlja?


negative
(I don't sing every day) >Ja ne pevam svaki dan OR Ne pevam svaki dan.
(I don't comb (myself)) > Ja se ne češljam. = Ne češljam se.

******** EXERCISE******** mark the sentences as C *correct or I*incorrect :

  1. Ja se igram.
  2. Mi pevam.
  3. Da li se ja umivamo?
  4. Ne doručkujemo u 8.
  5. Ti pereš.
  6. Ja idem u Beograd.
  7. Zovem Mario.
  8. Kupam se svaki dan.
  9. Gde ste se upoznali?
  10. Imam čas svaki dan.

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
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