Learning Serbian /Croatian/Bosnian

Originally Posted by PrincessMarina

thanks for answering my question.
and also thanks for the links

you're welcome

princessmarina:

the books i've used is a dictionary and "teach yourself serbian" which is a pretty good book. i also listen to songs and look up words i don't know and try to translate them for practice sometimes. i joined some forums online for serbian singers i like and read stuff and try to respond. most forums have a games section which is good for beginners because you don't have to know too much to play forum games. as your serbian gets better you can join in on the more complicated topics...

also i try to write something every day. i got myself some notebooks and i just write whatever comes into my head, usually interesting things that happen to me and stuff like that. in the city I live in Hungary, we have a serbian channel, so i watch that. at first i only watched stuff in English or Hungarian and tried to read the subtitles, but now i can watch things in any language and understand it from the subtitles and also i watch stuff in Serbian. My favourite series right now is in German (which I don't speak), "Porodica doktora Klajsta" on Radio-televizija Vojvodine. BBC has news broadcasts on their website that you can listen to in several languages, including Serbian. they have new ones every day. it's okay if you don't understand, just listening helps. and you'll understand more and more as you go along. also, i live close to the border to Serbia so I take trips sometimes. I was in Belgrade last weekend and had plenty of opportunities to speak (before i'd just been writing and reading). I was terribly shy, but when i spoke i was understood and i understood the answers and everyone was really nice to me.

Nene, do you know how to say "hát majd csak lesz valami" in Serbian? I can't even figure out how to say it in English, something like "well, there's bound to be something" or "well, something's sure to happen"

Cao!

I was just wondering, you guys don't have your own alphabet, right, aside from the symbols you add to the c, z, s, etc.?

Originally Posted by pthalo

Nene, do you know how to say "hát majd csak lesz valami" in Serbian? I can't even figure out how to say it in English, something like "well, there's bound to be something" or "well, something's sure to happen"

Yes Pthalo, you got it right! This is what it literally means, but I would say there is a hidden meaning such as: "Don't worry, something is gonna happen anyway!" Therefore this statement is often used to finish a conversation as if you were expecting the issue to resolve itself in a positive way.

Maybe in Serbian you could simply say: "Nesto vec samo bude." or "Nekako vec samo bude." But since I'm not Serbian, I'm not sure...

Originally Posted by DeBaires

Cao!

I was just wondering, you guys don't have your own alphabet, right, aside from the symbols you add to the c, z, s, etc.?

How do you mean we don't have our own alphabet? We use 2 alphabets - cyrillic and latin, with 30 letters for 30 voices. Those "symbols" - look like accent added to c, z, s, d are not even accent, but part of the letters, whole letters. Beside this, there are lj, nj, dj and dž that are 4 letters formed by 2 letters in writing, but they are different voices. All this is true for Latin alphabet. Cyrillic has 30 letters for all 30 voices.

Originally Posted by ina

How do you mean we don't have our own alphabet? We use 2 alphabets - cyrillic and latin, with 30 letters for 30 voices. Those "symbols" - look like accent added to c, z, s, d are not even accent, but part of the letters, whole letters. Beside this, there are lj, nj, dj and dž that are 4 letters formed by 2 letters in writing, but they are different voices. All this is true for Latin alphabet. Cyrillic has 30 letters for all 30 voices.

Right that's what I meant.

So what does the cyrillic alphabet look like?

Originally Posted by DeBaires

Right that's what I meant.

So what does the cyrillic alphabet look like?

Here is a link where you can see all the letters of the alphabeth (latin and cyrillic).

Originally Posted by MayGoLoco

Here is a link where you can see all the letters of the alphabeth (latin and cyrillic).

Oh awesome, hvala lepo!

Originally Posted by DeBaires

Oh awesome, hvala lepo!

You're welcome

Originally Posted by Nene

Yes Pthalo, you got it right! This is what it literally means, but I would say there is a hidden meaning such as: "Don't worry, something is gonna happen anyway!" Therefore this statement is often used to finish a conversation as if you were expecting the issue to resolve itself in a positive way.

Maybe in Serbian you could simply say: "Nesto vec samo bude." or "Nekako vec samo bude." But since I'm not Serbian, I'm not sure...

Yeah, that's it exactly. The hidden meaning is what makes it so hard to translate. it's something i only say in Hungarian, you know? I'm sure I said something like it in English before I learned Hungarian, but I can't remember.

So, Serbians, now that we've figured out the English...

Originally Posted by Nene

Yes Pthalo, you got it right! This is what it literally means, but I would say there is a hidden meaning such as: "Don't worry, something is gonna happen anyway!" Therefore this statement is often used to finish a conversation as if you were expecting the issue to resolve itself in a positive way.

Maybe in Serbian you could simply say: "Nesto vec samo bude." or "Nekako vec samo bude." But since I'm not Serbian, I'm not sure...

@nene

"Nesto vec samo bude."
"Nekako vec samo bude."(wrong sentence construction)

budem,budeš,bude,budemo,budete,budu=present of the auxiliary verb "biti"(to be) used in construction of the Future II only.
You can't use it in Future I (biće/će biti)
And in this particular case:
Nešto će već biti(future I ).

But,literal translation of the "Don't worry, something is gonna happen anyway!" is: Ne brini,nešto će se već desiti.

Happen=desiti,dogoditi
you can't use "biti" as the main verb in this sentence.

Now,I'm not sure what exactly are you traying to say.
If this is some kind of encouragement given to someone I would usually say: Ne brini,biće sve u redu ,
or simply: Biće dobro,
which is the same like English:Everything is gonna be OK.
Than again it would be too easy so I guess this is not the hidden meaning

Well, since we are here to help others with Serbian, we can learn something new too. I like these hidden meanings very much, that is the charm of a language. Now, I would like to learn this expression, so I'll be grateful if someone would write me in Serbian or English how to read (spell) "hát majd csak lesz valami". It is cool to know to say it . Thanks in advance!

It's something I say to myself when I'm not really sure how things are going to turn out, like "još ne znam gde ću prespavati ali hát majd csak lesz valami" (some sort of solution will be found, it's not that huge of a problem, we'll just wait and see what happens, etc.)

it's pronounced "hat, majd čak les VA-la-mi". As for the vowels in Hungarian, a is like the o in hot, á is kind of like the a in cat. E is like the e in "let". "aj" is like "I" in English, kinda, I think it's the same as aj in Serbian. And literally, it means:

hát = well
majd = future tense
csak = just
lesz = there will be (biće)
valami = something

The word "csak" is part of what makes it so hard to translate. It means "only" or "just", but it's what gives the sentence the hidden meaning of "there has to be something"

and the majd also makes it hard, because the sentence is already in future tense (because of "lesz", but majd is a vague way of indicating the future.) majd kind of means "i don't know when, but sometime in the future, i guess"

and yeah, "biće sve u redu" might be the best we can do, but it's more than that in Hungarian, I think. I kind of like "ne brini, nešto će se već desiti". is that something you usually say to people though?

how do you say "i love life" in bosnian?

Originally Posted by dok77

@nene

"Nesto vec samo bude."
"Nekako vec samo bude."(wrong sentence construction)

budem,budeš,bude,budemo,budete,budu=present of the auxiliary verb "biti"(to be) used in construction of the Future II only.
You can't use it in Future I (biće/će biti)
And in this particular case:
Nešto će već biti(future I ).

Thanks for the correction! Actually, this is a great opportunity for me to learn something new again.

I have to admit I don't really understand the difference between bude and će biti...I know both is future tense, but when do I use which?

Nene: bude is something like Future Real Conditional in English. I don't know, believe it or not, to tell you in Serbian the name of this grammar case.

ako+bude.../ onda ću biti.... If
Ako bude padala kisa, ja ću biti kući.
If it rains, I'll stay at home.

Bude is in the future, but can't stay alone, but biću (ću biti) is Future I, I think, it could stay alone in the main sentence (Ja ću biti kući). Bude is hypothetical with a chance to be real in the sentence that can't stay alone. In English bude is translated in the Simple Present ( if it rains), but in Serbian it is not that tense, it is something like - If it is going to rain (then I'll... ), but this construction in English would not be correct.

Originally Posted by sw kushh

how do you say "i love life" in bosnian?

Volim život, in Serbian, but it's the same, I think.

Pthalo: yes, we say something like that.
Nagyon köszönöm! (Thank you very much, if that Babylon dictionary is right)

Cool, thanks. Nagyon köszönöm is understandable, but we're more likely to say "köszönöm szépen" (hvala lepo) and the answer is "szívesen" which means "you're welcome" but it's really nice in Hungarian, szív is heart, it kind of means you did it with your heart or something.