LingoflyRekoh, dođe, šta bi: the short past of books and outbursts
Open a Serbian book and the first page hands you rekoh, dođe, videše. This is the short past: one word, no helper. It lives in writing and in outbursts. For example: “Уђе у (u) собу (sobu), седе (sede) за (za) сто (sto) и (i) отвори (Otvori) књигу” (knjigu) — He came into the room, sat down at the table and opened a book. A rule from the Serbian course: worked out on examples, not memorized as a wording.
How it works
Open a Serbian book and the first page hands you rekoh, dođe, videše. This is the short past: one word, no helper. It lives in writing and in outbursts.
It is built simply. Take the stem without -ti and add -h, nothing, nothing, -smo, -ste, -še: rekoh, reče, rekosmo, rekoše. The you-form and the he-form match and carry no ending at all: on dođe means "he arrived".
In a book this form moves the story along, one finished action after another. Uđe, sede, pogleda oko sebe. A run of short verbs is almost certainly this, not the present.
In speech it lives where something has just happened. Odoh! — I am off. Šta bi? — what happened? Izgubismo! — we lost. And bih, bi, bismo is the same form of biti.
Table
| person | reći | doći | biti | in English |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ja | rekoh | dođoh | bih | I said, came, was |
| ti | reče | dođe | bi | you said, came, were |
| on, ona | reče | dođe | bi | he said, came, was |
| mi | rekosmo | dođosmo | bismo | we said, came, were |
| vi | rekoste | dođoste | biste | you said, came, were |
| oni | rekoše | dođoše | biše | they said, came, were |
| in books | uđe, sede, pogleda | — | — | came in, sat down, looked |
| in speech | odoh, šta bi | — | — | I am off, what happened |
By example
- Šta bi s onom predstavom? Otkazaše je u poslednji časWhat happened with that play? They cancelled it at the last minute
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
Rekoh, dođe, šta bi: how does it work in Serbian?
Open a Serbian book and the first page hands you rekoh, dođe, videše. This is the short past: one word, no helper. It lives in writing and in outbursts.
What does it look like in a Serbian example sentence?
“Уђе у (u) собу (sobu), седе (sede) за (za) сто (sto) и (i) отвори (Otvori) књигу” (knjigu) (Uđe u sobu, sede za sto i otvori knjigu) — He came into the room, sat down at the table and opened a book. A rule is easier to test on sentences like this than to memorize as a wording: what surfaces in conversation is the sentence.