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Learning Serbian with exercises, video lessons and online courses

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Sunday, August 04, 2013

Serbian Idioms with "Videti"

I'm sure you've thoroughly practised the verb "videti" with the video lesson with gadgets and appliances and the "conjugator video". Now it's time to learn to recognize different parts of speech with this verb through the list of common phrases and idioms in Serbian :

Verb form: VIDETI
  • Ooo, koga to vidim ! = expressing surprise when you see someone (As I leve and breathe!; Well, what do you know; Lo and behold)
  • Imaš šta da vidiš! = something worth seeing ( A sight for sore eyes, Something to look at; A million-dollar look)
  • Sad GA vidiš, sad GA ne vidiš = a fly-by-night (an unreliable, dishonest person) / now you see it, now you don't (a magician's trick) 
  • Što video, ne video = to turn a blind eye on sth.; mum's the word (to pretend not to have seen anything)
Noun form: VID (sight), VIDelo (sight / light), VIDik (view/perspective)
  • Izneti (nešto) na videlo = to bring something to light (to reveal); to bring soemthing into the open
  • Izgubiti (nešto) iz vida = to lose sight of something 
  • Imati (nešto) u vidu = to bear in mind, to take into account, to keep sight of something
  • Nestati sa vidika =  to recede from view / to vanish into thin air / to fade away
Gerund or "glagolska imenica"  : VIĐENJE (ending in -nje, which corresponds with English -ing)
  • Do (skorog) viđenja = so long (a farewell) 
  • Poznavati nekog iz viđenja = to know someone by sight / to have a nodding acquaintance with someone
Past Participle or Trpni glagolski pridev (adjective): VIĐEN (ending in -n or -t, which corresponds with English -ed or PP form of the verb)
  • Rado viđen = popular, in high favour 
Notice the use of this phrase "rado viđen" + "gost" at the very beginning of the famous song "Jabuke i Vino":


Saturday, August 03, 2013

How to Use the Serbian Conjugator ?

If you've practised the Accusative form of the nouns and pronouns with the video in the previous post, it's time to expand your confidence onto the verbs which require a noun/pronoun in this case. With all the listed nouns (TV, pegla, mobilni telefon, mašina za veš ...), the following verbs, properly conjugated, will make sense:
  • videti (to see) Present Tense conjugations: Sg: vidIM, vidIŠ, vidI Pl: vidIMO, vidITE, vidE           Past Tense : Sg: videO, videLA, videLO Pl: videLI, videLE, videLA
  • gledati (to watch) gledAM, gledAŠ, gledA - gledAMO, gledATE, gledAJU ( for the following verbs you'll see only: PRESENT Sg: -m/-š/- Pl: -mo / -te / -ju and for the PAST Sg. -o/-la/-lo Pl. -li/-le/-la )
  • imati (to have)  Sg: -m/-š/- Pl: -mo / -te / -ju (imaJU) Past: Sg. -o/-la/-lo Pl. -li/-le/-la
  • koristiti (to use) Sg: -m/-š/- Pl: -mo / -te / -e (koristE) Past: Sg. -o/-la/-lo Pl. -li/-le/-la
  • raditi (to work) Sg: -m/-š/- Pl: -mo / -te / -e (rade) Past: Sg. -o/-la/-lo Pl. -li/-le/-la
  • popravljati (to fix) Sg: -m/-š/- Pl: -mo / -te / -ju (popravljaju) Past: Sg. -o/-la/-lo Pl. -li/-le/-la
  • uključiti (to turn on) Sg: -m/-š/- Pl: -mo / -te / -e (uključe) Past: Sg. -o/-la/-lo Pl. -li/-le/-la
  • isključiti (to turn off) Sg: -m/-š/- Pl: -mo / -te / -e (isključe) Past: Sg. -o/-la/-lo Pl. -li/-le/-la
  • kupiti (to buy) Sg: -m/-š/- Pl: -mo / -te / -e (kupe) Past: Sg. -o/-la/-lo Pl. -li/-le/-la
  • prodati (to sell) Sg: -m/-š/- Pl: -mo / -te / -e (prodate) Past: Sg. -o/-la/-lo Pl. -li/-le/-la
  • vratiti (to return) Sg: -m/-š/- Pl: -mo / -te / -e (vrate) Past: Sg. -o/-la/-lo Pl. -li/-le/-la
  • (po)kvariti se (to break down) Sg: -m/-š/- Pl: -mo / -te / -e (pokvare) Past: Sg. -o/-la/-lo Pl. -li/-le/-la
  • baciti (to throw away) Sg: -m/-š/- Pl: -mo / -te / -e (bace) Past: Sg. -o/-la/-lo Pl. -li/-le/-la
If you are a beginner in Serbian, let's focus on the present simple tense and practise conjugating out loud with the:

Present tense examples:
  • Imam telefon, ali GA ne gledam.
  • Moj brat ima mašinu za sudove i često JE koristi.
If you are at an intermediate level, I guess that dealing with the past simple won't be much of the problem. The idea of this blog post is to encourage you to become more fluent and confident. That's why you can simply learn/revise past simple in Serbian and make a few similar sentences like in the example:

Past tense examples:
  • Kupili smo mobilni telefon i čim smo GA uključili, odmah se pokvario.
  • Moj sin je popravio peglu i kada sam videla kako dobro radi bacila sam JE. 

Friday, August 02, 2013

Serbian Nouns and Pronouns in Accusative

Today we're going to do an exercise with singular nouns describing objects, their grammatical gender and its pronouns in the Accusative case. In this exercise you'll see the following appliances and gadgets:
  • televizor
  • mikser
  • daljinski (upravljač)
  • mobilni (telefon)
  • telefon
  • kompjuter
  • frižider
  • toster
  • mašina za veš
  • mašina za pranje veša
  • lampa
The nouns in blue are masculine and the red ones are feminine, so don't forget to make the following changes:
  1. step TO SEE + NOUN: Vidim / Ne vidim televizor (masculine) /odelo (neuter) /lampU (feminine)
  2. step TO SEE + corresponding PRONOUN: Vidim / Ne vidim ga / je (short form for "him (ga = njega) / her (je=nju)")
  3. step: look around yourself and say what you can see/can't see (use only singular and pay attention that the neuter nouns, like "odelo" behaves the same as the nouns in masc.)

Thursday, August 01, 2013

Serbian Phrases Course

I think it's been high time I resumed our regular, day-by-day postings with video lessons of the Serbian language. As usual, I'll do my best to help you in the most practical way with the interactive videos, like this one:



This is one of 65 lessons with more than 4.5 hours of content from the course Serbian Phrases, which has finally been completed. All the videos with slow pronunciation are based on phrase lists both in the Serbian Cyrillic and Latin script! There's also an ever-growing number of additional video exercises, like the one above. For all of you who'd like to buy the course and know how to say 'n' write "FaithfulFollower" in Serbian, will  get a significant discount if they  type it in the coupon code box :) Enjoy it!

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Visiting Montenegro and Serbia ?

If you are visiting Serbia and Montenegro in the upcoming months, I'm sure you'll enjoy learning a few useful words and phrases with this magnificent song:

Serbian : gde = where
Montenegrin version :  gdje = where
Serbian and Montenegrin : tamo = there

Monday, June 10, 2013

Serbian Phrases - At the Hotel



This is one of the videos with the slow Serbian pronunciation of the words and phrases written in the Cyrillic script, which I'm currently creating. Feel free to leave your comments and feedback regarding the speed of pronunciation and usefulness of such video lessons.

Saturday, June 08, 2013

Conditionals in Serbian - Video Exercise

Sunday, June 02, 2013

Introduction to Serbian Phrases

Since there'll be more visitors to Serbia in the upcoming period, I decided to launch the complete course called Serbian Phrases (this is a free e-book). In the meantime I want to show you one of the recordings:
















and the structure of the course, which is divided into fifteen sections or topics. Each topic has the following structure:
  1. Slowly read phrases - video lesson
  2. Listed phrases as a pdf file, both in Cyrillic and Latin alphabet
  3. Slowly read phrases with Cyrillic text
  4. Dialogue AB
  5. Dialogue A
  6. Dialogue B

Saturday, June 01, 2013

Practising Serbian Pronouns

Friday, May 31, 2013

Telling the Time in Serbian - Revision

Sunday, May 05, 2013

Happy Orthodox Easter

Saturday, May 04, 2013

Solving Puzzles in Serbian

If you like learning a language by solving puzzles, this video "zagonetka" is perfect for you:

There's an additional exercise page, but make sure you write the answers in the Serbian Cyrillic script in order to get the proper feedback (simply click "check" button after filling in the gaps).

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