Basic negation

Lesson opening

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Negation: how to say "not" and "no" in Serbian

You can already make statements: Ja sam student, Radim, Imam vremena. Now you will learn to negate them. The good news: the basic Serbian negative is simpler than the English one. English needs a helper ("I do not work"); Serbian just puts ne in front of the verb, and the same ne is also the answer "no".

Three things, though, have to be learned on their own. First, three very common verbs are negated in one word: nisam, nemam, neću. Second, "there is no…" is a special word, nema. Third, the real surprise for an English speaker: words like "nobody" and "nothing" do not replace the ne; Serbian says "nobody doesn't know", and that is correct Serbian.

The basic case: ne + verb

Usually, negation is simply ne in front of the verb, as a separate word. Nothing in the verb itself changes:

Notice what is missing: English "I don't know" needs "do"; Serbian Ne znam has no helper at all, so never try to translate do/does/don't. The person is already in the verb ending (znam = "I know"). One fine point of sound, though, is worth mentioning straight away.

You can negate more than the verb

Most of the time ne negates the verb, but in a contrast it can stand before another word (a noun, an adverb, a pronoun) to reject just that word:

Here ne "aims" at one word, not at the action, and is often followed by nego ("but, rather") with the right alternative: English "not X but Y", word for word. “Not bad” as a reply to Kako si? is built differently, though: Serbian says Nije loše (the lesson “Greeting & leave-taking”).

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Negation: how to say "not" and "no" in Serbian

The negative is the particle ne, before the verb, as a separate word, with no "do": ne radim, ne znam. Exception: three verbs are negated in one word: biti → nisam, imati → nemam, hteti → neću. Separately: the impersonal nema, "there is no…".

ne + verb

Ne govorim srpski dobro. Ana ne pije kafu. Mi ne razumemo. I don't speak Serbian very well. Ana doesn't drink coffee. We don't understand.

In a contrast, ne negates another word, usually with nego ("but"): Ne danas, nego sutra. Ne ja, nego on. Ne ovde, nego tamo. Not today, but tomorrow. Not me, him. Not here, but there. “Not bad” is Nije loše. With many verbs ne takes the stress.

Three fused negatives

biti takes ni-; imati and hteti take ne-. All three are stressed: they open a sentence and work as short answers. Nisam umoran. Nemam vremena. Neću da idem. Oni nemaju auto. I'm not tired. I don't have time. I don't want to go. They don't have a car. The ban word nemoj (“don’t”) is one word too, but a word of its own.

“There is no…”: nema

ima "there is" / nema "there isn't" (never nije). nema + genitive always (nema kafe, not "nema kafa"); ima + genitive for a substance or many (ima kafe, ima ljudi); one countable thing: ima jedan restoran.

Double negation

niko, ništa, nikad, nigde, nikako ("nobody, nothing, never, nowhere, in no way"), nijedan ("not a single") and ni… ni… ("neither… nor") require ne before the verb.

Answering "yes" and "no"