Much money, little time: quantity always drags the of-form
There are few quantity words in Serbian and they never bend. But after every one of them the noun moves into the of-form, the "of" shape. That is a law, not an exception. For example: “Немамо довољно новца за нов намештај” — We do not have enough money for new furniture. A rule from the Serbian course: worked out on examples, not memorized as a wording.
How it works
There are few quantity words in Serbian and they never bend. But after every one of them the noun moves into the of-form, the "of" shape. That is a law, not an exception.
Mnogo novca, malo vremena, dosta posla, nekoliko dana. If the thing counted is plural, the of-plural follows: nekoliko knjiga, mnogo ljudi.
One fork inside the row. Dosta means "quite a lot": dosta posla is a fair amount of work. "Enough for the purpose" is dovoljno: dovoljno novca means it covers it.
Sav — all — is the one word here that agrees like an adjective: sav novac, sva deca, ceo dan. Nothing goes into the of-form after it.
Table
| the word | what it means | what follows | example | the trap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| mnogo | much, a lot — and "very" | the of-form | mnogo novca | covers "very" too |
| malo | little | the of-form | malo vremena | close to English "little" |
| dosta | plenty | the of-form | dosta posla | not "enough" |
| dovoljno | enough | the of-form | dovoljno novca | THIS is "enough" |
| nekoliko | several | plural of-form | nekoliko dana | never changes its shape |
| sav, ceo | all, whole | agrees like an adjective | sav novac, ceo dan | the exception to the row |
| oko, otprilike | about, roughly | the of-form | oko tri hiljade | the approximation pair |
| skoro, gotovo | almost | anything | skoro sav budžet | "almost", not "soon" |
By example
- Немамо довољно новца за нов намештајNemamo dovoljno novca za nov nameštajWe do not have enough money for new furniture
- Неколико колега је отишло у пензијуNekoliko kolega je otišlo u penzijuSeveral colleagues have retired
- Кредит отплаћујемо око пет годинаKredit otplaćujemo oko pet godinaWe are paying off the loan over about five years
How the rule settles in your head
A rule is not memorized from an explanation. It is memorized from an attempt to use it and a mistake — that is why the app delivers it mixed in with words, not as a separate lesson: it resurfaces exactly where you forgot it.
Frequently asked
Much money, little time: how does it work in Serbian?
There are few quantity words in Serbian and they never bend. But after every one of them the noun moves into the of-form, the "of" shape. That is a law, not an exception.
What does it look like in an example sentence Serbian?
“Немамо довољно новца за нов намештај” (Nemamo dovoljno novca za nov nameštaj) — We do not have enough money for new furniture. A rule is easier to test on sentences like this than to memorize as a wording: what surfaces in conversation is the sentence.