Basic coordination

Lesson opening

This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.

Coordination: i, a, ali, ili, nego and their family

You can already build single words and phrases. Now it is time to link them into whole utterances: to join things, to contrast them, to offer a choice. That is the job of coordinating conjunctions, the little words that join two parts of equal rank without making one depend on the other, like English and, but and or. Here Serbian holds one surprise for an English speaker: where English makes do with and and but, Serbian has three words, i “and”, a “and / while, whereas” and ali “but”. We will take this trio as our backbone and then meet the rest of the family around it: pa, te, ili, ni...ni, nego, već, zato, dakle.

Joining: i, pa, te

The simplest conjunction is i “and”. It adds a word to a word or a clause to a clause and contributes nothing of its own, exactly like English and.

Next to i stand two variants with their own shade. pa adds the idea of sequence, “and then, and after that”: one event follows another. te is a bookish, slightly formal “and, and also / and so”; it is rarer in everyday speech but common in written texts, where it links whole clauses.

A practical tip: when in doubt, use i; it fits almost everywhere. Save pa for “did one thing, then another”, and learn to recognise te in texts, but do not rush to force it into your own speech.

Contrast: a and ali

Here lies the backbone of the lesson, and the place where English habits need retuning. Serbian distinguishes a soft contrast from a strong one. The soft one is a: it does not so much argue as compare, putting two different pictures side by side, like English while or whereas (or an and said with contrastive stress). The strong one is ali “but”: it brings in a real obstacle, a surprise, an objection.

The difference is this. a simply sets two facts next to each other: “I'm working, while you're resting”, two facts, no conflict. ali introduces a snag: “I wanted to, but I couldn't”, the second part cancels what the first led you to expect. English blurs the line, because its but also covers mild comparisons (“I like tea, but she likes coffee”). Test with English words: if while or whereas fits, take a; if only but works, often with a flavour of yet, still or even so, take ali.

Cheat sheet

The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.

Coordination: i, a, ali, ili, nego

A coordinating conjunction links parts of equal rank. Four groups: joining (i, pa, te), contrasting (a, ali, nego, već), choosing (ili) and negative joining (ni...ni). Where English has and / but, Serbian has i / a / ali.

All the conjunctions of the lesson

a or ali

• a sets two pictures side by side: On je visok, a ja sam nizak. He's tall, and I'm short.
• ali brings in a snag: Hteo sam da dođem, ali nisam mogao. I wanted to come, but I couldn't.
• Test: whereas fits → a; only a real but → ali.

nego and već: correcting a negative

ne X, nego Y “not X but Y” (Spanish sino, German sondern); nego more colloquial, već more bookish. “Not” second: Pijem čaj, a ne kafu. Elsewhere nego is “than”, već “already”.

ni...ni: negative concord

Words in ni- need a negative verb too.

The comma

• Between clauses, before a, ali, nego, već, zato, dakle: Radim, a ti spavaš.
• Between single words: your choice, Lepo je, ali skupo. but ne danas nego sutra; ne samo... nego i usually none.
• None before the last i / ili of a list or in short pairs: hleb i mleko, ni kafu ni čaj.