зубобоља
“зубобоља” (zubobolja) — a toothache in Serbian. Noun, level A2. The lj at the end is the soft ly: zu-bo-bo-lja, stress on the first syllable. In a live sentence: “Зубобоља ме је будила целе ноћи” — The toothache kept me up all night. You can hear how it sounds right here. Written with the characters з, у, б, о, б, о, љ, а. A word from the everyday Serbian course, level A2.
In short
| Written in Serbian | зубобоља |
| Read in Latin letters | zubobolja |
| Translation | a toothache |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | A2 |
- зубобољаzuboboljaa toothache
How to pronounce it
The lj at the end is the soft ly: zu-bo-bo-lja, stress on the first syllable.
Why it looks that way
One word instead of two: zub plus bol. The headache, glavobolja, works the same way.
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.
- Зубобоља ме је будила целе ноћиZubobolja me je budila cele noćiThe toothache kept me up all night
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 “a toothache” in Serbian?
«зубобоља», read “zubobolja”. The lj at the end is the soft ly: zu-bo-bo-lja, stress on the first syllable. In a live sentence: “Зубобоља ме је будила целе ноћи” — The toothache kept me up all night. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Noun, level A2; written with the characters з, у, б, о, б, о, љ, а.
How is “зубобоља” written in Latin letters?
zubobolja. 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?
One word instead of two: zub plus bol. The headache, glavobolja, works the same way. 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.