Serbian 101 · Basics
One to ten. Nine of them never change — and then there's jedan.
Numbers are the first thing you can actually use. A price, a bus line, a phone number, a flat on the fourth floor, two coffees please — none of it needs grammar, and all of it needs counting. Learn one to ten and you're already handling real situations on your first day in Belgrade.
They're also easy to say. Every one of these is spelled exactly as it sounds, and every one is stressed on the first syllable: JE-dan, DVA, TRI, ČE-ti-ri.
Od jedan do deset
Cyrillic underneath each word, because these are short enough to read comfortably in both scripts.
Nine of these ten numbers are fixed — you say pet whatever you're counting. But jedan behaves like an adjective and agrees with the noun's gender, exactly the way moj / moja / moje will later:
| Gender | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| muški | jedan | jedan grad — one city |
| ženski | jedna | jedna kafa — one coffee |
| srednji | jedno | jedno pivo — one beer |
And dva does it a little too, but only in two shapes: dva for masculine and neuter, dve for feminine. Dva grada, but dve kafe. From tri onwards nothing changes at all, which is a relief.
| Useful straight away | |
|---|---|
| Koliko košta? | How much does it cost? |
| Jednu kafu, molim. | One coffee, please. |
| Dve karte, molim. | Two tickets, please. |
| Broj pet. | Number five — bus, tram, flat. |
You may notice jednu kafu rather than jedna kafa — ordering puts the noun into the accusative, and the number follows it there. That's a lesson for a little later; for now, learn the phrase whole and it will pay for itself in every café.
Play it
One Wordwall round, and a falling-number game where you race the digit to its lane.
Numbers — matching round
Igra, pa upotreba
Ista lekcija, drugo raspoloženje — Brojevi 1–20, tri nivoa i sedam traka.
Pesma za ovu lekciju
Marina is making her own counting song for this lesson. It'll appear right here.
Print it
Four PDFs — anagram, matching, quiz and a word search.
The numbers exercise for Serbian 101 — Latin or Cyrillic, both accepted.
Numbers, Exercise 3 →Serbian 101
Thirty letters, thirty sounds, and not a single silent one.
BasicsNine everyday phrases, and the TI/VI decision behind them.
GrammarThe first verb, the short and long forms, and the word order that follows.
VocabularyWhere gender first becomes visible — crven, crvena, crveno.
GrammarMoj, moja, moje — the same agreement you just met in jedan.
GrammarThe dictionary form, and the case every other case is measured against.