Serbian 301 — the words you need to read a classified ad, and then to argue about the deposit.
English says "furnished" and stops there. Serbian splits the idea in two, and the split matters when you're reading an ad from four hundred kilometres away.
| Word | What's actually inside |
|---|---|
| namešten | furniture — bed, table, wardrobe, sofa |
| opremljen | equipped — washing machine, fridge, oven, air conditioning |
| nenamešten | empty. Bring everything. |
A second pair to keep apart: kirija is the money you hand over every month; zakup is the contract that says you have to. And ponuda against potražnja — supply against demand — is the sentence every Belgrade landlord says when you ask why the price went up.
One oddity worth noticing now: gazda is a man, but it declines like a feminine noun — gazda, gazde, gazdi, gazdu. The ending decides the pattern, not the person. Gazdarica is the landlady, and behaves normally.
Rooms are counted without the living room in the older way of speaking, so dvosoban usually means one bedroom plus a living room. A garsonjera has no separate bedroom at all.
1. a furnished apartment →
2. an apartment which is not furnished →
3. equipped →
4. furnished flat with all the appliances in it →
5. an apartment with two rooms →
6. bedsit / efficiency apartment →
1. city centre / downtown →
2. suburbs →
3. location →
1. utilities →
2. central heating →
1. to rent an apartment / flat →
2. to rent a house →
3. landlord →
4. landlady →
5. lease (the contract) →
6. the rent (the money) →
1. average prices →
2. offer / supply →
3. high demand →
Same words, now in a real sentence — which means some of them have to change form.
SR (lat): U poslednjem bloku obrati pažnju na padež — u zagradi stoji osnovni oblik. Može latinicom ili ćirilicom, velika i mala slova su svejedno, dijakritici su opcioni.
СР (ћир): У последњем блоку обрати пажњу на падеж — у загради стоји основни облик. Може латиницом или ћирилицом, велика и мала слова су свеједно, дијакритици су опциони.
EN: In the last block watch the case — the bracket gives the dictionary form. Latin or Cyrillic, not case-sensitive, diacritics optional.
One word for "all" — and five different endings depending on what comes after it.
Sav, Svu, Svo, Sve, Sva →