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Writer's pictureNikola P.

Is Serbian Language Hard to Learn?



Serbian language is a beautiful and complex language. It is also one of the most difficult languages to learn for some people because of it's complex grammar. At the same time, it is on of the easiest languages to read! How come?


Why Serbian can be hard to learn?

  • Grammatical cases: Serbian has seven grammatical cases, each with its own unique ending for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives. This can be difficult to master, especially for learners who are not familiar with grammatical cases.

  • Enclitics: Serbian has a number of enclitics, are words withot their own accent ot stress. It can be very confusing to learn where and how to use them!

  • Numbers: Serbian has a complex system of numbers, with separate forms for masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns. There are also different forms for singular, plural, and dual numbers. This can be confusing for learners, especially when dealing with large numbers.

  • Imperfective and perfective aspect: Serbian verbs have two aspects: imperfective and perfective. The imperfective aspect describes an ongoing or habitual action, while the perfective aspect describes a completed or perfect action. This can be difficult to master, especially for learners who are not familiar with aspect systems.

For whom is Serbian the hardest to learn?


Serbian language shares a lot of similarities with other slavic languages: Russian, Polish, Czech and similar. For people from these countries, Serbian can be fairly easy to master.


On the other hand, students from Germany, France, Spain, Italy and countries with similar languages can have some more trouble when learning. Still, languages spoken in this countries have a lot of similarities with Serbian: verb conjugation, grammatical cases, accent even some phrases are similar!


We can say with confidence that it hardest to learn Serbian if your native language is English, or if you only speak English. English is very different from Serbian and other slavic languages. It doesn't have grammatical cases, verbs do not conjugate as often as in Serbian, adjectives do not have the gender system, etc. Because of all this, English speaking students are also the slowest! It could help if you can also rely on other languages you know, and make connections with Serbian grammar that way.


Conclusion

In any case, do not give up! With a good tutor and good and organized program, you can learn Serbian at your own pace! Try doing online video lessons with Serbian natives or reading Serbian language textbooks. There are plenty of recourses available online as well! In order to learn any language, you should expose yourself to that language as much as possbile. Try listening to Serbian language podcasts, watching Serbian movies and reading Serbian books!

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