Lesson One, Vocabulary
The vocabulary for this lesson includes the following:
- Personal pronouns:
ja 'I', ti 'you', on 'he', ona 'she', ono 'it', oni 'they (masculine)', one 'they (feminine)', ona 'they (neuter)'
- Interrogative pronouns:
ko 'who (asks about living beings)', šta 'what (asks about things)'
- Common objects:
krevet 'bed', lampa 'lamp', slika 'picture', stolica 'chair', soba 'room'
- Professions:
student 'student (male)', studentkinja 'student (female)', profesor 'professor (male)', profesorica 'professor (female)'
- Spatial designations:
ovo 'this (close to the speaker)', to 'that (close to the listener)', ono 'that (distant from both interlocutors)', ovde 'here (close to the speaker)', tu 'there (close to the listener)', onde 'there (distant from both interlocutors)'
- Verb to be:
biti 'to be', sam '(I) am', si '(you) are', je '(he/she/it) is', smo '(we) are', ste '(y'all) are', su '(they) are'
- Pragmatic operators:
aha 'oh (when capturing the import of conversation)', zdravo 'hi!', doviđenja 'bye', dobar dan 'good day'
Please note that in the structure of Serbo-Croatian vocabulary there is a system linking masculine and feminine profession names. In the English language, professions are only seldom marked by gender as in actor (male) vs. actress (female). This gender division is much more common in Serbo-Croatian. This means that more vocabulary items should be learned. There are, however, two facilitating issues
in this regard. First, in many cases the masculine form is neutral. You can thus say On je profesor. 'He is a professor (masculine form of the word)' and Ona je profesor. 'She is a professor (masculine form of the word)' while the feminine form remains reserved for females. This means that one should first learn the masculine form and be able to function with that form alone. Learning the feminine form should come thereafter. Secondly, the feminine form is derived from the masculine using a limited set of suffixes. The two suffixes found above
are -ica: profesorica 'female professor', and -kinja: studentkinja 'female student',
and are among the most productive ones. One should learn them as devices to derive a feminine profession from masculine one.
Serbo-Croatian - English Vocabulary Drill | English - Serbo-Croatian Vocabulary Drill
Now go to Graded Vocabulary Drills. Enter the same
Student ID you used to enter this course and do the following homework assignments: engscr1, screng1.
Click here to browse through the lexical list for this course.
Proceed with further exploring the lesson by clicking the
[SKILLS] link on the left.