Serbian 701 — two clitics, one fixed order, and a JE that is not there.
Voziti se is a reflexive verb, so every sentence in the past tense carries two little words at once: the auxiliary from biti and the reflexive se. They are both clitics, they both want second position, and they have a fixed order — auxiliary first, se second.
| Person | Past of VOZITI SE | Note |
|---|---|---|
| ja | ja sam se vozio / vozila | auxiliary, then se |
| ti | ti si se vozio / vozila | — |
| on / ona | on se vozio, ona se vozila | je disappears next to se |
| mi | mi smo se vozili | — |
| vi | vi ste se vozili | — |
| oni | oni su se vozili | — |
That highlighted row is the whole difficulty of this exercise. In the third person singular the auxiliary je is dropped when se is there: Jovan se vozio, never "Jovan se je vozio". Learners who know the rule for other verbs keep waiting for a je that is not coming — which is exactly why sentences 7 and 9 want se in the blank, not an auxiliary.
The other trap is word order. When the sentence starts with a question word or an adverb, the clitics still land in second position, so they jump in front of the subject: Kako su se ljudi vozili? and Kada su se oni vozili? — not "kako ljudi su se".
And watch the participle, because it agrees with the subject and not with the clitic: vozio for a man, vozila for a woman, vozili for a mixed or male group, vozila again for deca.
Some blanks want the auxiliary, some want the reflexive SE. Read the whole sentence first.
1. I mi se vozili pre dva dana.
2. Ja se vozio do Beograda.
3. Kad se (mi) vozili poslednji put vozom?
4. Nekada se vozio stalno, a sada ideš peške.
5. Vozila sam autobusom.
6. Koliko dugo se vozili vas dvoje?
7. Gde Jovan vozio?
8. Ne sećam se kad se vozili vozom!
9. Jovan vozio bez mene!
10. Oni se vozili dva sata.
11. Ti se vozila dok sam te zvao.
12. Zašto si vozio bez mene?
13. Kako se ljudi nekada vozili sankama?
14. Naša deca se vozila bez dozvole.
15. Vozila si autom na more.
16. Kada su oni vozili?
17. Nekada sam vozila samo taksijem, ali ne više.
SR (lat): Upisuje se samo jedna reč: sam, si, se, smo, ste ili su. Latinicom ili ćirilicom.
СР (ћир): Уписује се само једна реч: сам, си, се, смо, сте или су. Латиницом или ћирилицом.
EN: Type one word only: sam, si, se, smo, ste or su. Latin or Cyrillic.
Same little word, different job — this time it changes what the verb means.
SE uz glagole kretanja →