Sorting waste in Serbian

How the whole thing sounds

The situation: a residents' meeting: separate waste collection in the courtyard. First the whole conversation, then each line on its own, with a translation.

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  Општина нам поставља три канте за разврставање отпада.

  Opština nam postavlja tri kante za razvrstavanje otpada.

  The municipality is putting three bins in our yard for sorting waste.
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  Три? Људи једва једну користе како треба.

  Tri? Ljudi jedva jednu koriste kako treba.

  Three? People barely manage even one.
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  Зато и треба обука. Пластика, папир и стакло иду одвојено.

  Zato i treba obuka. Plastika, papir i staklo idu odvojeno.

  That's what the briefing is for. Plastic, paper and glass go separately.
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  А шта са једнократном пластиком? Њу нико не откупљује.

  A šta sa jednokratnom plastikom? Nju niko ne otkupljuje.

  And what about single-use plastic? Nobody takes it.
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  Откупљује, као секундарне сировине. Плаћају на кило.

  Otkupljuje, kao sekundarne sirovine. Plaćaju na kilo.

  They take it, as recyclable material. They pay by the kilogram.
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  Добро. Али кеса се разграђује сто година, боље да је не купујемо.

  Dobro. Ali kesa se razgrađuje sto godina, bolje da je ne kupujemo.

  Okay. But a plastic bag takes a hundred years to decompose; better not to buy it at all.
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  Тако је. Сваки лични допринос овде нешто значи.

  Tako je. Svaki lični doprinos ovde nešto znači.

  Exactly. Every personal contribution means something here.
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  Предлажем и озелењавање дворишта, кад већ причамо о томе.

  Predlažem i ozelenjavanje dvorišta, kad već pričamo o tome.

  I propose greening the yard too, since we're on the subject.
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  Записујем. Гласаћемо о обама предлозима у уторак.

  Zapisujem. Glasaćemo o obama predlozima u utorak.

  I'm writing it down. We'll vote on both proposals on Tuesday.

Lines one by one

How to prepare for a conversation like this

Memorizing the lines is not enough: the other person will say their own thing, not what is written. What helps more is catching the key words by ear and keeping three rescue phrases ready: “I don't understand”, “repeat, please”, “slower”.

And one more thing phrasebooks do not mention: awkwardness gets in the way more than not knowing the words.

• Fear of making mistakes gets in the way of learning a language, and noticeably so. The link turns up study after study, and together those studies cover almost twenty thousand people.checked many times
  Teimouri, Goetze & Plonsky, 2019, Studies in Second Language Acquisition 41(2) · 19,933 participants from 23 countries; correlation with results r = −0.36.
• That fear can be dealt with — the methods have been tested and they work.checked many times
  Xiong et al., 2024, Journal of Language and Social Psychology · 37 studies, anxiety reduced by −0.61. Of the seven conditions examined, only age turned out to matter.

Next

• The whole phrasebookAll situations in one list
• Receiving goods at the warehouseAt the warehouse: accepting a batch with a…
• What happened on the roadTwo friends: an account of an incident on…
• The neighbor who bragsTwo neighbors talk about a third neighbor
• Getting acquaintedA chat in the courtyard