Learning Serbian /Croatian/Bosnian

Originally Posted by Spring

Well.. we do use infinitive but not that much I suppose

e.g.
Razumeti znači oprostiti (to understand means to forgive)
Možete ući / Možete da uđete (both of which mean = You can come in)


Gosh this reminded me how much I hated grammar at school!
I'm outta here!

So if I get it right, wether you do or do not use the infinitive depends on the situation or in other words it is used only in certain cases as people are used to it that way (refering to your second example). Makes sense....

Ok lets do the alphabet shall we?

latin latinica - cyrillic ćirilica

A - А
B - Б
C - Ц
Č - Ч
Ć - Ћ
D - Д
Dž - Џ
Đ - Ћ
E - Е
F - Ф
G - Г
H - Х
I - И
J - Ј
K - К
L - Л
Lj - Љ
M - М
N - Н
Nj - Њ
O - О
P - П
R - Р
S - С
Š - Ш
T - Т
U - У
V - В
Z - З
Ž - Ж

Pronunciation - izgovor

I'm not gonna do the whole alphabet as most letters are easy to know, so I'm restricting myself to the extra latin characters and the ones that have a different sound. Upon request i can post the complete alphabet if you want

English:
c - lots
č - check (hard sound)
ć - check (soft sound)
dž - joy (hard sound)
đ - joy (soft sound)
h - no english counterpart
lj - million
nj - onion
š - she
ž - leisure

The difference in pronunciation between dž - đ and č - ć are very hard to distingue. This is something that you'll only learn by listening closely to native speakers. The difference in certain dialects of serbo-croatian might even disappear. Džak and đak e.g might sound the same to you but have a totally different meaning; Džak means bag (like a potato bag) while đak means student. But don't worry, it wont form a problem to be understood or misunderstand.

The 'h' sound might be the most tricky part for english speakers as there is no sound like it. If you go to the english wikipedia page of croatia, you'll find a pronunciation of 'Republika Hrvatska' (Croatian Republic) listen every night before you sleep to this sound file and you'll master it soon

Dutch:
c - fiets
č - kitsh (harde klank)
ć - pintje (zachte klank)
dž - djembé (harde klank)
đ - [Bdj[/B]embé (zachte klank)
g - goal (harde klank)
h - echt
lj - miljoen
nj - Spanje
š - China
ž - journaal

Het verschil tussen dž - đ en č - ć is zeer miniem en zal moeilijk te onderschijden zijn. In sommige dialect vormen van het servo-kroatisch zal dit verschil zelfs compleet verdwijnen.

Ok lets keep it with two languages so far, i'll add more later :-)

how difficult seems the ćirilica alphabet (in writing )

Originally Posted by ale-HH

how difficult seems the ćirilica alphabet (in writing )

But it only seems so. Once you learn the letters and master their pronunciation (some of which, I have to admit, can be tricky for foreign learners, since there are many sounds that are rare, i.e. don't occur in many languages, in fact, occur only in some of the Balkan/Slavic languages) it is very easy to read and write, as each letter stands only for one sound and is pronounced as such-the number of letters equals the number of sounds. No complexity as in English, let's say

i hope so

Cyrillic = difficult? Try learning the Arabic alphabet ...

Originally Posted by Vlada

If you need some other country just ask...

Can you please let us know how do you say Slovakia, Poland and Ireland?
And also: I speak hungarian.

Thx in advance!

Slovačka, Poljska, Irska

ja govorim madžarski

Thanks impulssi!
So alltogether I could say:
Govorim dobro engelski, madzarski, slovacki, poljski i ceski. Razumem srbski, ali govorim malo.
(I speak good english, hungarian, slovak, polish and czech. I understand serbian, but I speak (just)a little.)

Appologies for the missing diacritics, but you won't get any hiccups or anything like that in Ireland

Small mistake, its srpski. And you're welcome :-)

Originally Posted by impulssi

Small mistake, its srpski. And you're welcome :-)

By the way, recenlty I've been watching a movie called the Underground. I think it's amazing! It helps me to learn the language too. I've seen it 3 times and now I'm able to watch it (and understand) without the English subtitles Hmm...I'm proud of my improvement!

Let's proceed with the lessons... I really like it so far!!!

Originally Posted by impulssi

Slovačka, Poljska, Irska

ja govorim madžarski

Not dž - MaĐarski, or madjarski!

Originally Posted by Nene

By the way, recenlty I've been watching a movie called the Underground. I think it's amazing! It helps me to learn the language too. I've seen it 3 times and now I'm able to watch it (and understand) without the English subtitles Hmm...I'm proud of my improvement!

Let's proceed with the lessons... I really like it so far!!!

Ehe i've seen the movie too, i loved it. Although i just saw it once

@ Vlada: Hmm you're right, madžarski seems to be the slovenian word, thanks

Also, for other readers: I'm NOT a native speaker, so there might be small mistakes :-)

I must say my grandmother (and not only my grandmother lol) used to say exactly "Madžarski"
Its not correct but ... well.. serves the purpose

Srpski from Srbija reminded me of some complicated thing in Serbian language which I cant remember whats it called..
I keep thinking of palatalization which is definitely not it but another potentially messy grammar thing

Palatalization means that consonants k, g, h when they are in a word in front of i or e, or some suffixes, they change into č, ž, š.

Fact is.. when I asked some native English speakers about some tenses and stuff they had no idea what I was talking about! Same is with Serbian I suppose.. some things just come naturally to us while learners of the language need to figure out the language rules first before they can get on well with it... And, I wouldn't like to be in the shoes of anyone learning our grammar!

Hey Spring ... nice way to encourage people .. Just kidding of course .
We need to be realistic afterall. It's truely difficult, even I'm struggling . Learning this language may be difficult but not impossible and certainly not when you've got a strong will to learn it.

Originally Posted by NPazarka

Cyrillic = difficult? Try learning the Arabic alphabet ...

I studied Japanese for awhile. The Kanji in Japanese and Chinese is really difficult compared to anything else I've seen.

Originally Posted by darcdante

I studied Japanese for awhile. The Kanji in Japanese and Chinese is really difficult compared to anything else I've seen.

Then I hope you can solve my dilemma: Japanese write from left to right, from right to left or from top to bottom?

Originally Posted by Sochko

Then I hope you can solve my dilemma: Japanese write from left to right, from right to left or from top to bottom?

horizontal writing
left to right
then
up to down

vertical writing
up to down
then
right to left

Originally Posted by impulssi

horizontal writing
left to right
then
up to down

vertical writing
up to down
then
right to left

:O
So, they write in both ways, or?
Is there a difference or is it arbitrary?
EDIT: They are going in circles, maybe?
lol ;D

Originally Posted by Sochko

:O
So, they write in both ways, or?
Is there a difference or is it arbitrary?
EDIT: They are going in circles, maybe?
lol ;D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon..._Asian_scripts

if you have more questions, please use pm. Just to not go off topic in this topic.

cheers,
impulssi