пукла ми је гума
“пукла ми је гума” (pukla mi je guma) — to get a flat tire in Serbian. Phrase, level B1. Serbian talks about the tire, not the wheel, and puts the person in the dative: pukla MI je guma, the trouble happened to me. The wheel as a whole is tocak. In a live sentence: “Пукла ми је гума пред самим градом” — I got a flat tire right before the city. You can hear how it sounds right here.
In short
| Written in Serbian | пукла ми је гума |
| Read in Latin letters | pukla mi je guma |
| Translation | to get a flat tire |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | B1 |
- пукла ми је гумаpukla mi je gumato get a flat tire
Why it looks that way
Serbian talks about the tire, not the wheel, and puts the person in the dative: pukla MI je guma, the trouble happened to me. The wheel as a whole is tocak.
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.
- Пукла ми је гума пред самим градомPukla mi je guma pred samim gradomI got a flat tire right before the city
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 get a flat tire” in Serbian?
«пукла ми је гума», read “pukla mi je guma”. In a live sentence: “Пукла ми је гума пред самим градом” — I got a flat tire right before the city. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Phrase, level B1; written with the characters п, у, к, л, а, м, и, ј, е, г, у, м.
How is “пукла ми је гума” written in Latin letters?
pukla mi je guma. 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?
Serbian talks about the tire, not the wheel, and puts the person in the dative: pukla MI je guma, the trouble happened to me. The wheel as a whole is tocak. 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.