Learning Serbian /Croatian/Bosnian

Well, Acrylic, i have those problems too lol but i'm getting use to it.
it's explained some where in this thread but i can't find it.
Ill try explain as good as I can but if i make a mistake, some one will correct me :P...
Serbian has 7 cases: Nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, instrumental, and locative.
This is the way i remember for using some, especially Locative. It is similar to Location.. so when you are talking about location and other stuff it usually falls under that case and ends either in an -i or an -oj (if the ending is -ska). so Dacanka said she lives in Turkey so that would be: Zivim u Turskoj
-zivis u Crnoj Gori
-zivimo u Hrvatskoj
-zivim u Srbiji.
-zivite u Grckoj

as far as i know dative and accusative are regulary used lol and i usually get mixed up with them...Genitive is quite easy.. it's like possesive and a lot of prepositions fall under the genitive case. how I remember is when the word "of" is infront of a noun, in Serbian that is usually genitive. but not all the time..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_grammar
that will explain more

omg... somebody wrote that taksi is a word of neuter gender on wikipedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_grammar#Gender
(actually it is of masculine gender)
That's the first thing i saw, haha

Acrylic, cheer up!
You can do it, only if you try....

Later i will put something more about the cases, about their use.

Napaljeon made me laugh! hahahahahahahahaha

I NEED HELP WITH THIS!!! SOMEBODY TO TRANSLATE IT???
THANLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

djesi dejo kraljino ,jesi se skinuo s broda,evo ja sam u srbiji vec 3 nedelje,nikako da se navatamo online,aj ako si stigao u srbiju ostavi neki br telefona da te nazovem,pozzz

Here you are:

Where are you, Dejo, you king. Are you off the ship (traveling by ship? i don't know). I've been in Serbia for three weeks now. We haven't managed to meet online (da se navatamo online, hahah ). If you are in Serbia, leave a phone number so i can call you. Greetings.

Those words in brackets are mine.

Okay, here is the complete use of all the cases.
There are many ways of expressing a place, time, cause.. etc. of an activity, or describing somebody/something using different cases.
So i'll write for each case if it's used with or without prepositions; which questions needs an answer using that particular case (one is for persons and other for things); and the meaning of the case in the sentence (with examples).
I'll start from nominative, of course.

NOMINATIVE

used without prepositions

questions:
Ko? Šta?
Who? What?

meanings:

-Subject

NIKOLA trči.
NIKOLA is running.

-Noun which is a part of predicate

Život je MORE.
Life is SEA.

GENITIVE

used with and without prepositions

questions:
Koga? Čega?
Of who? Of what?

meanings:

-Belonging

Ovo je bicikl ZORANA POPADIĆA.
This is bicycle of ZORAN POPADIC.

-Part, quaitity

Imaš li malo VREMENA?
Do you have a little TIME?

-Parting, origination

Ja sam rodom iz BEOGRADA.
I was born in BELGRADE. (Literally: I'm from Belgrade by birth)

-Quality

Anja je devojčica MODRIH OČIJU.
Anja is a BLUE EYED girl. (Literally: Anja is a blue eyes' girl).

-Time

Nisam ga videla od PONEDELJKA.
I haven't seen him since MONDAY.

-Place

Trčim preko POLJA.
I run across the FIELD.

-Cause

Umreću od GLADI.
I'll die from HUNGER.

-Purpose

Ovo pišem zbog VAS.
I write this because of YOU.

used with and without prepositions
If there are prepositions, those are K(A) and PREMA (both of them mean toward/in direction of)

questions:
Kome? Čemu?
To who? To what?

meanings:

-Purpose

Daću PETRU knjigu.
I'll give PETAR a book.

-Direction, aim of the motion

Mila trči ka MAJCI.
Mila is running to MOTHER.

-Belonging

SANJI lepo stoji majica.
T-shirt fits well to SANJA.

-Closeness

Kako si MI?
How are you (to ME)?

used with or without prepositions

questions:
Koga? Šta?
Whom? What? (..do i see)

meanings:

-Direct object

Volim CRVENU BOJU.
I love RED COLOUR.

-Place, direction

Hoćemo li ići na KONCERT?
Will we go to the CONCERT?

-Time

Na leto ćemo ići u GRČKU.
In summer we will go to GREECE.

-Manner

Ovo se uči uz OSMEH.
This is studied with a SMILE.

-Cause

On će ići u zatvor za POČINJEN ZLOČIN.
He will go to prison for committing a crime. (literally: for COMMITTED CRIME)

no prepositions

"question":
Hej!
Hey!

meanings:

-Calling, saying someone's name/profession/etc. when speaking to him

Kako si ti, STANKO?
How are you, STANKO?

-Subject in epic poetry

Vino pije KRALJEVIĆU MARKO.
KRALJEVIĆ MARKO is drinking wine.

(Ok, ok, you don't need that one )

used with or without prepositions

questions:
S(a) kim? Čim?
With who? With what?

meanings:

-Instrument, tool

Crtam OLOVKOM.
I draw with a PENCIL.

-Company

Igram fudbal sa VANJOM.
I play football with VANJA.

-Manner

Učim sa LAKOĆOM.
I study with EASE.

-Place

Stojim pred ŠKOLOM.
I stand in front of SCHOOL.

-Time

Viđam ih SUBOTOM.
I meet them on SATURDAYS.

-Cause

SVOJOM NEPAŽNJOM izazvao je nezgodu.
HIS CARELESSNESS caused an accident. (Literally: He caused an accident with his carelessness)

-Quality

Anja je devojcica sa PLAVIM OČIMA.
Anja is a girl with BLUE EYES.

always used with prepositions

never used with prepositions K(A) and PREMA

questions:
O kome? O čemu?
About who? About what?

meanings:

-Indirect object

Razmišljam o KNJIZI.
I'm thinking about the BOOK.

-Place

Skačem u UČIONICI.
I jump inside the CLASSROOM.

-Time

Na KRAJU smo odlučili da idemo bioskop.
At the END we decided to go to the cinema.

-Manner

Sve je po PLANU.
Everything is according to PLAN.




That's it... I hope it will help.

Acrylic, on the 3rd page of this thread you have declensions' suffixes..
And this should help you too. I wrote this because of all of you who didn't have to deal with cases before. Now I'll tell you only this: No pain- no gain.

Also... every correction will be appreciated (i mean, in that part in English ). I guess these things seem complicated to you... To me, some things in English seem complicated.
And i have to mention and thank Luby who helped me with some things here!

wow, thanks for the help. I have to say that I started with serbian a few months ago, but i didn't have enough classes because in _Argentina there are no places where I can go to learn this beautiful language. A friend that traveled a lot and know a lot of languages, is teaching me, but I haven't being constant with my clases. Right now I'm confused with all this cases, in spanish I guess we don't have any of this, maybe one but I'm not sure. It's very helpfull what you have wrote here, so I'm going to read this carefully and try to learn all of this cases. Thank you very much! Hvala!

No se en tucuman, pero en buenos aires y en rosario hay clases de croata, serbio no tanto pero es casi lo mismo... fijate tiene que haber profesores particulares

maa baskarukebaskanoge, nisam te tolko pomogao hehe ali nema na cemu kad god trebate pomoc, ja sam tu

Originally Posted by MarkoV

No se en tucuman, pero en buenos aires y en rosario hay clases de croata, serbio no tanto pero es casi lo mismo... fijate tiene que haber profesores particulares

Mmmmm, bue yo averigüé por aquí, pero no encontré dónde aprender. Quizá no busqué bien...

Thanks for all those replies, baska! It does indeed help, but I guess I have to look into it more. Unless I missed it, is there a way I can easily remember these cases? (This is what severely messed me up in German class, which made me quit after third year, because of cases). I never got it. =/
It doesn't help much speaking with my parents either. They just tell me how to say it, but not WHY it is said that way. I think that type of thing helps me much.

And when you said there are some things in English that seem complicated: There are things in English that even people that grew up speaking only English don't say properly. Like for example, the use of "whom". People in general, at least in America, don't use that word much anymore. It's being replaced by just "who". But that's because people don't understand when and where to use it. (Which is okay, it's a word I don't care for anyways. =p )

I’ll try to help you with remembering cases... I think it can be helpful, but it’s always better to have your own way of remembering it.

Nominative- simply a NAME. A word in its original form.

Genitive- since there is genitive in English, i think you understand it already (not completely, but some of it uses is enough )

Dative- it's similar to verb DATI which means "to give". You have to use dative case if you want to say "To give (something) to somebody"="Dati nekome (nešto)" (word neko=somebody is in dative).

Accusative- To accuse somebody= Kriviti nekoga (neko is in accusative form).
This case usually stands for an object of an activity.

Vocative- this is the simple one, cause it's unique...

Instrumental- its name tells you everything... it stands for an instrument with which something is done: it can be a wrench (to fix something with it), a pen (to write something with it), money (to pay something with it), your eyes (to see something with it)... Anything that you use to do something, or does it itself.
Also, very important use of this case is expressing company. With someone= Sa NEKIM.

Locative- again, name will help... word "location" comes to my mind first. A place is expressed with locative, but only in case when activity is done THERE.

This is not complete, and it covers only some of cases’ uses... If anyone has another ideas, share it!

And German, hm... yes, it can be hard. Hope you won’t quit this one

And don't expect your parents to give you the reason why... I don't know if anyone could do it. I mean, that questions looks to me like "Why do cases exist?" ... There are rules for expressing some things, and there are 7 cases to use. That's it.

And about that who-whom thing, i was in dilemma, should i use it or not, and i decided not to use it (except for accusative).. Don't know why... To me it's not the rule, but only an option. (and to many native speakers, as i can see )

Cases can be difficult, especially coming from English where we don't really have them. I learned Hungarian seven years ago, which has 25 cases and so I was prepared to handle them in Serbian, but coming from just English it's difficult.

The way cases work, is you have to think about the role words have in a sentence.

Nominative is the subject of the sentence, the thing that does something or the thing something is said about. So "the girl is pretty" (devojka je lepa), girl is in nominative because she's the subject. Or "I saw Peter" (Videla sam Petara), I is the subject and that's nominative.

Accusative is the direct object of the sentence, the thing that something is done too. "Peter saw me" (Peter ME je video). Peter is nominative, and me is accusative. (And that's one of the few examples that works in English too). "Peter killed John" (Peter je ubio John-A). John is accusative because the action was done to him.

Dative is the indirect object of the sentence. "John gave the book to Ana". (John je dao knjigu AnI) Ana is dative, John is nominative and book is accusative. Verbs like "give" take two objects. You give something (accusative) to someone (dative).

Locative is where something is. "You are in Serbia" (Ti si u SrbijI). "The clock is on the table" (Sat je na stolU).

Instrumental is what something is done with. "I'm going by train" (Idem vozOM). "I'm dancing with my girlfriend" (Igram sa mojOM devojkOM).

Vocative is when you're addressing somebody. "Hey, Ljubica!" (Hej LjubicE!)

And genitive is when something belongs to something. If you're using the preposition "of" in English, that's a pretty good indication that you'll want genitive in Serbian. There's also a bunch of prepositions which take genitive that you can memorise. The most common one is "od". "Sok od borovnicE" (juice of blueberry -- blueberry juice).

This page has a list of what preposition takes what case: http://www2.bc.edu/~niebuhro/crogrammar.htm


Case isn't something you really have to think about in English, aside from the pronouns and that's easy. It's "I, you, he, she, it, we, they" for nominative and "me, you, him, her, it, us, them" for everything else. But you get used to it.

Maybe you had problems with that, i don't know... At a moment it seemed to me like it could be a complicated thing for you who learn Serbian, so i decided to explain it.

Here is a scheme...

That blue... ellipse symbolizes location. It can be a single point on the ground, a room, a building, town, country, continent, planet... ANYTHING that happens THERE is expressed using LOCATIVE.

Everything outside that location is expressed using genitive, dative and accusative.

Dative is, for expressing locations, used only with prepositions K(A) and PREMA. It's used for motions toward or in direction of that location.

Accusative is used with other prepositions. It can be used for motions toward that location. Also it can be used to express position (not motion), somehow connected to that location. (in front of, near, under, on...)

Genitive is used when a location is starting position of a motion.

I made a huge mistake, i forgot genitive case... it happens to everyone