остати без новца
“остати без новца” (ostati bez novca) — to run out of money in Serbian. Phrase, level B1. The build ostati bez plus genitive works for everything: ostati bez posla, bez reci, bez struje. In a live sentence: “Остали смо без новца трећег дана путовања” — We ran out of money on the third day of the trip. You can hear how it sounds right here. Written with the characters о, с, т, а, т, и, б, е, з, н, о, в.
In short
| Written in Serbian | остати без новца |
| Read in Latin letters | ostati bez novca |
| Translation | to run out of money |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | B1 |
- остати без новцаostati bez novcato run out of money
Why it looks that way
The build ostati bez plus genitive works for everything: ostati bez posla, bez reci, bez struje.
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.
- Остали смо без новца трећег дана путовањаOstali smo bez novca trećeg dana putovanjaWe ran out of money on the third day of the trip
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 “to run out of money” in Serbian?
«остати без новца», read “ostati bez novca”. In a live sentence: “Остали смо без новца трећег дана путовања” — We ran out of money on the third day of the trip. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Phrase, level B1; written with the characters о, с, т, а, т, и, б, е, з, н, о, в.
How is “остати без новца” written in Latin letters?
ostati bez novca. 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?
The build ostati bez plus genitive works for everything: ostati bez posla, bez reci, bez struje. 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.