Learn Serbian

Learning Serbian with exercises, video lessons and online courses

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Wednesday, January 03, 2018

Learning Serbian with Short and Easy Texts - Routines

Here comes a short text about routines both in Serbian and in English. I hope that my video will help you understand the text in Serbian. There is also a task to be done:
- After listening to me asking and answering questions, you can try to do the same - practice asking questions and giving answers, and recording all that on www.Vocaroo.com

Exercse
1. Routines - missing verbs

2. Routines - missing pronouns



4. Link to the edited video  with questions and answers written and translated + additional exercises with questions and answers

Tuesday, January 02, 2018

Aspect in Serbian - Odmoriti or Odmarati?

Do you know the difference between odmoriti and odmArAti (to have a rest)? Which one shows a finished action (perfective aspect), which one shows an action in progress (imperfective aspect)?

If you know the word trAjAti, which means to lAst, it will help you connect the form with double A with the action in progress, which shows that odmArAti is obviously used to show that you are or were "having a  rest / resting".

On the other hand, the form with odmORIti, shows that you have had a rest and that's it, the result is more important than duration, so this form shows the perfective aspect.

Their various forms and differences in present and past tenses are so subtle, so I created a set of exercises for you to learn more about this weird odmoriti-odmarati duo by actually using them:) Before you see all the forms below, try to do this Micromatch exercise:




How much time did you need? Guess it wasn't that hard, once you were able to see the possible answers. For some more difficult tests, you might need all the verb forms in one place! Now, let me reveal them to you:

Present tense

- odmoriti se: odmorim - odmoriš - odmori // odmorimo - odmorite - odmore
- odmArAti se : odmaram - odmaraš - odmara // odmaramo - odmarate -odmaraju

Past tense

- odmorio - odmorila - odmorilo // odmorili - odmorile - odmorila
- odmarao - odmarala - odmaralo // odmarali - odmarale - odmarala

Have fun!

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Serbian Lessons with Subtitles and Exercises

I am so happy to share this video lesson which is 100% in Serbian with subtitles. I am sure they will help you hear what I am saying better. After the video there is an exercise which is made based on the text, a bit changed though.



Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Super Easy Serbian - Family Vocabulary with Exercises



      Here are all the links to the exercises covering this video lesson:

    1. Quizlets with MY: moj-mojA-mojE-mojI-mojE-mojA + Family members
2. LearnClick, based on this lesson:

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Serbian for Kids - Lesson 10

While in the previous lesson of Serbian for Kids, I taught you how to pronounce furniture in Serbian and we played with the Present tense conjugations of the verb to have, today we are practicing rooms in a house/ flat and revising the previous lessons by playing games.  
The words we are learning today are as follows:

Sobe = Rooms

  1. TAJ HODNIK = hallway
  2. TAJ BALKON = balcony
  3. TA KUHINJA = kitchen
  4. TA SOBA = room
  5. TA SPAVAĆA SOBA = bedroom
  6. TA DNEVNA SOBA= living room
  7. TA DEČIJA SOBA = children’s room
  8. TA RADNA SOBA = study
  9. TO KUPATILO = bathroom


It would be perfect if you could download the pdf file, print it and try to learn, by playing Quizlet game  https://quizlet.com/82682152/learn 




The video version of this pdf is coming your way tomorrow on my Patreon blog - for the previous and upcoming versions check out this link! 


Thursday, October 26, 2017

Serbian Language Course - Family

I hope you enjoyed following my free Serbian language course at the elementary level, dedicated to Greetings! This month I have been working on a new one where you can learn:


  • How to introduce your family members to someone
  • Hear clearly and learn to pronounce family members
  • Verbs to have + family members (in the appropriate case)
  • Short texts about this topic
All the video lessons and exercises are both in the Cyrillic and Latin script so you can learn Cyrillic in no time :) 

Today I wanted to share one of the video exercises from the course. 




More videos with conjugations are on this playlist.

Monday, October 23, 2017

Serbian with Easy Texts and Exercises

Today we are practicing Serbian with this simple exercise:

 The meaning of this story is as follows:

Marina likes to eat sweets, especially chocolate, Eurocream, jam and buiscits. She likes to drink milk, juice and coffee. Each morning while she has breakfast, Marina doesn't watch TV, but she is on the Internet, listens to songs on Youtube and sings them.

The missing verbs are as follows:

  1. VOLETI (ja volim ... oni vole)
  2. PITI (ja pijem... oni piju)
  3. GLEDATI (ja gledam ... oni gledaju)
  4. SLUŠATI (ja slušam... oni slušaju)
  5. PEVATI (ja pevam... oni pevaju)

After doing this exercise, you can record your own story by making comparisons. For example:

Marina voli da jede slatkiše, ali ja ne volim da jedem slatkiše. OR Marina voli da jede Eurokrem, ali ja ne volim da ga jedem. (Pronouns: him/it >>>"ga" stands for "it", but in Serbian "Eurocream" is he, so here "ga" means "him", her >>>"je" and "them"= ih, regardless of the grammar gender)
For more advanced students: Write this text or record it in the past simple or future simple!
For all the versions and video lessons based on this text, check out my Patreon blog. Hvala :) 

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Word Order with Past Tense of To Be

If you liked the video and the follow-up exercises I recently published, it's time for you to do revise it and practice pronunciation:





Thursday, October 05, 2017

Plural in Serbian - Video Exercise

Plural in Serbian

In this video exercise you can practice forming plural in Serbian and drilling it with the following phrases:

  • Da li je to banka?
  • Da li su to banke?
The explanation about the plural in Serbian can be found on the video or more detailed one, with exercises here.




More examples from the video:

The examples in the video are as follows:
1. banka - banke
2. prodavnica -. prodavnice
3. apoteka - apoteke
4. park - parkovi
5. trg - trgovi
6. muzej - muzeji
7. bioskop - bioskopi
8. pozorište - pozorišta
9. mesto - mesta

Tuesday, October 03, 2017

Serbian Past Tense - Bio Bila or Bilo?

Bio Bila Bilo



Verb To Be in the Singular,  simple past form


SINGULAR
Ja sam bio = I was masculine
Ja sam bila = I was feminine

Ti si bio = You were masc. sg.
Ti si bila = You were fem. sg.

On je bio = He was , obviously masc. sg.
Ona je bila = She was, obviously fem. sg.
Ono je bilo = It was,  neuter, sg.

When you drop the subject (noun or pronoun), you start with the very past tense of the verb to be and this is what we are practicing now with this game!

BIO SAM ... BILA SAM ... BILO JE...

Links to Quizlet exercises with BIO BILA BILO


1. Flashcards - https://quizlet.com/230095390/flashcards
2. Learn exercises - https://quizlet.com/230095390/learn
3. Micromatch - https://quizlet.com/230095390/micromatch
4. Gravity -  https://quizlet.com/230095390/gravity

For the full version of the video and more exercises, join my Patreon page. Thanks :)

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Free Serbian Language Course

If you have followed my blog posts this summer, you have noticed fun photos with short dialogues. These mini lessons grew into the first course, which can help you learn Serbian greetings. It is at the beginner level, so that is why I named it Super Easy Serbian - Greetings A1!

It took me quite a while to create it, as I flicked through thousands of photos, downloaded them and then put everything together. I have had problems with my low quality headset, because of which I had to heavily edit the videos. I hope to get a new cam in October and continue making such courses much faster. My plan is always to offer you three versions of the course:

In order to access the course, you can simply click here to see it online, or download it:



It is visible online, fully accessible from any device and you can play the videos while flicking through it. If you prefer a PDF file, you can download it here, but when you want to watch the video, when you click play, the video will open in the new window, so you will have to restart the PDF file again.

Although there is the list to the additional exercises, which are made for this course, I'll list them below:

Greetings Practice
  1. Flashcards - link
  2. Learn- link
  3. MicroMatch- link
  4. Gravity- link
  5. Test- link




Friday, September 08, 2017

Advanced Serbian - Detecting Synonyms

For all of you who are advanced learners of Serbian, here comes a challenging exercise based on this lovely song:


The idea is for you to listen to this song and in each part of the song to detect 3 words which are synonyms with the words written in the capital letters above that part. Srećno!

KAFANA - NEDAVNO - NEOBIČAN
Znate l' priču o Vasi Ladačkom
i ja sam je tek onomad čuo
jednom devet dana nije izlazio iz birtije
kažu da je bio čudna sorta
BOLESTAN - SELJAK - MAJKA
Otac mu je bio sitni paor
'ranio je sedam gladnih usti
mati mu je bila plava
tiha, nežna, jektičava
umrla je s trideset i nešto
STO - NEKOLIKO - UVEK
Imali su par jutara zemlje
malu kuću na kraju sokaka
na astalu navek hleba
taman tol'ko kol'ko treba
al' je Vasa hteo mnogo više
KOČIJE - CRNI - BOGAT
Želeo je konje vrane, po livadi razigrane
sat sa zlatnim lancem i salaše
želeo je njive plodne, vinograde blagorodne
u karuce pregnute čilaše
ali nije mog'o da ih ima


OŽENIO - VOLIŠ - SIROMAŠAN
Voleo je lepu, al' sirotu
uz'o bi je samo da je znao
voles jednom u životu
sad bogatu il' sirotu
to ne bira pamet nego srce
PRESTATI - BOGATA DEVOJKA - ZA STALNO
Sve se nad'o da će ljubav proći
zanavek je otiš'o iz sela
nikad nije pis'o nikom
venč'o se sa mirazdžikom
jedinicom, kćerkom nekog gazde
KONJI SIVE DLAKE - RAZDRAGAN - DŽEPNI SAT
Dobio je konje vrane, po livadi razigrane
sat sa zlatnim lancem i salaše
dobio je njive plodne, vinograde blagorodne
u karuce pregnute čilaše
sve je im'o - ništa im'o nije


LJUDI KOJI PROVODE VREME U KAFANI - VRAG -  POČETI PITI
Propio se, nije prošlo mnogo
dušu svoju đavolu je prod'o
znali su ga svi birtaši
tražio je spas u čaši
ali nije mog'o da ga nađe


INFARKT - PALA - NA SREDINI

Mlad je, kažu, bio kad je umro
'sred birtije od srčane kapi
klonula mu samo glava
ko da drema, ko da spava
i još pamte šta je zadnje rek'o
KOČIJA - BOGAT - BESPOTREBNO

Džaba bilo konja vranih, po livadi razigranih
džaba bilo sata i salaša
džaba bilo njiva plodnih, vinograda blagorodnih
džaba bilo karuca, ćilasa
kada nisam s onom koju volem
kada nisam s onom koju volem






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