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
Numbers are pure survival. The price at the bakery, the change at the till, a phone number, the hour of a meeting, the day of an appointment — all of it is numbers, and without them you cannot buy so much as a coffee. The good news: Serbian counting is built from familiar ancient material. dva, tri, šest, sedam — listen closely and you hear "two", "three", "six", "seven". The same Indo-European family, in Slavic dress.
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 lay out the days, months and seasons — the practical everyday kit.
From zero to ten
Zero in Serbian is nula (you will need it for phone numbers and prices alike). Then comes the core ten:
From eleven to a hundred
From here everything assembles by two simple patterns. The numbers 11–19 are made by adding -naest (it works exactly like English "-teen"), and the round tens by adding -deset (like English "-ty").
Compound numbers stack just like in English — the ten plus the unit, simply as two words: dvadeset jedan (21), trideset pet (35), četrdeset dva (42), devedeset devet (99). No tricky mergers — say the ten, then the unit.
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 count is ancient Indo-European material — it recognizes fast.
Numbers 0–100
Two patterns: -naest builds 11–19 (like "-teen"), -deset builds the round tens (like "-ty"). A compound number is "ten space unit", no mergers: dvadeset jedan (21), trideset pet (35), četrdeset dva (42), šezdeset sedam (67), devedeset devet (99).
One and two by gender
After 2–4 the noun stands in one counting form (dva grada), after 5 and above — in another (pet gradova); for now memorize counting in whole phrases.
Price and phone
- Koliko košta? — "how much does it cost?". The currency is the dinar (dinar), on tags din or RSD; after a number — the form dinara: sto dinara, pedeset dinara, sto dvadeset dinara.
- broj telefona — phone number: read digit by digit or in groups, zero is nula. 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?".
In speech — 12 hours with a marker: u pet ujutru (at five in the morning), u osam uveče (at eight in the evening). In timetables, tickets and cinemas — 24 hours: 18:30, 21:00; 20 sati = eight in the evening.