Numbers, time & days
Lesson opening
This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.
Numbers, time and days
You need numbers from the first day: the price at the bakery, the change at the till, a phone number, the time of a meeting, the day of an appointment. Luckily, the Serbian numbers are old relatives of the English ones. dva, tri, šest, sedam: say them aloud and you will recognise “two”, “three”, “six”, “seven”. Both languages inherited them from one distant ancestor.
In this lesson we collect the numbers from zero to a hundred, learn to ask the price (Koliko košta?) and the time (Koliko je sati?), read out a phone number and sort out the days, months and seasons: a practical kit for every day.
From zero to ten
Zero in Serbian is nula (you will need it for phone numbers as well as for counting). Then come the ten you will use most:
From eleven to a hundred
From here on everything is built on two simple patterns. The numbers 11–19 add -naest, which does the job of English "-teen", and the round tens add -deset, which does the job of "-ty".
Serbian has no odd ones out like “eleven” and “twelve”: jedanaest and dvanaest follow the pattern. Watch the spelling where the two parts meet. Serbian keeps the rule from “The Latin alphabet”, write as you speak, so the letters follow the sound: pedeset (50) and devedeset (90) lose the t of pet and devet (never “petdeset”); šesnaest (16) and šezdeset (60) come from šest; and četrnaest and četrdeset use a shortened četiri. The lesson “Voicing assimilation” explains the z in šezdeset.
Compound numbers go as in English, the ten and then the unit, but as two words with no hyphen: dvadeset jedan (21), trideset pet (35), četrdeset dva (42), devedeset devet (99).
One and two by gender
Something English does not have: every Serbian noun is masculine, feminine or neuter (a grammatical class, not sex: a city is masculine, a village neuter), and 1 and 2 change form to match. More in "Grammatical gender".
Cheat sheet
The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.
Numbers, time and days
Counting to a hundred, prices, phone numbers, the clock and the calendar. The numbers are old relatives of the English ones: dva ~ two, tri ~ three.
Numbers 0–100
Two patterns: -naest builds 11–19 (like “-teen”, no odd “eleven/twelve”), -deset the round tens (like “-ty”). Spelled as said: pedeset, devedeset (no t; never “petdeset”), šesnaest, šezdeset, četrnaest. Compound = ten + unit, two words, no hyphen: dvadeset jedan (21), trideset pet (35), četrdeset dva (42), šezdeset sedam (67), devedeset devet (99).
One and two by gender
Every noun is masculine, feminine or neuter; 1 and 2 agree with it.
After 2–4 the noun takes one counting form (dva grada), after 5+ another (pet gradova); learn them as whole phrases.
Price and phone
- Koliko košta?: "How much is it?" Currency: dinar, on tags din or RSD; after a number dinara: sto dinara, pedeset dinara, sto dvadeset dinara.
- broj telefona: phone number, read digit by digit or in groups; zero is nula, never "oh". 063 255 179 = nula šest tri — dva pet pet — jedan sedam devet. To ask: Koji je tvoj broj telefona? / Koji je vaš broj?
What time is it?
Koliko je sati? "What time is it?"; U koliko sati? "At what time?"
Speech: 12 hours + time of day, u pet ujutru (5 a.m.), u osam uveče (8 p.m.). Timetables, tickets: 24 hours, 18:30, 21:00; 20 sati = 8 p.m. Dates day first with dots: 22. 9. 2026. = 22 September. Prices: 1.200 din = 1,200 dinars.