Language/Serbian/Grammar/Cases:-Nominative-and-Accusative
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As a Serbian language teacher with over 20 years of experience, I know how important it is to understand the basics of Serbian grammar. In this lesson, we will focus on two key cases in the Serbian language: Nominative and Accusative.
Nominative Case
The Nominative case is used for the subject of the sentence. When you want to identify a subject or tell who is doing the action, you'll use Nominative case. Let's look at sentence structure in Serbian to better understand this concept.
- The basic sentence structure in Serbian: Subject [Nominative case] + verb + predicate [Accusative case]
- Examples of Nominative case:
| Serbian | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| Ja radim. | Yah rah-deem | I work. |
| Ona peva. | Oh-nah peh-vah | She sings. |
| On voli film. | Ohn vo-lee film | He likes the movie. |
In these examples, "Ja" (I), "Ona" (She), and "On" (He) are all in the Nominative case because they are the subject of the sentence.
Accusative Case
The Accusative case is used for the direct object of the sentence. When you want to identify who or what is receiving the action, you'll use the Accusative case. Let's take a look at some examples:
- Examples of Accusative case:
| Serbian | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| Ja kupujem lubenicu. | Yah koo-poo-yem loo-beh-nee-tsu | I'm buying a watermelon. |
| On jede jabuku. | Ohn yeh-deh yah-boo-koo | He's eating an apple. |
| Ona gleda film. | Oh-nah gleh-dah film | She's watching a movie. |
In these examples, "lubenica" (watermelon), "jabuka" (apple), and "film" (movie) are receiving the action and therefore in the Accusative case.
It is important to note that masculine singular nouns have different endings in the Nominative and Accusative cases:
Nominative: hleb (bread) Accusative: hleba (bread)
Nominative: stola (table) Accusative: stol (table)
Nominative: profesor (teacher) Accusative: profesora (teacher)
For feminine singular nouns, the only difference is the ending of the accusative case, which will always end in "u".
Tips
- Learning cases can be difficult, but fear not! Practice makes perfect. Make sure to study and practice in order to gain confidence in using them correctly.
- Try to memorize the gender of the noun with its corresponding endings to help with accurate case usage.
Sources