Bavim se sportom: the with-case that holds half the unit
The with-case is a thing English keeps in prepositions — "with a knife", "by bus" — and Serbian keeps in endings, which is why it hides inside half the sentences of this unit. For example: “Чиме се бавите? Бавим се спортом и предајем у школи” — What do you do? I do sports and teach at a school. A rule from the Serbian course: worked out on examples, not memorized as a wording.
How it works
The with-case is a thing English keeps in prepositions — "with a knife", "by bus" — and Serbian keeps in endings, which is why it hides inside half the sentences of this unit.
The endings. Masculine and neuter take -om, or -em after a soft stem: autobusom, vozom, nožem — with a knife, mužem — with the husband. A feminine word in -a takes -om: rukom — by hand, olovkom — with a pencil. A feminine word on a consonant takes -i or -ju: stvari, krvlju. The plural is the same for everyone: -ima or -ama — autobusima, knjigama.
Rule one: what you do it with — no preposition. Pišem olovkom — I write with a pencil, idem autobusom — I go by bus, sečem nožem — I cut with a knife. The preposition sa here is not just redundant, it changes the meaning: idem sa drugom — with a friend, idem autobusom — by bus. English draws the same line between "with" and "by"; Serbian draws it with a preposition against an ending.
Rule two: a handful of frequent verbs demand the with-case and nothing else. Baviti se (to do, to be into) — bavi se sportom, bavi se muzikom — and the same verb asks "what do you do for a living": čime se bavite? — literally "with what are you occupied". Rukovoditi — rukovodi timom — he runs a team. Upravljati — upravlja firmom. Vladati — vlada jezikom — he masters the language, literally rules it. The list is short; learn it whole.
Rule three — the one English gets wrong first: after "to be" a profession stands in the plain form, not the with-case. English "he was a mechanic" keeps the noun flat, and Serbian agrees: on je bio mehaničar. The with-case here sounds like homework. But postati (to become) allows both: postao je mehaničar and postao je mehaničarem — the first is twice as common.
And the spot where Serbian is wider than English: the with-case also covers time and path. Danima — for days, noću — at night, nedeljom — on Sundays, šumom — through the forest. Hence radimo subotom — we work on Saturdays — and by no means "we work with Saturday".
Table
| the word | the with-form | in the sentence | in English |
|---|---|---|---|
| autobus | autobusom | idem autobusom | I go by bus |
| sport | sportom | bavim se sportom | I do sports |
| tim | timom | rukovodi timom | he runs a team |
| firma | firmom | upravlja firmom | she runs a company |
| stvar | stvari | radi sa tom stvari | he works with that thing |
| kolege | kolegama | razgovaram sa kolegama | I talk with colleagues |
| subota | subotom | radimo subotom | we work on Saturdays |
| mehaničar | mehaničar | bio je mehaničar | he was a mechanic |
By example
- Чиме се бавите? Бавим се спортом и предајем у школиČime se bavite? Bavim se sportom i predajem u školiWhat do you do? I do sports and teach at a school
- На посао идем аутобусом, а са колегом се видим средомNa posao idem autobusom, a sa kolegom se vidim sredomI take the bus to work, and I meet a colleague on Wednesdays
- Отац је био механичар, а брат је постао електричарOtac je bio mehaničar, a brat je postao električarMy father was a mechanic, and my brother became an electrician
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
Bavim se sportom: how does it work in Serbian?
The with-case is a thing English keeps in prepositions — "with a knife", "by bus" — and Serbian keeps in endings, which is why it hides inside half the sentences of this unit.
What does it look like in an example sentence Serbian?
“Чиме се бавите? Бавим се спортом и предајем у школи” (Čime se bavite? Bavim se sportom i predajem u školi) — What do you do? I do sports and teach at a school. A rule is easier to test on sentences like this than to memorize as a wording: what surfaces in conversation is the sentence.