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Sunday, February 22, 2009

Verb Conjugations in Serbian

Serbian belongs to a group of (highly) flective languages, and as such its verbs have conjugations. This means that you have to pay attention to the suffixes which are added to the stem of each verb. If you have a dictionary of Serbian, you will notice that infinitive endings are -iti, -ati, -eti, or simply -ti and sometimes -ći. In order to learn the conjugations, it is wise to know that the suffixes for each person singular or plural are added to the verb stem (base verb without infinitive endings). 

The conjugation system of Serbian verbs is rather complex. There are several classes of regular verbs distinguished according to certain features the verbs within a class share. (I copied this sentence from Wikipedia, so you can follow the link to see the conjugations of the verb 'RADITI' (to work) to get the idea how it looks like in different tenses.)

As you could see, it is not only the present tense, but we need also to learn how to use the verbs in different tenses. Therefore, I made a playlist which will in time grow and help you learning Serbian verb conjugations:



Let me jot down a few examples:

infinitive: živETI
verb stem: živ

I live = ja živim
you live = ti živ
You live = Vi živite
He,she,it live = on, ona ono živi
We live = mi živimo
You live = vi živite
They live = oni, one, ona žive

The verbs belonging to the same group are as follows:
GOVORITI to talk, HVALITI to praise, UČITI to learn, MRZETI to hate, VOLETI to love, RADITI to work, ŽELETI to want, BROJATI to count, POSTOJATI to exist


The most useful website listing various forms and numerous verbs is LogosConjugator. I am sure it will help!





6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stravo, ti si dobro!!

Marina said...

Zdravo, dobro sam! hvala na pitanju :) Kako si ti?

aussielearning serbian said...

Zdravo! kako si danas? nadam se da cu da naucim srprski, ali ja sam ovdije dva sedmice... sto se radis? gdje se?

Anonymous said...

Hvala, teacher :-)

Anonymous said...

amazing post

Unknown said...

Hvala lepo Marina :) Ja zivim na Berlin i moj buduci Muz je srpski. Ja ucim srpski za njega i za nas buduci klinci. Ti si super!
Hvala, hvala, hvala!!! <3<3<3

(If I made any mistakes please let me know.)

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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