Present and Past Tense Conjugation in Serbian - Gap Filling Exercise (with instant feedback)
Place today beside yesterday
Present tense uses personal endings: radim, radiš, rade. Past tense combines sam/si/je/smo/ste/su with a gendered participle: radio sam, radila sam.
A time marker helps, but agreement still matters. Juče does not choose between radio and radila; the speaker does.
Five verbs cross the time line
| Latinica | Ћирилица | English |
|---|---|---|
| Danas kuvam supu, a juče sam pekla hleb. | Данас кувам супу, а јуче сам пекла хлеб. | Today I am making soup, and yesterday I baked bread. |
| Svako jutro trči, ali prošle nedelje je odmarao. | Свако јутро трчи, али прошле недеље је одмарао. | He runs every morning, but last week he rested. |
| Sada gledamo utakmicu koju smo juče snimili. | Сада гледамо утакмицу коју смо јуче снимили. | We are now watching the match that we recorded yesterday. |
| Deca danas crtaju kuću; sinoć su crtala brod. | Деца данас цртају кућу; синоћ су цртала брод. | The children are drawing a house today; last night they drew a boat. |
| Trenutno pada kiša, a jutros je sijalo sunce. | Тренутно пада киша, а јутрос је сијало сунце. | It is raining now, but the sun shone this morning. |
Move the time word first
Draw two columns, danas and juče. Move each action between them and repair both the verb form and gender or number agreement.
- Change to past, female: Danas radim.
- Change to present: Juče smo učili.
- Complete: One su ______. (pevati)
- Write gledamo in Cyrillic.
- Translate: He arrived yesterday.
Two tenses return to order
- Juče sam radila.
- Danas učimo.
- pevale
- гледамо
- Juče je stigao. / Јуче је стигао.
Tell one true pair about today and yesterday; tense becomes clearer when the contrast belongs to your life.
Marina Petrović