No soft consonants

Lesson opening

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

Plain and steady: why Serbian does not soften its consonants

Slavic languages are famous for “soft” consonants: sounds like the ny in canyon, where the tongue rises towards the roof of the mouth and a little y colours the consonant. Linguists call this palatalisation, from Latin palatum, “the palate”. In several Slavic languages almost every consonant has a soft twin, and a consonant turns soft automatically before e and i. Serbian does not work that way. Its consonants have one shape each, a plain one, and they keep it before every vowel. Learners who have met another Slavic language, or who expect Serbian to sound “soft”, start softening ti, ne, deca, and few things sound foreign faster. This lesson is a targeted workout: keeping consonants plain, and finding where Serbian really is soft.

(In these respellings eh is the e of met, ee the clean vowel of see, with no glide.) The problem is never the letters; it is a habit of the tongue, and a habit has to be switched off on purpose. Say the consonant firmly and flatly, the middle of the tongue kept low, then attach a clean e with nothing slipping in between.

č and ć, dž and đ: where English is one sound short

Now the flip side. English has one ch sound and one j sound. Serbian has two of each: a hard č and a soft ć, a hard dž and a soft đ. These are not shades of one sound but different letters that make different words. You know the letters from “Special letters č ć š ž đ dž”; here the point is the sound.

The classic pair that differs only in these sounds is veče (“evening”) and veće (“council”, and also “bigger”). To an untrained English ear they sound almost the same; to a Serb they are two different words. Where the letter stands in a word is no guide: ključ (“key”) ends in a hard č, while ćao and ćerka (“daughter”) begin with a soft ć. So learn each word together with its letter: noć, pomoć (“help”), kuća with the soft ć; čovek, čaša, ručak (“lunch”) with the hard č. The one safe hint is the surname ending -ić (Petrović, Jović): always the soft ć.

š, ž and a clean i

The sounds š and ž have no soft partners: š is the English sh, ž the s of pleasure. Here the difficulty is subtler and hides in the vowel. English has two kinds of i: the tense ee of seat and the short, lax i of sit, and in unstressed syllables it often weakens further to a murmured “uh”. English spelling teaches you to read an i before a consonant as the lax one (ship, shin, live). Serbian does not do that: i keeps its ee quality in every position, like the i of Spanish or Italian.

Cheat sheet

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

Plain and steady: why Serbian does not soften its consonants

The rule in one line: a Serbian consonant before e and i stays plain, exactly as before a or o: no y-glide, no automatic soft twin. (eh = the e of met; ee = a clean ee.)

Before e and i: plain

Keep the l of la and lo before e and i. Serbian t and d: no English puff of air, no American tap (leto is never “ledo”).

Four sounds where English is one short

A pair that differs only in this: veče (“evening”) and veće (“council”; “bigger”), two different words. Position is no guide (ključ, ćao): learn each word with its letter. One safe hint: surnames in -ić (Petrović) take ć.

After ž, š, c the i stays clean

The whole soft set: a closed list

Softness in Serbian is either written as a letter of its own or not there. nj and lj are one sound each: konj is one syllable. Everything else, t, d, n, l, s, z, r, p, b and the rest, is always plain, whatever the vowel.

Minimal pairs for practice