Learning Serbian /Croatian/Bosnian

Originally Posted by tedinkyyy

hey when speaking for official(ness) =) are ur newspapers,magazines and books at least ,in Cyrillic? And are all ur TV programs in Latin like Pink+? I'm just curious=)

Well there are both books and magazines/newspaper which are either in latin or in cyrillic.. It depends.. And e.g. translation (subs) of the movies in Pink TV are in cyrillic... It really depends, some use cyrillic some latin script...

Just a few newspapers are in cyrillic. But the books for school are only in cyrillic.
The Latin script is more easier to use, but I'm using mostly cyrillic when I'm writting. And I know my friends also use it mostly.
For tvs - RTS is using only cyrillic, and there are more.
I prefiere cyrillic but there are no some limits for using latin, so it becoming more and more used in media...

And I found out that Serbs in Republica Srpska of Bosnia are using more cyrillic. In Banjaluka there are signs only in cyrillic, and in Belgrade there are both, cyrillic and latin. In some places even there are only latin...
Thet's really interesting.
I think we should keep it and there must be some limits for using latin...

I love using Cyrillic. My friends get so confused when I post statuses in Cyrillic on my facebook. Well, no matter what language other than English I use, they get so confused anyways.
I learned a small amount before going to Montenegro last March. Then I familiarized myself with it while I was there. Half the signs were in Cyrillic.

It helped to know that reading Котор was actually reading Kotor. I dunno, it has this "different" vibe to it. I just would obviously much rather read Latin script.

The thing I really like about Cyrillic is the differentiations like:

ђ и дј
џ и дж

Though I'm sure the mix up between the latter two doesn't happen all that much.

/my perspective

Actually, the mix never happens It's not like with Latin script where the letters "d" and "j" can be used to replace "đ" and letters "d" and "ž" are used to create a specific letter

In Cyrillic - one letter = one sound - no exceptions

ч = č
ћ = ć
ђ = đ (dj)
џ = dž
ж = ž
љ = lj
њ = nj
ш = š

After all the discussions around here.. something really upset me yesterday.. I phoned a person in Croatia to book something and I seriously want to believe she is one of rare examples..

ja: 21. jun
ona: koji je to MJESEC?!?!
ja (naively): jun
ona: mislim, KOJI je to MJESEC?!?!
ja (still oblivious): šesti ?
ona: ja NE ZNAM koji je to MJESEC!!!
ja (idiotically oblivious): pa šesti
ona: morate mi reći koji je to MJESEC!!!
ja (oh dear tesko cu ja preko ove nesto rezervirati): ja stvarno ne znam
ona: e pa ni ja NE ZNAM!!!
ja (toliko šokirana da mi ni na pamet nije palo da je to TEKUĆI kako mesec tako i MJESEC): pa šesti
ona: Dobro! To je to! (i spusti slušalicu)
ja:

So... for (first of all - my own) educational needs (and in accordance with my wish to believe that her anger was seriously due to fact that she did not understand me) here:

1. siječanj (CR) = januar (SR) = January (EN)
2. veljača (CR) = februar (SR) = February (EN)
3. ožujak (CR) = mart (SR) = March (EN)
4. travanj (CR) = april (SR) = April (EN)
5. svibanj (CR) = maj (SR) = May (EN)
6. lipanj (CR) = jun (SR) = June (EN)
7. srpanj (CR) = jul (SR) = July (EN)
8. kolovoz (CR) = avgust (SR) = August (EN)
9. rujan (CR) = septembar (SR) = September (EN)
10. listopad (CR) = oktobar (SR) = October (EN)
11. studeni (CR) = novembar (SR) = November (EN)
12. prosinac (CR) = decembar (SR) = December (EN)

oh come on, are you serious ? 'sesti' should have been just fine.
maybe she had to enter the name of the month into the computer system and she herself didn't know how the 6th month was called.

yep I noticed too that Croatians have some strange names of the months ;]
I think some of them come from praslavic language..like rujan or listopad.Oddly enough listopad in Polish is November and in Croatian is October :lol
hmm btw this brought to my mind the question: u Croatians say for music "glazba" similar to the Slovenian word right??

Originally Posted by miki444

oh come on, are you serious ? 'sesti' should have been just fine.
maybe she had to enter the name of the month into the computer system and she herself didn't know how the 6th month was called.

Yeah I couldn't believe it.. She was just plane angry at the beginning but I realized what's going on only when lipanj came ..
And.. I can understand .. but - still! Whatever her problem is - It's not my bloody fault

tedinky, yes - glazba (CR) - music (EN) - muzika (SR)

Hahaha what a story
Well last year I flied with Croatia Airlines along with my sister and her two kids.
She asked the flight attendent is she could warm up the babies bottle for her and she used the word 'stopliti'.
The flight attendent didn't understand any of it, so my sister said 'sad je hladno a treba da je toplo'... and again nothing...!
At the end the flight attendent said oh, you mean 'povruciti'?
So the we both said YES!!!
Afterwards my sister and I looked at each other and thought OMG are you for real...povruciti?!
We somehow thought that it might have been a new word or something, but when we told our family about it they thought it was weird as well.

never heard that word, i would say 'zagrijati'.

btw. "povruciti" doesn't even have one single hit on google apart the one from this thread

lol
but she could have guessed anyway considering the word contains word TOPLO
Unless if there is no "toplo" in CR : )

And yeah.. it's "zagrejati" in SR as well or "podgrejati"

zagrejati (E) zagrijati (W): -jm (pf.) zagrevati AE zagrejavati AW; zagrijavati (E) zagrijevati (W): A (imp.)
1. (tr.) to warm up; ~ supu (sobu, ručak) to warm up soup (a room, dinner); (fig.) ~ nekoga za neku ideju to stir smb.'s interest for smt.; ~ hladan motor to warm up a cold engine
2. ~ se to get warm; (fig.) društvo se zagrejalo the crowd warmed up; (fig.) ~ se za neku ideju to become interested in an idea; pusti motor da se zagreje let the engine warm up

podgrejati (E) podgrijati (W): -jm (pf.) podgrejavati (E) podgrijavati (W): A podgrevati AE podgrijevati AW (imp.)
1. to reheat
2. (fig.) to stir up, revive; ~ stare svađe to stir up old quarrels

PS
I think - pretty soon, I will copy/paste entire Benson here lolll

Stopliti was the first thing that came to mind, but we were really shocked when she said povruciti

Dođe zagrebčanin u beograd u kafic i naruči kavu i deci vode.
Konobar će: dobro a gde su vam deca ?

Tako sam ja prosla jos '87 i to u Crnoj Gori... Kupovala sam salamu i trazila "10 deka" tek neki deda - otkud deke u hladnjaku?! " hahaha

About povruciti.. that was probably the fist thing she could invent fast too lol

hahah I guess so

Originally Posted by Spring

After all the discussions around here.. something really upset me yesterday.. I phoned a person in Croatia to book something and I seriously want to believe she is one of rare examples..

ja: 21. jun
ona: koji je to MJESEC?!?!
ja (naively): jun
ona: mislim, KOJI je to MJESEC?!?!
ja (still oblivious): šesti ?
ona: ja NE ZNAM koji je to MJESEC!!!
ja (idiotically oblivious): pa šesti
ona: morate mi reći koji je to MJESEC!!!
ja (oh dear tesko cu ja preko ove nesto rezervirati): ja stvarno ne znam
ona: e pa ni ja NE ZNAM!!!
ja (toliko šokirana da mi ni na pamet nije palo da je to TEKUĆI kako mesec tako i MJESEC): pa šesti
ona: Dobro! To je to! (i spusti slušalicu)
ja:

So... for (first of all - my own) educational needs (and in accordance with my wish to believe that her anger was seriously due to fact that she did not understand me) here:

1. siječanj (CR) = januar (SR) = January (EN)
2. veljača (CR) = februar (SR) = February (EN)
3. ožujak (CR) = mart (SR) = March (EN)
4. travanj (CR) = april (SR) = April (EN)
5. svibanj (CR) = maj (SR) = May (EN)
6. lipanj (CR) = jun (SR) = June (EN)
7. srpanj (CR) = jul (SR) = July (EN)
8. kolovoz (CR) = avgust (SR) = August (EN)
9. rujan (CR) = septembar (SR) = September (EN)
10. listopad (CR) = oktobar (SR) = October (EN)
11. studeni (CR) = novembar (SR) = November (EN)
12. prosinac (CR) = decembar (SR) = December (EN)

Hahahahahaha I CANNOT believe this! I cannot believe this has happened!

LOL, I would lose my patience with such woman, for real... I think 'sesti' was enough hint for her, but instead she wanted you to use what... lipanj.. what so ever...

I would ask her in the end 'Excuse me, do you speak english?' and once she said yes I'd book for JUNE

You know Spring, a good thing to say probably would have been to tell her "This month". Unless she had absolutely no clue which month we were in right now. (Which by the sound of her attitude, I'm sure she didn't!)

And Adrienne, that would have been the absolute best thing! Haha!

@Spring: Gosh that's really silly, first of all I doubt she didn't understand which month jun is... and then the things with šesti... gosh what an idiotism

That's why she totally spooked me! There is no way she didn't know! The woman works in tourist agency and even if she just came from a distant mountain - it's hard to believe she never learned lipanj is jun (6th month)!
The tone of her voice was enough anyway to make me feel not so relaxed about going there... and that makes me really sad!
I was so shocked that it totally didn't cross my mind to tell her - this month - this Sunday!
And English would have been a great idea too but like I said.. I was thinking - ask her when she is off so that I can call back and talk with someone else.. ask her to talk with her boss but then.. well..
I called again today to check if she wrote it down at all and luckily another person said we're booked ..
I have to say I spoke to minimum 15 people from various places in Croatia in the past several days (and been in contact with a lot of people on business in the past years) and they were all extremely nice and helpful and a random bitter woman made me wonder if I should keep my mouth shut when I get there
On the other hand, I am still kinda sure it's just an isolated incident and not related to anything ...
Anyways.. I turned this thread into chit-chat.. Although.. it is (still) kinda about learning... SR CR..

'bre' is derived from 'brate', isn't it ?
so how come girls call each other 'bre' ?