не знам

In short

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  не знам

  ne znam

  I do not know

Why it looks that way

Written as two words, stress on ne. Softer: nisam siguran — "I am not sure". Pojma nemam is stronger: "I have no idea".

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.

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  Не знам, извините

  Ne znam, izvinite

  I do not know, sorry

Nearby words: basic words

Yes, no, good, bad, very. The small change of a language — and no sentence assembles without it.

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  да

  da

  yes

  Also the linker before verbs: hocu da idem — "I want to go". Serbian almost never uses the infinitive after a main verb; da plus the present does the job.
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  не

  ne

  no

  One word for the answer "no" and for negating any verb: ne razumem — "I do not understand". No helper verb, just put ne in front.
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  добро

  dobro

  fine

  The standard answer to kako si: dobro sam — "I am fine". Well-being, approval, acceptable plans — one word covers them all.
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  лоше

  loše

  badly

  š sounds like "sh" in "ship". The plain opposite of dobro — use it for how you feel or how things went.
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  одлично

  odlično

  excellent

  The adverb from odlican, "excellent". In Serbian schools odlican is also the top grade — the straight-A word.
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  и

  i

  and

  Also an emphatic "even": i on je došao — "even he came". Position in the sentence tells the two jobs apart.
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  али

  ali

  but

  Opens the second clause, as in English. After a negative, Serbian switches to nego: nije čaj, nego kafa — "not tea but coffee".
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  половина

  polovina

  half

  The short form pola is more frequent: pola kile, pola sata.
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  не треба ми

  ne treba mi

  I do not need it

  Impersonal treba: the needed thing stands in the plain form — ne treba mi kesa — "I do not need a bag".
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  још један

  još jedan

  one more

  With feminine nouns: još jedna; neuter: još jedno. The order phrase that never stops being useful.

Test yourself

Five questions from the same set — “basic words”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.

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 times
  Kim & 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 times
  Adesope, 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 times
  Bertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.

Next

• Basic words11 words on the topic
• син — sonread “sin”
• видети — to seeread “videti”
• чути — to hearread “čuti”
• спавати — to sleepread “spavati”
• All Serbian wordsIndex by topic