боли
“боли” (boli) — it hurts in Serbian. Verb, level A1. It hurts not "to me" but "me": boli me zub. The sick one is bolestan. In a live sentence: “Боли ме стомак од јутрос” — My stomach has been hurting since morning. You can hear how it sounds right here. Written with the characters б, о, л, и. A word from the everyday Serbian course, level A1.
In short
| Written in Serbian | боли |
| Read in Latin letters | boli |
| Translation | it hurts |
| Part of speech | verb |
| Level | A1 |
- болиboliit hurts
Why it looks that way
It hurts not "to me" but "me": boli me zub. The sick one is bolestan.
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- Боли ме стомак од јутросBoli me stomak od jutrosMy stomach has been hurting since morning
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “it hurts” in Serbian?
«боли», read “boli”. In a live sentence: “Боли ме стомак од јутрос” — My stomach has been hurting since morning. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Verb, level A1; written with the characters б, о, л, и.
How is “боли” written in Latin letters?
boli. This is a practical spelling — you need it to read aloud and be understood, not to meet an academic standard.
Why does this word look the way it does?
It hurts not "to me" but "me": boli me zub. The sick one is bolestan. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
Can I hear how it sounds?
Yes, right on this page: click the word and it will play. The sound works on any phone, and nothing needs to be installed.