Lingoflyшта сте рекли?
- шта сте рекли?šta ste rekli?what did you say?
“шта сте рекли?” (šta ste rekli?) — what did you say? in Serbian. Phrase, level A2. The full re-ask. The short one is one word, molim?, and it is politer than šta?, which sounds sharp. In a live sentence: “Извините, шта сте рекли? Овде је бучно” (Izvinite, šta ste rekli? Ovde je bučno) — Sorry, what did you say? It is noisy here. You can hear how it sounds right here. Written with the characters ш, т, а (a), с (s), т, е, р, е, к, л, и (i).
In short
| Written in Serbian | шта сте рекли? (šta ste rekli) |
| Read in Latin letters | šta ste rekli? |
| Translation | what did you say? |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | A2 |
Why it looks that way
The full re-ask. The short one is one word, molim?, and it is politer than šta?, which sounds sharp.
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.
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 “what did you say?” in Serbian?
«шта сте рекли?» (šta ste rekli), read “šta ste rekli?” In a live sentence: “Извините, шта сте рекли? Овде је бучно” (Izvinite, šta ste rekli? Ovde je bučno) — Sorry, what did you say? It is noisy here. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Phrase, level A2; written with the characters ш, т, а (a), с (s), т, е, р, е, к, л, и (i).
How is “шта сте рекли?” (šta ste rekli) written in Latin letters?
šta ste rekli? 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 full re-ask. The short one is one word, molim?, and it is politer than šta?, which sounds sharp. 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 this 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.