умети
“умети” (umeti) — to know how to in Serbian. Verb, level A2. Written just like the umeti taught as "to manage"; in the present the same word means a skill: umem da plivam — "I can swim". Knowing a fact is znati. In a live sentence: “Умем да пливам од пете године” — I have known how to swim since I was five. You can hear how it sounds right here. Written with the characters у, м, е, т, и.
In short
| Written in Serbian | умети |
| Read in Latin letters | umeti |
| Translation | to know how to |
| Part of speech | verb |
| Level | A2 |
- уметиumetito know how to
Why it looks that way
Written just like the umeti taught as "to manage"; in the present the same word means a skill: umem da plivam — "I can swim". Knowing a fact is znati.
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.
- Умем да пливам од пете годинеUmem da plivam od pete godineI have known how to swim since I was five
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 know how to” in Serbian?
«умети», read “umeti”. In a live sentence: “Умем да пливам од пете године” — I have known how to swim since I was five. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Verb, level A2; written with the characters у, м, е, т, и.
How is “умети” written in Latin letters?
umeti. 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?
Written just like the umeti taught as "to manage"; in the present the same word means a skill: umem da plivam — "I can swim". Knowing a fact is znati. 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.