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Learning Serbian with exercises, video lessons and online courses

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Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Advanced Serbian - Fun Serbian Customs

One of the customs in Serbia is to tear (cepati / pocepati) the shirt worn by the father who is celebrating his baby's birth. If you watched "Jutro će promeniti sve", you'll surely remember the scene with two fathers in torn shirts or t-shirts (pocepan(im) košulja(ma) ili majica(ma)).

One must wonder what is the origin of such a funny custom and I am sharing today with you a few answers to this question, which is of course in the form of an exercise. You just need to fill in the gaps with missing prepositions and enjoy reading the text. If you are not sure about the answers, you can first read the same text on Blic.




Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Advanced Serbian - Buildings, City Life and Urbanism

Advanced Serbian će biti serija video priloga uz koje ćete moći da čujete lep srpski jezik, proširite i obogatite vokabular uživajući u raznovrsnim temama.



Prvi u ovom nizu će biti naredni video od pet sati  koji će vam otkriti prelepe zgrade Beograda, kao i zaboravljene priče iz davnih, i ne tako davnih vremena. Sigurna sam da ćete uživati uz živopisne detalje i korisne kolokacije koje ću podeliti s vama putem vežbi u narednim javljanjima.

Monday, January 07, 2019

How to Say Merry Christmas in Serbian

Merry Christmas in Serbian 

Merry Christmas in Serbian

The best way to congratulate Christmas in Serbian is by saying:
For more information, interesting video lessons, songs and facts about Christmas in Serbia, check out my posts about Božić from the previous years!

Tuesday, December 04, 2018

Serbian Cyrillic Game

Saturday, December 01, 2018

Serbian Aspect with Games - What were you doing?

In this video lessons you can simply practice translating sample sentences with the verbs in the imperfective aspect from English into Serbian.



Once you feel more confident, you can do the tasks yourself!

Imperfective - Perfective pairs of Verbs mentioned in this video


  • ČITATI - proČITATI >>> to be reading - to read
  • SLUŠATI - odSLUŠATI / poSLUŠATI >>> to be listening - to listen to
  • SPAVATI - odSPAVATI >>> to be sleeping - to sleep
  • PLESATI - odPLESATI / zaPLESATI >>> to be dancing - to dance
  • RADITI - uRADITI >>> to be working - to work
  • GLEDATI - odGLEDATI >>> to be watching - to watch

For more similar videos with explanations and exercises, check out my Patreon page!

Friday, November 30, 2018

Serbian for Kids - Numbers from 1 to 20

Monday, November 26, 2018

Serbian 101 - What's her/his name?

A very simple exercise with NJEGOVo or NJENo + IME, meaning HIS or HER + NAME. After watching this easy Serbian lesson, you'll be able to ask  the following two questions correctly:


  1. Koje je NJEGOVO ime? What is his name?
  2. Koje je NJENO ime? What is her name?
and answer them:
  1. NJEGOVO ime je Jovan = His name is John.
  2. NJENO ime je Suzana =Her name is Susan.




Exercises and Games with What's her/his name

TEST 


Friday, November 16, 2018

Serbian Accusative - Exercise with IT, HIM and HER

In our previous post you could watch the video and practice OVO - ONO - OVDE - ONDE - EVO GA - ENO GA and play a hidden object game.

Now, it is time for you to listen to the video and these two exercises:

Here or There?


OVDE or ONDE



Serbian Accusative - Exercise with IT, HIM and HER


GA or JE



If you are not sure how to pronounce the words correctly, do listen to me doing them!
Special thanks to all my Patrons who support creating these video and grammar lessons. HVALA!

Thursday, November 15, 2018

This and That, Here and There in Serbian

Today we are learning how to say:
  1. THIS = ovaj - ova - ovo 
  2. THESE= ovi - ove - ova 
  3. THAT = onaj - ona - ono 
  4. THOSE oni - one - ona 
  5. HERE = ovde / tu 
  6. THERE = onde / tamo 
  7. EVO GA = here it is (it = him/it) 
  8. EVO JE = here it is (it = her)
Primeri:

1. Ovo je sat = This is a clock. Evo ga =Here it is!

2. Ovo je slika = This is a picture. Evo je = Here it is!

3. Sat je ovde, a slika je onde = The clock is here, the picture is there.

The link to the game is here: https://www.hiddenobjectgames.com/game/Hidden+Kitchen
After watching the video you can try to do an exercise based on my sentences:


The link to the google form with answers: https://goo.gl/forms/YByFcGrhH0vviDlG3

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Vocative in Serbian



Have you noticed that proper nouns are somehow changed when we speak to one another, especially when calling or addressing someone? For example, if your friend is called Nada, you will start your conversation with her by saying "Ćao Nado!"

Why is it so?

Well, if there is not such a case in your mother tongue, that doesn't make sense, but in the Serbian language it does. This concept is called the Vocative case and the very fact that you are callling someone or addressing them triggers some changes in the final vowel in some cases, luckily not always. Let's watch this short episode with Serbian subtitles and see how it works with the following names:
  • Mocart, Cvrle and Čarli
How does the name Mocart change? Why don't the other names change as well?



The Vocative case in Serbian

  • Masc. Sg. nouns ending in a consonant 
Igor / brat / ------------------------------------------------------------ E is added to the stem e.g. Igore, Jovane, bate, Miloše
  • Masc. Sg. nouns ending in č, ć, đ, lj, nj, š, ž ------------ U is added to the stem e.g. mužu, prijatelju (doesn't apply to proper names, though - Miloše)
  • Masc. Sg. nouns ending in -a 
These words either don't change, like tata, kolega, 
Or in some cases the final -a is dropped and ---------------------O is added. e.g. sudija - sudijo! 
  • Fem. Sg. nouns ending in -a
Two syllable nouns ending in -a -------------------------------------A turns to O  e.g. Nada - Nado!
More syllable nouns ending in -ica  -------------------------------- A turns to E e.g. Milica - Milice!
With words and names of foreign origin (or still felt as "foreign" names/words) there is no change


  • Fem. Sg. nouns ending in a consonant
 Words like reč / ljubav / and other abstract nouns ( ending in -st) --- adding I e.g. Ljubav - Ljubavi!
  • Neuter Sg. nouns ending in -e or -o -------------------------- No change

Vocative - Usage


Since the vocative case is used when we are addressing someone or calling someone, most often one person, there are changes in the singular form only (of course there are exceptions). Addressing things or abstract concepts won't be something you will hear in everyday conversations, but there are plenty examples in poems and literature.

Vocative in Serbian - Exercise





Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Learning Serbian with Interesting Texts - What should people do?

There are many interesting texts which you don't need to understand in detail, but just the gist or the most important facts. One of such texts is certainly a very popular one about Hunza people. There are various versions of this article which you can compare by Googling "Hunza narod".

I created the following exercises based on this text published in Blic.

Who are Hunzas? = Ko su Hunze?


  1. Gde Hunze žive?
  2. Šta oni jedu?
  3. Šta ne jedu?
  4. Koliko kilometara predju dnevno?
  5. Koje su njihove dobre navike?
  6. Koliko dugo oni žive?
  7. Zašto žive toliko dugo?


What should people do? = Šta bi ljudi trebalo da rade?



Monday, October 22, 2018

Serbian Cartoons with Subtitles and Exercises

For all of you searching for good educational materials for learning/teaching Serbian with fun series or cartoons with subtitles and additional practice, here comes a short excerpt from Zlopile cartoon, followed with a few exercises.

 

Grammar exercise



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