“She is a good singer” and “she sings well”: English uses two different words here, and so does Serbian. The adjective describes a person or a thing and, in Serbian, agrees with it; the adverb describes an action and never changes at all. English usually builds the adverb with a suffix, quick → quickly, and sometimes with a different word altogether, good → well. Serbian is more economical: it takes the adjective’s neuter form, and that is the adverb. dobar “good” gives dobro “well”, with no suffix and no irregularity.
This lesson covers three mechanisms: the adverb made from an adjective (the neuter in -o), the special group of adverbs in -ski (as in govoriti srpski, “to speak Serbian”) and the comparative of adverbs (brže “faster”, bolje “better”). At the end comes the distinction you will use most: when a Serb says dobar and when dobro. English good and well are a useful guide here, with two exceptions we will mark clearly.
The adverb is the neuter of the adjective
A quick reminder: a Serbian adjective has three genders, and the neuter is the form it takes with a neuter noun such as selo (village) or more (sea). Take an adjective, put it in the neuter singular, and you have the adverb. There is no separate suffix to learn: the form already exists, and you simply use it with a verb instead of a noun.
Notice loš → loše, not “lošo”. After a “soft” consonant (č, ć, dž, đ, j, lj, nj, š, ž) the neuter ends in -e, not -o, as in moje, naše and loše in the lesson “Adjective agreement”. In the same way vruć “hot” gives vruće “hot” (of the weather, “it is hot”), and svež “fresh” gives sveže “fresh, cool” (of the air). Hence dobro but loše; brzo but vruće. Say a few sentences aloud in which the same word works first as an adjective, then as an adverb:
More adverbs of manner
The rule “neuter = adverb” covers hundreds of words, so it is worth turning into a reflex. Here is a high-frequency set for everyday use, exactly what you need to talk about how something is done. Watch the “fleeting” a as you go (the lesson “Fleeting a”): in many adjectives it drops out before an ending, just as it does in their other forms (ozbiljan, but ozbiljna, ozbiljno).
Cheat sheet
The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.
An adverb (prilog) never changes; it describes a verb, a quality or another adverb. No special suffix (no English -ly): the adverb of manner (“how?”) is the neuter singular of the adjective. After a soft consonant (č, ć, dž, đ, j, lj, nj, š, ž) the neuter is -e, not -o (moje); many adjectives drop their fleeting a.
Adjective → adverb
Adverbs in -ski: same form as the adjective
Comparative and superlative
dobar or dobro: the heart of the lesson
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