How to read in Serbian
Cyrillic without the odd letters — plus j, lj, nj, ć, đ, dž The script is called “Serbian Cyrillic”; it has 6 letters. You take it a few characters per session — in a week or two a shop sign stops being a picture.
Cyrillic minus the odd ones
Vuk Karadžić built this alphabet on a single rule: write as you speak, read as it is written. One letter — one sound; no vowel ever fades to "uh" when unstressed; no letter is silent.
Of the thirty letters, twenty-four you can read almost straight away — they look like Latin and sound like it. Six need a lesson: in their Latin shapes they are j, lj, nj, ć, đ, dž.
And a few habits must be left at the door. Serbian has no soft sign and no glide-and-vowel combo letters. Softness is written with letters of its own: lj, nj, ć, đ. The y-glide is simply j plus a vowel — ja, ju, jo. And e is always e as in "bed": ne reads "neh", dete reads "deh-teh".
Two scripts, one word
Cyrillic and Latin are equal in Serbian and transliterate into each other letter for letter, with no exceptions. The same word may be written both ways on two neighboring shop signs. These are not two versions of the language, just two ways to write one sound.
The transliteration you see here is the real Serbian Latin script, the gaevica. It is worth learning side by side with the Cyrillic: in Belgrade you will see both.
Three Cyrillic letters are written in Latin with two signs: lj, nj, dž. They still count as one letter.
| the sound | written (Latin) | note |
|---|---|---|
| y as in "yes" | j | one sign |
| ly as in "million" | lj | two signs, one letter |
| ny as in "canyon" | nj | two signs, one letter |
| soft ch | ć | one sign |
| soft dj | đ | one sign |
| hard dj as in "jam" | dž | two signs, one letter |
| ch / sh / zh | č / š / ž | the ch of "church", the sh of "ship", the zh of "measure" |
What order to take the characters in
The writing course is split into 2 steps: one step is one lesson, a few characters at a time. Nobody takes the whole script at once out of mercy: 6 letters in an evening stay in memory for exactly that, an evening.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
Frequently asked
How many characters do you need to learn to read in Serbian?
6 letters, and you can already read some of them. After that a word stops being a picture — even when its meaning is still unknown.
What to learn first: letters or words?
Letters. A word in an unfamiliar script cannot be read at all, and a “word — translation” card tells you no more than a picture does.
How long does it take to learn to read in Serbian?
One step a day — 2 days. That is about recognizing characters, not understanding: you will start reading aloud before you understand what you read.