SERBIAN/CROATIAN/BOSNIAN (3)
POSSESIVE PRONOUNS
My: moj, moja moje, moji, moje, moja (depending on gender and number)
My father: moj otac; My mother: moja majka; My milk: moje mleko/mlijeko; My friends: moji prijatelji; My girls: moje devojke/djevojke; my children: moja deca/djeca.
In the future the different forms will be reduced to suffixes if the stem of the word doesn’t change
Your: tjoj, a, e, i, e, a
His: njegov, a, o, i, e, a
Her: njen, a, o, i, e, a. There is also a form: njezin,a,o,i,e,a
Its: njegov, a, o, i, e, a
A lot of possibilities to chose the wrong form. Don’t you agree?
NEW WORDS
Kino(n): cinema
danas: today
to go: iæi (you’ll see some day how the verbs conjugate).
Da: yes
Ne: no
Iz: from
Bosna(f): Bosnia
Srbija(f): Serbia
Hrvatska(f): Croatia
Otac(m): father
Majka(f): mother
Govoriti: to speak
Uèiti: to learn
Doæi: to come
Žena(f): woman
Muž, èovek/èovjek(m): man
Skupa: together
Dobar,dobra,o,i,e,a : good
Glumica(f): actress
Interesantan,interesantna,o,i,e,a: interesting
Posao(m): job
Hajde!: Come on!
CONVERSATION
Danas je petak. Idem u kino. / Today is Friday. I’m going to cinema.
Ideš i ti? / Are you going to?
Da. Ide I moj prijatelj Petar. / Yes. My friend Peter goes to
Tvoj prijatelj iz Bosne? / Your friend from Bosnia?
Ne, on nije iz Bosne nego je iz Srbije. / No, he is not from Bosnia but rather from Serbia.
Ali njegov otac je iz Bosne./ But his father iz from Bosnia.
Moj otac je Amerikanac, a moja majka je iz Hrvatske./
My father is American, but my mother is from Croatia.
Tvoj otac govori Hrvatski? / Your father speaks Croatian?
Ne, ali uèi./ No, but he learns.
Danas dolazi njegov prijatelj Ivo i njegova žena Ana da skupa uèe./
Today comes his friend Ivo and his wife Ana to learn together.
Njegova žena je dobra glumica. Vidim je èesto na televiziji./
His woman is good actress. / I sea her often on TV.
A on je pilot. / And he is pilot.
To je interesantan posao./ That’s an interesting job.
Hajde! Idemo u kino./ Come on! We go to cinema.
Film je takodje vrlo interesantan. / The film is also very interesting.
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Language pair: Serbian; English
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Aleksandar D.
December 11, 2004
# Msgs: 1
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SERBIAN/CROATIAN/BOSNIAN (2)
I hope you’ve noticed the peculiarities of the alphabet. It is of the Latin origin and known as LATINICA. The Serbs also use ÆIRILICA, the alphabet of the Greek origin, similar to the Russian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian, but be sure that you can communicate with every Serb using only LATINICA. The representation of some letters in Internet creates problems:Here are the numerical codes which should be entered holding the key ALT: è 159, È 172, æ 134, Æ 143, š 231, Š 230, ž 167, Ž 166.
The Serbs believe that their alphabet is the best in the world, than each letter is pronounced always the same way, regardless of its position in the word or of its combination with other letters. And when writting,they just listen to what is being pronounced and use the corresponding letter for each single. So the Serbs write Njujork, Majami, Ševrolet, or Krišèn sajens monitor meaning New York, Miami, Chevrolet or Christian Science Monitor. Some words look funny written that way in Cyrillic letters. The Croats and the Bosnians usually write foreign names in original form, which produces sometimes confusion, if the reader doesn’t know the rules of pronunciation for the specific language. That is also funny, when the name written in original form changes its ending according to the grammatical rules for the NOUNS (Declension). In English, talking about some object, you use different PREPOSITIONS to describe the relation in which that object stands to you or to other persons and objects. In Serbian, Croatian and the Bosnian we generally change the ending of the Noun and use sometimes the preposition, or just don’t use it. There are seven relations or cases:
This is NY: Ovo je Njujork / New York
We fly From NY to Chicago: Letimo od Njujorka/ New Yorka do Èikaga/Chicaga
We are flying towards Clevelend: Letimo prema Klivlendu/Clevelandu
Now we see Philadelphia: Sad vidimo Filadelfiju/Philadelphiju
I love you, America: Volim te, Ameriko
Japan is competing with America: Japan se takmièi s Amerikom
We are talking about Canada: Govorimo o Kanadi/Canadi
It’s complicated, and you’ll quite sure tend to avoid those cases. Don’t worry! People will understand you. Nevertheless, lets exercise:
Ovo je Mièigen: This is Michigan// Ja dolazim iz Mièigena: I come from Michigan // Detroit je u Mièigenu: Detroit is in Michigan // Iz aviona vidimo Mièigen: From the airplane we see Michigan // Mièigene, rodni kraju, u tebi je ko u raju: Michigan, my native land, to be within your borders is like to be in paradise. (I’m kidding. I don’t know Michigan at all, but there is a Serbian folksong starting with the words: Šumadijo, rodni kraju, u tebi je ko u raju. Šumadija is the central part of Serbia where in the early 19th century two uprisings against the foreign Turkish rule gave birth to the modern Serbian state.) // U petak Teksas igra s Mièigenom: On Friday Texas plays with (versus) Michigan// Imam jednu knjigu o Mièigenu: I have a book about Michigan.
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Language pair: Serbian; English
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Aleksandar D.
December 8, 2004
# Msgs: 1
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