истекао је рок
“истекао је рок” (istekao je rok) — the deadline has passed in Serbian. Phrase, level A1. Isteci in the past gives istekao, the soft sound hardened to a k. Whose deadline it is goes in the to-whom case: istekao mi je rok. In a live sentence: “Истекао је рок важења личне карте” — The deadline on the ID has passed. You can hear how it sounds right here. Written with the characters и, с, т, е, к, а, о, ј, е, р, о, к.
In short
| Written in Serbian | истекао је рок |
| Read in Latin letters | istekao je rok |
| Translation | the deadline has passed |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | A1 |
- истекао је рокistekao je rokthe deadline has passed
Why it looks that way
Isteci in the past gives istekao, the soft sound hardened to a k. Whose deadline it is goes in the to-whom case: istekao mi je rok.
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.
- Истекао је рок важења личне картеIstekao je rok važenja lične karteThe deadline on the ID has passed
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 “the deadline has passed” in Serbian?
«истекао је рок», read “istekao je rok”. In a live sentence: “Истекао је рок важења личне карте” — The deadline on the ID has passed. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Phrase, level A1; written with the characters и, с, т, е, к, а, о, ј, е, р, о, к.
How is “истекао је рок” written in Latin letters?
istekao je rok. 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?
Isteci in the past gives istekao, the soft sound hardened to a k. Whose deadline it is goes in the to-whom case: istekao mi je rok. 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.