Learning Serbian /Croatian/Bosnian

Originally Posted by pthalo

it's apparently accusative for singular and genitive for plural, but why that would be, I don't know. Why isn't it "imamo slobodne sobe"?

Is itn't partitive genitive?


There is no term in English (nor in Serbian language) but in French we have an article:
du (sg) or des (pl)

Imamo slobodnu sobu : acc. sg : nous avons une chambre libre
Imamo slobodnih soba : gen. pl : nous avons des chambres libres (and not "les" chambres libres = the)

I think we can also say in Serbian in singular form :

Dajte mi hleb (acc) :
or
dajte mi hleba (gen)

Sense is a little bit different

Maybe we can develope the theory:
"Imamo hleb." a loaf of bread or we speak just about bread
"Imamo hleba." some bread, or beside other food we have bread too. That's why is genitive, to describe a part, not wholeness, as accusative would indicate.

"Imamo slobonih soba" - some are free, some are occupied.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuaqL3smPtY

practicing talking some more. i've already noticed three mistakes though. (i forgot an enclitic when i was talking about trying to light a cigarette, and i forgot how many times i'd already said "ko" when i was talking about coconut milk, and then thirdly i talked about going into a room (accusative), and then kept using accusative case once i was talking about being in the room (locative) bah.)

aaaaaaaaaaaand, I wasn't paying any attention at all to the letter ć while I was talking, which means I was probably saying č or tj. I can't hear the difference, though I can see it when lipreading, and I think I can pronounce it when I'm paying attention, but i'm not sure, because no one's ever told me if i was pronounce it right, which i'm definitely not in this video.

also, mada to neću računati kao greška, ponavljam poslednji slog koji sam izgovarala dok razmišljam o tome šta još da kažem.

Kažemo "gola voda"

O, pa to si znači ti....pa ti si stidljiva! Baš lepo pričaš, ali akcenat ti još mađarski, tj. vokale treba još otvorenije da izgovaraš, kao...pa, otvaraj usta više, kako da kažem da dobiješ cele duge vokale, a ne skraćene i zbijene....ali to su finese koje možda ja tu kao vidim, nemoj da me slušaš (a podsvesno ti kažem da me slušaš )

Imamo 2 (3;4) slobodne sobe
Imamo 5 slobodnih soba

Pa još se bakćem oko ovoga...čini mi se da valjda do broja 4 brojimo stvari (2-3 sobe, 2 čoveka), od 5 pa na gore ne brojimo (5 ljudi),pa ide genitiv... pa ne znam, ipak sam inžinjer, ne lingvista, ne mogu sve da prevedem logikom, moram da improvizujem i pravim se da znam...

gola voda je bolje nego čista voda. uvek kad to čujem (ili kažem) mislim "znoj je čist?")

da, to sam ja, vrlo stidljivo stvorenje. moj glasić je nešto dublji kada pričam sa ljudima pred kojih nisam stidljiva, ali nju nisam videla 19 već meseca, moju najbolju drugaricu.

pokušaću da otvorim usta više, hvala na savetima. ili posle nedelja dana pokušaću da otvorim usta više, sada još uvek boli zbog zubara.

Originally Posted by pthalo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuaqL3smPtY

practicing talking some more. i've already noticed three mistakes though. (i forgot an enclitic when i was talking about trying to light a cigarette, and i forgot how many times i'd already said "ko" when i was talking about coconut milk, and then thirdly i talked about going into a room (accusative), and then kept using accusative case once i was talking about being in the room (locative) bah.)

aaaaaaaaaaaand, I wasn't paying any attention at all to the letter ć while I was talking, which means I was probably saying č or tj. I can't hear the difference, though I can see it when lipreading, and I think I can pronounce it when I'm paying attention, but i'm not sure, because no one's ever told me if i was pronounce it right, which i'm definitely not in this video.

also, mada to neću računati kao greška, ponavljam poslednji slog koji sam izgovarala dok razmišljam o tome šta još da kažem.

hehe pthalo!
I nearly died of boredom the last time I was coming from Budapest to our border.. sve ravno i nigde nista...................
How to explain this.. zubar - do not switch to the letter b so fast - zuubar
But, otherwise, you did great! Also with č and ć - you did make a difference and although you could pronounce them a bit better - fact is that many native speakers dont pronounce them much differently
Letter R needs a little work too.. Gosh I wish I could say it like that! Then I might consider learning French too. But it is also good when you say rolere
I wouldnt say theres much of Hungarian accent in your talk (which makes sense anyhow) except maybe in bubašvaba - it sounds better in the sentence "odlučila sam da ću spavati sa bubašvabama" haha
- počela sam da spavam (not spim)
And .. I know why you chose to say komarice but .. dont. Ovde ima samo komaraca - we do not really acknowledge their femaleness lol

Yep, sve ravno, nigde ništa, osim trave i drveće, nekada pšenice, nekada suncokrete, i, naravno, železničke stanice... with impossibly long Hungarian names. I remember when I first came to Hungary my mother rented a car and we drove to Hévíz and it took an entire week for me to be able to read the signs before we passed them. (Not read and understand them, just read all the letters, haha)

zuuuubar, ok i've noticed before that in Serbian you have long vowels and short vowels just like we do in Hungarian, but it's the only bit of pronunciation you don't mark in your writing.

I'll work on ć some more. and vowels.

I am soooo lazy about r. When I'm talking in Hungarian, if I don't pay attention, I'll pronounce it the American way. Laziness. I can say it right, I just don't think to when I'm not paying attention. I'll see if I can explain to you how I pronounce it. I draw my tongue back into my mouth, pretty much as far as it will go, which makes it small and kind of wide, the edges of my tongue spread out to touch my top molars. My tongue is vertically right in the middle of my mouth, air can pass over the top of it and underneath it. I hold my tongue still. Then I draw my lower lip up a little bit so that it just touches the bottom of my two front teeth, and start to make the sound, opening my mouth a little bit as I do so, getting my mouth in position for the vowel that comes after the r. So now you can wander about your home say rruh rruh rruh the way i wander about at home saying ća ća ća ća ća


Jadni komarci, shouldering the blame for all the blood sucking komarice, kome krv nije ni prethodna za život, i oni mogu jesti lišće, krv treba samo kada žele napraviti nove male komaraca i komarice. :P I finally killed it last night. Yay. I was getting tired of being dinner.

Hello to all

wondering if someone can help me out with two pharases:

"You electrify my life" & "Tonight, we can say that together we're invinicible"

thanks..

- elektriziraš mi život
- nočas možemo reći da smo zajedno nepobjedivi

do you want to say that to somebody, do you know how to pronounce those words?

Yes I can pronounce this, I just always have problems which order to put, thanks so much.

I thought that:
to electrify=(written) to make sb feel very excited and enthusiastic about sth:
Her performance electrified the audience.

Well, how would we say(?): Elekrišeš mi život, naelektrisuješ mi život.
We say: naelektrisana publika

I am learning right now " Electric Instalation in Buildings", there are many variations of this stuff, it's like:
elektrifikovati - uvesti elektriku radi osvetljavanja i pogona po prvi put
elektrizovati - opremiti elektrikom
elektrificirati - uvoditi, uvesti elektriku (el.aparate i opremu, instalacije)

elektrisati - Izazvivati elektricitet, fig. oduševiti, zaneti, raspaliti, ushititi, učiniti da neko živahne.
That's why I think this verb is appropriate for the sentence.

ina, I think the last one is naelektrisati

2. naelektrisati, naelektrizovati; he electrifies the crowds = on elektrizuje mase; the atmosphere is electrified = atmosfera je naelektrisana

Originally Posted by miki444

- elektriziraš mi život

would you seriously ever say elektriziraš mi život ?

maybe something like "činiš me živom (živim)"

Originally Posted by Spring

ina, I think the last one is naelektrisati

2. naelektrisati, naelektrizovati; he electrifies the crowds = on elektrizuje mase; the atmosphere is electrified = atmosfera je naelektrisana



would you seriously ever say elektriziraš mi život ?

maybe something like "činiš me živom (živim)"

no, but i would also never say "you electrify my life"

But we don't have this expression at all in our language, it sounds odd!
maybe: raspaljuješ mi život, činiš da život struji u meni....

electricity we translate "elektricitet" **, not "struja" - electric power/current, that's why we use (na)elektrisati and not elektizovati (sprovođenje struje, ali one jače struje), because the latter is technically really means to to pass an electrical current through sth or to install an electronic system into sth!(Ako ne želiš nekom strujni udar!)

**elektricitet in our language primarily means = electricity - phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge.


(Ove me sve asociralo na onaj crtani sa crkvenim mišem i Bendžaminom Frenklijem: "Jel je to bio eliktricitet?" haha...)

šta je to "zagorela si"?

našla sam u rečniku zagoreo - burned, zagoreti - to be burned

ali šta to znači figurativno?

(mogu da dajem kontekst ako treba)

I guess it can be sexual and mean - "you haven't had sex in a long time"
or it can simply mean something like "you got rusty"

ah, that sounds about right. thanks.

Question: what's the difference between noć and mrak??? I know that mrak can also be dark or darkness, but they both mean night, so is there any difference?

mrak means darkness not night, of course by saying "it's dark outside" you get the same meaning as night, but the word for itself only means darkness.

mrak = darkness
noc = night

Mrak kad padne (=) noć kad padne [when night falls down]