Expressing opinion

Lesson opening

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

Expressing opinion: mislim da, slažem se, po meni

You have the parts already. The lesson “Basic da-clauses” gave you mislim da…, “Modal & sentence adverbs” taught you words such as možda, verovatno and sigurno to show how sure you are, “Dative impersonals” gave you čini mi se “it seems to me”, and “Conditional I” the polite rekao bih “I’d say”. What is missing is the assembly. And the slip an English speaker makes here is rarely grammatical: Ne slažem se “I don’t agree” is built flawlessly and still sounds a couple of notches sharper than you meant. This lesson is about the dose.

Stating an opinion: a scale from “it seems” to “I’m convinced”

The verb formulas of opinion are built alike: the verb of opinion, da, and the second verb in its ordinary personal form: Mislim da je to dobra ideja. “I think it’s a good idea.” The “that” here is always da (lesson “Basic da-clauses”). The formulas differ not in grammar but in strength: how far the speaker stands behind the claim.

The formulas with siguran, ubeđen and rekao change with the speaker’s gender: a woman says sigurna sam, ubeđena sam, rekla bih. The others have no gender. Čini mi se da… can also open with the full pronoun meni: Meni se čini da… “Well, it seems to me…” stresses that the view is yours, especially when it differs from someone else’s. The short mi never comes first, so not “Mi se čini”.

“I don’t think he’ll come” can be said in two ways. Serbian speech often puts the “not” after da: Mislim da neće doći, literally “I think he won’t come”. Ne mislim da će doći, with the “not” where English puts it, is also correct and means the same. The short answer “I don’t think so” is Mislim da ne.

The second way is not a verb of opinion but a short phrase at the start, set off by a comma: shorter, softer, and it does not drag the other person into an argument.

A preference is an opinion too

Half of all opinions are not “this is right” but “I like this better”. The formula više volim … nego … “I prefer … to …” (literally “I love … more than …”) came from “Free time & culture”, the comparative radije “rather, more willingly” from “Adverb formation”.

Four of these six phrases use the dative again (mi “to me”): a Serbian preference is not something you do but something that comes to you. Draže mi je is literally “it is dearer to me”, much as English says “it suits me”. And radije bih is a “would” form, so it knows gender: radije bih ostao from a man, radije bih ostala from a woman.

Cheat sheet

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

Expressing opinion

Six moves: state, ask, agree, object, justify, concede; two registers.

Stating: strength scale

• No verb: po meni (colloquial), po mom mišljenju (neutral), prema mom mišljenju (bookish), što se mene tiče, ako mene pitaš, iskreno, koliko ja znam. Po + locative: po njemu.
• A woman: sigurna sam, ubeđena sam, rekla bih. Contrast: Meni se čini (not “Mi se čini”).
• “I don’t think he’ll come”: Mislim da neće doći = Ne mislim da će doći; “I don’t think so”: Mislim da ne.
• Preference: više volim … nego …, radije bih ostao, draže mi je, bolje mi odgovara, nije mi po volji, svejedno mi je.

Asking

Šta misliš (o tome)? Šta ti misliš? Kako ti se čini? Šta kažeš na to? Slažeš li se sa mnom? Kakav je tvoj stav? Kako vi gledate na to? A ti? Opinion of: misliti o + locative.

Agreeing and disagreeing

• Prepositions: slažem se s tobom (Instr.), u tome (Loc.), složili smo se oko cene (Gen.).
• Three softeners: the “would” form (ne bih rekao); hedges baš / malo / donekle; caveats: možda grešim, ali…, koliko ja znam, koliko vidim.

Justifying and conceding

• Reason: zato što, zbog toga što, jer (jer only inside a sentence). Answer to Zašto?: only Zato što…
• Example: na primer, recimo, konkretno. Adding: pre svega, osim toga, uz to, takođe.
• Two sides: s jedne strane … s druge strane (s + genitive; s druge strane also alone). Conclusion: dakle, znači, zato, ukratko, sve u svemu, na kraju krajeva.
• Conceding: Tačno je da…, ali… Istina, … Doduše, … Ima nešto u tome. U principu da, ali… Razumem te, ali… Iako…, ipak… Slažem se, međutim…

Register

The particles pa, ma, e, bre are for speech only (bre with friends); text for strangers has none.