A text about crows, and about being warned off a nest — which turns out to be a good excuse for the whole bojati se family. At C2 the interesting thing is no longer the words but how they are built.
| Word | Type | Note |
|---|---|---|
| bojati se | glagol | reflexive, and it takes the genitive: bojim se mraka |
| bojim se | prezent | also a softener: bojim se da ne mogu — I’m afraid I can’t |
| bojazan | imenica | the fear itself — feminine, ends in a consonant, like ljubav |
Žbunje and krošnja are worth pausing on. Žbunje is a collective noun — one bush is žbun, the whole thicket is žbunje, singular in form and plural in meaning, exactly like lišće and granje. That is why the text says u žbunju and not "u žbunjima".
Krošnja is the leafy crown of a tree, not the trunk and not the top branch — the whole green mass. English has no single everyday word for it, which is why translations reach for "treetop".
And watch the aspect pairs hiding in the list: ispasti against ispadati, uputiti se against upućivati se, udaljiti se against udaljavati se. All three perfective forms describe a single, completed movement — which is what a startled crow does.
English on the left, the Serbian word or phrase in the box.
1. cawing (the sound crows make)
2. a nest
3. bushes
4. to fall out of
5. apprehension, fear
6. unusual, uncommon
7. a young animal
8. I'm afraid
9. a treetop, the crown of a tree
10. a season, a time of year
11. to bring about, to lead to
12. a movement
13. in the bushes
14. if, in the event that
15. to head towards
16. first of all
17. to be afraid
18. to move away, to withdraw
19. to chase away, to shoo off
20. to shrug one’s shoulders
SR (lat): Upisuje se cela reč ili fraza. Latinicom ili ćirilicom; dijakritici su opcioni.
СР (ћир): Уписује се цела реч или фраза. Латиницом или ћирилицом; дијакритици су опциони.
EN: Type the whole word or phrase. Latin or Cyrillic, diacritics optional.
Beards, bread and plaid — and a root that means both raising and gaining weight.
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