¶ Serbian Dialogue: Introductions and Hobbies
We are Chris and Dani and today we want to give you some basics of Serbian language, like the typical phrases you would use when you meet someone here. Hey guys, stay tuned after our conversation to hear the explanations for the most important expressions we use. And you? What do you call? I'm Danica. Good to me, Christiane. Good to me, too. You're not from here, right? No, not really. Where are you? I was born in Cuba.
But I lived in Spain more. You lived in Cuba and in Spain? Yes. And now you live here? Yes, I live in Beograd. And how long are you here? About two and a half years. Okay. And how are you doing? I am an informaticer and I work at home. Yes, I'm here for informatics. And where are you from? I'm from Požareca. I live in Beograd. I lived in Beograd for the last 8 years, with a little bit of time. At the time I lived in Spain. Really? In the southern of Spain, in Aviles.
Really? I'm from Avilesa? No, it's not possible. It's possible, it's possible. Tell me, what are you interested in? I'm interested in learning language. And what language do you teach? I teach Spanish, English and Serbian for Spanish. That's nice, I have to learn srbsky. You can do that in the verb, yes. What language do you speak? Of course, Spanish is my mother language. I know English and a little Dutch language.
It's not just a little bit, but let's go. Thank you. Tell me, what do you do in Lodnora? I don't have a lot of time, but I would like to share with me, and to read and read. What do you do? I love to read everything in general, I don't have any different genre, but I actually read Harry Potter. I started for about two months, and now I'm on the fourth book. I also read it. Harry Potter. Not all. Not all the books. From the third to the sixth.
Aha, a what happened with the first two books? I watched films when I was little and then I didn't read the two books. Aha, okay. from the third to the sixth, without watching films. Yes, yes. That's interesting. First and second are very similar to books and films. Yes, yes. Okay, I wanted to ask you, do you want to do some sport? Well, I didn't train anything, but before a month of a day...
I started to train, sorry, Wing Chun. Wing Chun, what is that? That is a kind of Kung Fu. You know Kung Fu? It's a kind of Buddhist. Yes. Yes, that's right. How often do you train? We train three times a week and two and a half hours after training. It's just a lot, right? For me, yes, but it doesn't matter if you want to be a pro or a good person. Do you want to do that? Do you think you need a good physical form to train with Wing Chun? What's better?
and that you can do more and do more. Aha, that's what you can do better. What you can do better? You can do better and do more. For example, I didn't... and had a good form when I started, now it's better, but when you become, I don't know, strong or strong, Then you can do something else to do, something else to do. Okay, okay. Then you can show me some progress? Of course, when you have time. Super, then let's say it. Yes, we'll see you then. See you then. Bye. Hello again.
¶ Greetings and Personal Introductions
uh let's uh let's go through the conversation uh paying special attention to the most useful stuff for beginners okay okay so fris and i are going to explain you everything you need to know when you meet someone what to say what maybe not to say okay so first we're going to talk about readings yeah that's an easy one we said
Ciao. Yeah. What would that be? Zdravo would be like hello, right? Yeah. Ciao. Yeah. Okay. So when you, yeah, bear in mind that this is... informal conversation okay so when you meet your friends or someone your age let's say when you greet them you can say ciao or zdravo doesn't matter if you already know them or not okay Then we wanted to meet each other, so I said... Kako se zoveš? Kako se zoveš is a proper form to ask someone what their name is.
okay and I replied moje ime je Christian which translates to my name is okay okay but there are several forms actually to say your name or to introduce yourself, the one I used was Ja Sam Danica. Okay? So, Ja Sam would mean? I am. I am. Okay, so you can use this one to say your name. or many other things. There are also some other ways to introduce yourself. You could say or of course finishing with your name okay good then when you have exchanged your names with someone what do you say
Yeah, let's say I'm happy to meet that person. We say, Drago me. Okay. It's a pleasure to meet you. Takođe.
¶ Asking About Origin and Residence
or or e-many which is like the pleasure is also mine you know I share the pleasure of meeting the person yeah and okay so then we talked about our origin and i asked you where you're from which is okay let's hear it again Okay, and I said yeah some is Okay, yeah some is meaning I am from, which, by the way, you can also use it for countries and cities. In this case, Danica used it for a city, but you can use it for a country. So any kind of origin.
and if you connected this jasa maybe with the first part where we were talking about names it's the same construction it means i am we just added the word is which means from Okay, then we talked about our current residences, okay? So, I asked Chris. Sada živiš ovde? Meaning? Now, do you live here? You live here. Okay. And what did you say? I said, meaning I live in Belgrade. Yeah. Also, I asked Chris, koliko dugo si of de? This koliko dugo would be? Like, for...
For how long have you been here? Yeah. How long have you been here? And Chris used a very interesting word with the time of his staying here. which is oko okay yeah like he said about about two years and a half okay Also, when you asked me where I was from or where I was living currently, I said Trenutno živim u Belgradu. Okay? And trenutno means? Тренутно would be currently or at the moment. Живим, I live. You can only use this for the first verse. I live, живим.
¶ Professions and Language Skills
Okay, then we talked about our professions. So here you could hear two questions. How do you ask someone about their profession? You say... Or... Šta si po zanimanju? Yeah. So, what is the question that you don't ask in Serbian if you want to ask someone about their profession? Šta radiš? Yeah, this is a very common mistake, okay? The verb is raditi, which means both work and do, okay? Therefore you have this mistake.
But if you ask someone in Serbian, it means... What are you doing? It's a colloquial. thing it's not you can also use it if you meet a friend and you say start others like what's up yeah okay so you said uh i said yes i'm informatic which is like, I'm an IT person. Yeah. And I said, ja sam professor jazyka. Meaning? You are a language teacher. Yeah. Okay. So again, you can... See this construction? Ja sam. You can also use it with your profession. Then I asked Chris, koje jezike govoriš?
Yeah, what languages do you speak? Okay, govoriti to speak. And Chris said... Spanski je moj materni jezik. Okay, here we have a very interesting expression, materni jazik. Yeah, mother tongue. For many of you it would be English. Okay, and then you also said, znam i engleski. Yeah. is like i know i i know english yeah but he says nam i engleski and be careful because i can mean both and and both also
Yeah, so Znam i Engleski would be I also know English. Yeah Finally, of course i malo Srbski, which is like malo is like a little bit a little bit of Serbian. Yeah
¶ Discussing Free Time Activities
Okay, then we talked about our free time and you asked me... Yeah, which is...
What do you do in your free time? Yeah. So, slobodno vreme, free time. Then I said, volim da... I like to. And this is... very useful to know there's a lot of stuff that you can use with volume that yeah so you would basically use volume da and then another verb also in the present tense in the first person okay because you are saying i like doing this okay in serbian deconstruction is a bit different but the meaning would be the same so what i said which would be
To have a walk. Ja. Volim da se vidžam sa društvom. To meet with friends or to hang out with friends. Ja. And the last thing. Volim da čitam. To read. Cittati is to read. Yeah. So please ask me. What do you read? Yeah. What do you read or what are you reading? Because in Serbian we actually don't have... continuous tenses so this can be both depending on the context in this context would be what are you reading yeah because he was referring to what are you reading right now and uh i said
¶ Everyday Phrases and Saying Goodbye
Trenutno, again at the moment, trenutno čitam Harry Potter. And the last part, we were talking about sports. So I asked Chris, dali se baviš? Like, do you practice any sport? Then he told me about his wing tune. practices okay i didn't know what was being tuned so i asked him šta je to šta je to literally means what what is that yeah so very useful phrases yeah for your daily life in serbian
Especially if you have a thing to point to and say and find out what's the word for it. One expression I told Chris because I asked him to show me some moves and he promised he was going to do so. He said. Yeah, so bad you will be like it's okay some sort of confirmation hmm, okay, and I told him there's in the the rich meaning I Take your word for it yeah so for me that was a promise yeah okay so the last thing guys how do you say goodbye well you can either use ciao like
for greetings, the same as greeting someone, or you can use vidimose. Yeah, vidimose is very frequent, especially with friends. Okay, but vidimose, what does it mean? It means see you.
We really hope you enjoyed this podcast and also that you find it useful. That's the most important thing for us. Also, we're going to leave the information about our web page and our mail so you can... write your comment and you can also write some questions and send us some questions you have or maybe some topics about Serbia or Serbian language that you want us to talk about. Vidimo se! Vidimo se! Ciao!