Hypothesising & speculating
Lesson opening
This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.
Hypotheses and speculation: talking about what isn’t there
You have already assembled the conditional: the lesson “Conditional I” gave you the forms bih, bi, bismo, “Conditional sentences” the three types of condition, and “Epistemic modality” the guess with mora da and biće da. What is left is the liveliest part: making all of this work in conversation, where a hypothesis rarely lives in a single sentence but unfolds move by move.
Launching a hypothesis: šta ako, pretpostavimo, recimo
Serbian keeps a ready set of openers. They differ in meaning and in what follows them: some take the present tense, others pull the perfect or the conditional along.
The first three rows are the three condition types of the lesson “Conditional sentences”. Šta ako… asks about something that can still happen (Type I, like ako with the present). Šta bi bilo kad bi… simply imagines (Type II: kad bi, or less often ako bi, with the conditional). Šta bi bilo da… is about what is not so (Type III): with the perfect, a past that can no longer be changed; with the present, something untrue now: Šta bi bilo da imamo više vremena? “What if we had more time?” The openers pretpostavimo, uzmimo, recimo are the first person plural of the imperative, “let us suppose”, which is exactly how English says it: let’s suppose, let’s say.
The probability scale: from sigurno to nema šanse
How likely is what you suppose? For every rung Serbian has adverbs, phrases with da and conversational formulas. The rungs are those of the lesson “Epistemic modality”; this lesson adds words to them.
Three phrases deserve a closer look. Teško da is the main way to say “hardly, it’s unlikely that”: literally “(it is) hard that”, followed by an ordinary future or present. Ima šanse da lives in conversation, and postoji mogućnost da is its written twin. And nije isključeno “it’s not ruled out” is the polite formula for “in principle yes, but I’m not expecting it”. Keep verovatno and valjda apart: verovatno is a sober “probably”, valjda “I suppose”, with hope in it (the lesson “Particles & modal words”).
Verovatno će padati kiša, ponesi kišobran. It’ll probably rain; take an umbrella.
Cheat sheet
The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.
Hypotheses and speculation
The grammar is familiar (the conditional and the three condition types); what is new is the phrases: launching a hypothesis, weighing it, the consequence, a proviso, regret, softening.
Launch
| Phrase | Then | English |
|---|---|---|
| Šta ako…? | as after ako: present, Future II | What if…? |
| Šta bi bilo da…? | perfect (past), present (now) | What would have happened if…? |
| Šta bi bilo kad bi…? | conditional (or ako bi) | What would happen if…? |
| Pretpostavimo da, uzmimo da, recimo da, zamisli da | usually present | let’s suppose, let’s say, imagine |
| Postoji mogućnost da, ima šanse da | present, future | there’s a possibility, there’s a chance |
Probability scale
| How sure | Serbian | English |
|---|---|---|
| I know | sigurno, svakako, bez sumnje, izvesno je da | certainly, without a doubt |
| conclusion | mora da | must |
| probably | najverovatnije, po svoj prilici, sve ukazuje na to da, verovatno, biće da | most likely, in all likelihood |
| I think | valjda | I suppose (hopefully) |
| maybe | možda, moguće je da, ima šanse da, nije isključeno | maybe, not ruled out |
| probably not | malo je verovatno da, teško da, sumnjam da | unlikely, hardly, I doubt |
| certainly not | nemoguće je, nema šanse da, isključeno je | impossible, no chance |
Consequence and provisos
- Consequence: u tom slučaju, onda bi, to bi značilo da, iz toga sledi da, posledica bi bila: in that case, then … would, that would mean, it follows that, the consequence would be.
- The other way round, and conclusions: a šta ako ne, u suprotnom, inače, s druge strane, ispada da, znači da: and what if not, otherwise, on the other hand, it turns out, so.
- Provisos: pod uslovom da provided that, u slučaju da in case, osim ako ne unless (keep the ne), samo ako only if, sve dok, dokle god as long as, ukoliko bookish “if”.
- The clitic bi takes second place: U tom slučaju bi zarada ostala ista.
What never happened
| Formula | Example | English |
|---|---|---|
| da sam znao | Da sam znao, ne bih došao. | had I known |
| kamo sreće da | Kamo sreće da smo krenuli ranije. | if only |
| da nije bilo | Da nije bilo tebe, ne bih uspeo. | if it hadn’t been for |
| na tvom mestu bih | Na tvom mestu bih pitao direktno. | if I were you, I’d |
| trebalo je da | Trebalo je da me pozoveš. | should have |
| umalo nisam, zamalo nisam | Umalo nisam pao. | I nearly (the ne negates nothing) |
Softening a guess
- rekao bih da, reklo bi se da, moglo bi se reći da: I’d say, it would seem, one could say.
- izgleda da, čini mi se da, imam utisak da: it seems, I have the impression.
- sudeći po svemu, koliko ja znam, ako se ne varam: by all appearances, as far as I know, if I’m not mistaken.
- Disagreeing: ne bih rekao, ne verujem da, ne bih se kladio: I wouldn’t say so, I don’t think, I wouldn’t bet on it.