You have already met two of these verbs: hoću “I want, I will” and mogu “I can”, from the lesson “hteti & moći”. Now it is time to meet the whole family. Think of English “I can help”, “I must go”, “may I come in?”: the second verb names the action, and the first adds an attitude to it: possible, necessary, allowed, wanted or within your skill. Such verbs are called modal verbs. On their own they do almost nothing; they colour another action.
You already know how to attach the second verb: with da + the present tense (the lesson “Basic da-clauses”), as in mogu da pomognem “I can help”, moram da idem “I have to go”. This lesson brings the full set (moći, morati, hteti, smeti, trebati, umeti, znati), the forms of the new verbs, the difference between morati and trebati, the way trebati behaves, and the negative, which with modals changes the meaning.
Seven modals and what they mean
Here is the whole family, with the shade of meaning and the “I” form. Where English puts a bare verb or “to” + verb after a modal (I can work, I want to work), Serbian almost always puts da + the present.
Three of them need a closer look, because English covers all three with can. moći is about possibility in general: circumstances allow it, you have permission or the strength: Mogu da dođem sutra “I can come tomorrow”. umeti is about a learned skill: Umem da plivam “I can swim”. And znati, besides “to know (a fact)”, also means “to know how to” when it comes to something you have learned: Znam da vozim is not “I know that I drive” but “I can drive, I know how to drive”. English I know how to drive says exactly the same.
Conjugating the new modals
You already know how moći (mogu, možeš…) and hteti (hoću, hoćeš…) conjugate: both are irregular, and their full tables are in the lesson “hteti & moći”. The rest of the modals are regular. morati is an ordinary verb of the -am class, like čitati. smeti and umeti belong to the short list of -eti verbs with a present in -em (the lesson “Conjugation classes”): the e stays in every form, and “they” ends in -eju:
znati conjugates just as regularly, in the -am class like morati: znam, znaš, zna, znamo, znate, znaju. trebati, however, behaves in its own way, and it gets the next section.
Cheat sheet
The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.
A modal says whether an action is possible, necessary, allowed, within your skill or wanted; a second verb names the action, with da + the present (or an infinitive). The modal shows person and tense; the second verb chooses its own aspect.
The seven modals
Conjugation
morati versus trebati
The negative flips the meaning
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