False friends: the main content of this course
Serbian will flatter you. Whole stretches of vocabulary look transparent — international words, Latin loans, plain look-alikes — and that is exactly the danger: the words you are sure of are the likeliest to be lying, and nothing in the world will prompt you to double-check. For example: “право” — STRAIGHT (to the right is "desno"). A rule from the Serbian course: worked out on examples, not memorized as a wording.
How it works
Serbian will flatter you. Whole stretches of vocabulary look transparent — international words, Latin loans, plain look-alikes — and that is exactly the danger: the words you are sure of are the likeliest to be lying, and nothing in the world will prompt you to double-check.
So start the course not with the dictionary but with this list.
Table
| the Serbian word | means | and not |
|---|---|---|
| pravo | straight ahead | a right in the legal sense |
| sat | an hour, a clock | the past of "to sit" |
| reč | a word | speech |
| ponos | pride | bonus |
| vredan | hardworking | harmful |
| iskusan | experienced | artful |
| sutra | tomorrow | in the morning |
| voće | fruit | vegetables |
By example
- правоpravoSTRAIGHT (to the right is "desno")
- кућаkućaa house (an apartment is a "stan")
- мајкаmajkaa mother (a T-shirt is a "majica")
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
False friends: how does it work in Serbian?
Serbian will flatter you. Whole stretches of vocabulary look transparent — international words, Latin loans, plain look-alikes — and that is exactly the danger: the words you are sure of are the likeliest to be lying, and nothing in the world will prompt you to double-check.
What does it look like in an example sentence Serbian?
“право” (pravo) — STRAIGHT (to the right is "desno"). A rule is easier to test on sentences like this than to memorize as a wording: what surfaces in conversation is the sentence.