све по старом
“све по старом” (sve po starom) — same as ever in Serbian. Phrase, level B1. Literally everything as of old. A frequent answer to sta ima novog: nista, sve po starom. In a live sentence: “Прошла је година, а све по старом” — A year passed and everything is same as ever. You can hear how it sounds right here. Written with the characters с, в, е, п, о, с, т, а, р, о, м. A word from the everyday Serbian course, level B1.
In short
| Written in Serbian | све по старом |
| Read in Latin letters | sve po starom |
| Translation | same as ever |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | B1 |
- све по старомsve po staromsame as ever
Why it looks that way
Literally everything as of old. A frequent answer to sta ima novog: nista, sve po starom.
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.
- Прошла је година, а све по старомProšla je godina, a sve po staromA year passed and everything is same as ever
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 “same as ever” in Serbian?
«све по старом», read “sve po starom”. In a live sentence: “Прошла је година, а све по старом” — A year passed and everything is same as ever. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Phrase, level B1; written with the characters с, в, е, п, о, с, т, а, р, о, м.
How is “све по старом” written in Latin letters?
sve po starom. 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?
Literally everything as of old. A frequent answer to sta ima novog: nista, sve po starom. 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.