Core irregular verbs

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Core irregular verbs: idem, jedem, pijem and their relatives

By now you can build the present tense with confidence: one set of personal endings and three classes sorted by a linking vowel (the lesson “Present tense”). But a handful of the most frequent Serbian verbs have a present stem that looks noticeably different from the infinitive, and sometimes it even comes from another root altogether. These are the verbs you will say on your very first day (“I’m going”, “I eat”, “I drink”, “my name is”, “I’ll take a taxi”), so they are learned early and by heart. You have met idem, pijem, zovem and the commands idi!, jedi! already; here they come together, with their past forms and their relatives.

You will not have to learn them one by one: they fall into a few small families, and once you have seen a family’s logic you will recognise it in other verbs too. In order: ići “to go”, built on two roots; jesti “to eat” and piti “to drink”, each with a present stem of its own; uzeti and početi, which gain a consonant in the present; and the vowel-changers zvati and brati. Then comes spavati, a regular verb where people expect a trap, and a map that puts hteti, moći and reći beside them.

ići: idem now, išao yesterday

The most frequent verb of motion, and the strangest. The infinitive is ići “to go”, but the present is built on the stem id-, and the past on yet another stem, iš-. Three stems, but only two roots in one verb: ići and idem share one, išao comes from another, much as English went has nothing to do with go. You saw the present in “Present tense”; here it is again:

Like English “go”, ići does not care whether you walk, drive or take the bus: Idem u grad autobusom. “I’m going into town by bus.”

Serbian builds its past from a form called the l-participle, which ends in -o or -la and changes for gender: išao (masculine), išla (feminine), išlo (neuter), išli (plural). It comes with the short sam, si, je…: a man says Išao sam u grad. “I went into town”, a woman Išla sam u grad. The lessons “The l-participle” and “The perfect (perfekat)” cover the past in full. The same root runs through a whole family of verbs with prefixes, whose present ends in -đem/-dem (đ sounds like the d of British duty) and whose past ends in -šao: doći “to come” → dođem → past došao; otići “to leave, to go away” → odem → otišao; izaći “to go out” → izađem → izašao. The lesson “Conjugation classes” will take the -đem pattern apart; here, just remember the motion root itself.

jesti: jedem, and a look-alike to watch

The verb jesti “to eat” builds its present on the stem jed-, in the -em class: the d hides in the infinitive (it turned into s) and shows in every present form. Beside it stands piti “to drink”, which you saw in “Present tense”: its present stem is pij-, with a j (the y of yes) between the root and the ending.

The past of jesti is jeo, jela, jelo, jeli: Šta si jeo? “What did you eat?” The same word jelo is also a noun, “a dish, a meal”: you will see it on every restaurant menu. The past of piti is regular: pio, pila. The command is jedi! “eat!”, which you met in the lesson “The imperative”.

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Core irregular verbs: idem, jedem, pijem and their relatives

Irregular = the present stem can’t be predicted from the infinitive: it changes a vowel, inserts a consonant or comes from another root. The endings stay ordinary: -m, -š, no ending, -mo, -te, -u. Learn the stem only.

Stem families: present and past

• Relatives of ići: doći → dođem → došao (come), otići → odem → otišao (leave), izaći → izađem → izašao (go out). Of uzeti: popeti se → popnem se (climb up), oteti → otmem (snatch).
• Past = l-participle, by gender: Išao sam (a man), Išla sam (a woman).
• uzeti, početi are perfective: their present is no future (that is uzeću); it follows a conjunction or da. The past drops the inserted consonant, the command keeps it.
• Commands: idi! jedi! uzmi! počni! spavaj! reci! Old spati is archaic. jelo = also “dish”. biram = “I choose” (birati), not berem. “I say” = govorim or kažem.
• Zovem se Ana. Kako se zoveš? My name is Ana. What's your name?