This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.
Around town: transport, tickets and directions
You can already ask the way and tell left from right. Now let us take those skills into a real city: the buses, stops and taxis of Novi Sad. The lesson “Asking & giving information” taught you to ask questions; here they go to work on transport, together with the words you cannot get around town without: autobus “bus”, stajalište “stop”, karta “ticket”, presedanje “change, transfer”, taksi “taxi”.
City transport: autobus and karta
In Novi Sad you get around by bus, and the bus network is what Serbians call gradski prevoz “city transport, public transport”. The city has no trams or trolleybuses, so nearly everything rests on the bus. Both words, tramvaj and trolejbus, will come in handy in Belgrade, where all city transport (buses, trams and trolleybuses) has been free since January 2025: you need no ticket there. A ticket is karta. In Novi Sad you either buy it from the driver or pay with a top-up card that works like an electronic purse, the E-novčanik. You tap it on the reader, the validator, as you get on, and a ride paid this way costs less than a ticket bought from the driver for cash.
Stops, timetables, delays
Keep two kinds of “station” apart. stajalište is a stop, where the bus picks up passengers along its route. stanica (in full, autobuska stanica) is a station or terminal, where intercity coaches leave from; separately there is the železnička stanica “railway station” for trains (voz). In everyday speech, though, stanica is often used for an ordinary stop as well; on signs and in announcements the stop is stajalište, and a station is made explicit: autobuska stanica, železnička stanica. The timetable is red vožnje, literally “order of driving”. If the bus is running late, you say autobus kasni “the bus is late”, and the delay itself is kašnjenje.
Asking the route: which bus and where to get off
You know how to ask, and pravo “straight on”, from “Asking & giving information”, and levo “left” and desno “right” from “Adverbs of place & time”. On transport these are the phrases you need most:
Cheat sheet
The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.
Around town: transport, tickets and directions
gradski prevoz “city transport”: in Novi Sad only the autobus; tramvaj and trolejbus run in Belgrade, where it is free (since 2025). Ticket: karta; the E-novčanik card on the reader (validator) is cheaper than paying the driver.
Transport words
Verbs: ići “to go”, doći “to come”, otići “to leave”, presesti “to change”, sići (siđem) or izaći (izađem) “to get off”.