Serbian 601 — a song about making rakija, rewritten so that nobody does anything and everything gets done.
The Serbian passive is built from biti plus a participle, and the participle behaves like an adjective: it agrees with whatever has become the new subject.
| Aktiv | Pasiv | Agreement |
|---|---|---|
| Probrao sam najbolju šljivu. | Najbolja šljiva je probrana. | ženski rod jednine |
| Pozvao sam drugare. | Drugari su pozvani. | muški rod množine |
| Nacepali smo drva. | Drva su nacepana. | srednji rod množine |
The endings are -n or -t, and the stem often shifts on the way. Peći gives pečena — the k softens to č. Izvaditi gives izvađen, with d turning into đ. Raspremiti gives raspremljeni, with an lj appearing out of nowhere — that is the epenthetic L, the same one you get in zdravlje and snoplje.
Notice what the passive does to the story. In the original, a man picks the plums, calls his friends, lights the fire. In the passive version the man disappears and the rakija seems to make itself — which, if you have ever listened to people talk about rakija, is roughly how they tell it anyway.
Pretvori u pasiv
Each active sentence has a passive twin. Supply the missing part.
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EN: Complete the exercise below, then press Submit to check your answers.