Practise Serbian personal pronouns across cases by replacing familiar nouns with their full and short pronoun forms.

How to Practice Personal Pronouns through Cases

If you are familiar with the personal pronouns in Serbian in the nominative case, it is time to practise their different forms through various cases.

The clever way is to approach these more complicated forms through the texts you've done before, using the pronouns instead of nouns. For example:



If we turn all the nouns into the corresponding pronouns, we would get a fun story:

Now I have two questions:
  1. What does each pronoun in bold refer to?
  2. What changes does the word order cause?


However, the easiest way is to learn pronouns is through songs and exercises:

Since the courses Serbian 101 and Serbian 102 deal with the following cases:
  • Nominative (JA - TI/VI - ON - ONA - ON // MI - VI - ONI)
  • Accusative 
in Serbian 102 I introduced the pronouns in the Accusative: 


In Serbian 201 I introduce the pronouns in the Locative and Instrumental case:



and we will practice them together in the next post!


Replacing nouns with pronouns, case by case

Choose a pronoun according to its function, not only according to the person it represents. Nominative forms are subjects; accusative forms commonly mark direct objects; dative forms mark recipients and experiencers; genitive forms appear after many prepositions. Short forms such as ga, je, mu and joj are unstressed clitics and usually appear near the beginning of a clause, while full forms add contrast or follow prepositions.

The clearest way to learn pronouns is to see them replacing a noun you already understand. Marko dolazi → On dolazi. Vidim Anu → Vidim je. Dajem Petru knjigu → Dajem mu knjigu. Each pair shows the same sentence twice, and the pronoun takes exactly the case the noun had.

Noun-to-pronoun pairs, in both scripts

Latin scriptCyrillic scriptEnglish
Marko dolazi. On dolazi.Марко долази. Он долази.Marko is coming. He is coming.
Vidim Anu. Vidim je.Видим Ану. Видим је.I see Ana. I see her.
Dajem Petru knjigu. Dajem mu knjigu.Дајем Петру књигу. Дајем му књигу.I am giving Petar a book. I am giving him a book.
Razgovaram sa Milicom. Razgovaram sa njom.Разговарам са Милицом. Разговарам са њом.I am talking with Milica. I am talking with her.
Ovo je poklon za decu. Ovo je poklon za njih.Ово је поклон за децу. Ово је поклон за њих.This is a present for the children. This is a present for them.

Work through the pairs slowly and name the case each time — nominative, accusative, dative. The Cyrillic column helps because the pronouns are short words that your eye tends to skip in a familiar alphabet; in Cyrillic you are forced to read је and му deliberately.

Making your own pairs

Write five sentences with a person's name in them, then rewrite each one replacing the name with the right pronoun. Say both versions aloud, one after the other. Building the pair yourself, rather than reading someone else's, is what makes the case ending stick.

Pronoun replacement exercise

Translate these sentences into Serbian in Latin and Cyrillic, then rewrite each one replacing the noun with a pronoun.

  1. Marko is coming. He is coming.
  2. I see Ana. I see her.
  3. I am giving Petar a book. I am giving him a book.
  4. I am talking with Milica. I am talking with her.
  5. This is a present for the children. This is a present for them.

Answers

  1. Marko dolazi. On dolazi.
    Марко долази. Он долази.
  2. Vidim Anu. Vidim je.
    Видим Ану. Видим је.
  3. Dajem Petru knjigu. Dajem mu knjigu.
    Дајем Петру књигу. Дајем му књигу.
  4. Razgovaram sa Milicom. Razgovaram sa njom.
    Разговарам са Милицом. Разговарам са њом.
  5. Ovo je poklon za decu. Ovo je poklon za njih.
    Ово је поклон за децу. Ово је поклон за њих.