Much money, little time: quantity always drags the of-form
Serbian quantity is simpler than English in one spot and harder in another. Simple: there are few words and they do not bend. Hard: after every one of them the noun goes into the "of"-form (genitive), and that is not an exception but the law. 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…
How it works
Serbian quantity is simpler than English in one spot and harder in another. Simple: there are few words and they do not bend. Hard: after every one of them the noun goes into the "of"-form (genitive), and that is not an exception but the law.
Mnogo novca, malo vremena, dosta posla, nekoliko dana, dovoljno novca. English wobbles here — "much money" is fine but "much monies" is not; Serbian never wobbles: quantity always governs the of-form. If the counted thing is plural, the plural of-form: nekoliko knjiga, mnogo ljudi, malo prijatelja.
Then an important fork. Mnogo covers both "much" and "very": mnogo ti hvala — thank you so much. Dosta means "plenty, quite a lot", not "enough for the purpose" — that job belongs to dovoljno. Imam dosta novca — I have a fair amount of money; Imam dovoljno novca — I have enough. And a bare Dosta! means "Enough!".
Sav — "all" — is the one word of this row that bends like an adjective and demands not the of-form but ordinary agreement: sav novac, sva deca, ceo dan. The sav/ceo gap is the English all/whole gap: sav novac — all the money there is; ceo dan — the day as a whole.
And approximation, without which nobody talks about money. Oko and otprilike — about, roughly: oko tri hiljade dinara, otprilike sat vremena. Skoro and gotovo — almost: skoro sav budžet. Najmanje and najviše — at least and at most: najmanje šezdeset bodova. A trap inside the trap: skoro means "almost", while "soon" is uskoro.
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?
Serbian quantity is simpler than English in one spot and harder in another. Simple: there are few words and they do not bend. Hard: after every one of them the noun goes into the "of"-form (genitive), and that is not an exception but the law.
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.