Serbian can be a challenge for foreigners to master, since words tend to have different forms in different contexts and some words can sound similar to unrelated words. Serbian, like most Slavic languages, uses noun cases. In addition, Serbian verbs tend to inflect quite liberally. Fortunately, Serbian uses both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, which is an exception among European languages. The variation of the Latin alphabet that Serbian uses is shared with two other languages, Croatian and Bosniak.
Basic vocabulary and useful phrases
| English | Serbian |
|---|---|
| I | Ја/Jâ* |
| You (singular) | Ти/Tî* |
| He | Он/Ôn* |
| She | Она/Òna* |
| It | Оно/Òno* |
| We | Ми/Mî* |
| You (plural) | Ви/Vî* |
| They | Они/Òni (оне/òne, она/òna)* |
| Good morning | Добро јутро/Dobro jutro |
| Good afternoon | Добар дан/Dobar dan |
| Good evening | Добро вече/Dobro veče |
| Good night | Лаку ноћ/Laku noć |
| Thanks | Хвала/Hvala |
| Goodbye (formal) | Довиђења/Doviđenja ('till seeing) |
| You're welcome | Нема на чему/Nema na čemu |
| Here you go | Изволи/Izvoli (can also mean What do you want?) |
| You're welcome | Молим/Molim (can also be used as What? and Please) |
| Bye | Здраво/Zdravo, Ћао/Ćao (from Italian word Ciao) |
| Man | Мушкарац/Muškarac |
| Woman | Жена/Žena (can also mean wife) |
| Yes | Да/Da |
| No | Не/Ne |
| My name is... | Зовем се/Zovem se... (lit. I call myself) or more rarely Име ми је/Ime mi je... |
| Water | Вода/Voda |
| Food | Храна/Hrana |
| I love you | Волим те/Volim te or Ја те волим/Ja te volim |
| Next | Следећи/Sledeći |
| Fool | Будала/Budala |
| Hello, hi | Здраво/Zdravo (also means healthy), Ћао/Ćao |
*Diacritics here are used only for easier pronunciation, they are normally not used when writing Serbian
Nominative case of nouns
Serbian has three grammatical genders (Masculine, Feminine and Neuter) and two grammatical numbers (Singular and Plural). Historically, there was a third number, Dvojina used only for exactly two objects, but it is not used in modern Serbian.
Jednina/Singular
Masculine nouns in nominative usually do not have fixed ending. Student, Profesor, Radnik are all masculine nouns.
Feminine nouns have several endings: -ica (Radnica), -ka (Profesorka), -kinja (Studentkinja), -a (Plaža), just to name a few.
Neuter nouns usually end with -o (Vino) or -e (Dete).
| Muški rod (Masculine) | Ženski rod (Feminine) | Srednji rod (Neuter) |
|---|---|---|
| Student | Student + kinja = Studenkinja | Víno |
| Radnik | Radnik + ica = Radnica* | Dete |
* K in Radnik is lost in feminine form Radnica
Množina/Plural
When masculine nouns are used in the plural, they usually have a suffix, such as an -i (Profesori) or an -ovi (Gradovi).
Feminine nouns used in the plural replace the -a with an -e suffix. Sometimes, the preceding vowel changes as well.
Neuter nouns when used in plural replace an -o or an -e with an -a as a suffix.
Some nouns insert an -en between the root word and the suffix (Ram becomes Ramena). Other nouns do not follow the rule and they create an irregular plural, without adding any suffix. The plural of Uho (ear) is Uši (ears); and the plural of Oko (eye) is Oči (eyes).