B1 — intermediateVoice and valency

Passive voice

Lesson opening

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

The passive voice: kuća se gradi and kuća je sagrađena

Kuća se gradi “The house is being built” and Kuća je sagrađena “The house has been built”: in both sentences the house is the subject, and the builders are nowhere to be seen. That is the passive: the subject is not the one who acts but the thing acted upon, not “the builders are building the house” but “the house is being built”. Serbian has two ways of saying this. The first is made with biti “to be” and the past passive participle from the last lesson: Kuća je sagrađena. The second is made with se, the word you know from reflexive verbs: Kuća se gradi. Where English uses a passive, Serbian very often uses se.

For an English speaker there is a sly trap here. English has one passive, be + participle, and it covers everything: is built, is being built, was built by a local firm. So the hand reaches for biti + participle for every English passive. But a Serb hears the two differently: Kuća se gradi is a process going on right now, Kuća je sagrađena is a result, the house is standing. Mixing them up is the trap this lesson is about. We will take both apart, learn to choose between them by the aspect of the verb, look honestly at the bureaucratic od strane “by”, and see why Serbian so rarely names the doer in a passive, which English does without a second thought.

The participle passive: biti + participle

The first construction is straightforward and looks like English: take biti “to be” and put the past passive participle after it, agreeing with the subject. The participle behaves like an adjective after “to be”: compare the door is locked with the door is green. It describes a result: the job is done, and this is what we have.

Agreement is compulsory: sagrađena (feminine, like kuća), napisano (neuter, like pismo), zaključana (plural, like vrata, which is a plural noun even when it means one door). The tense sits in biti. Je sagrađena “is built, has been built” is the result as it stands now, and with a date it is also the usual way to say “was built”: Kuća je sagrađena 1900. godine “The house was built in 1900”. Bila je sagrađena “had been built” puts the result at some moment in the past: Kad smo stigli, kuća je već bila sagrađena “When we arrived, the house had already been built”. Biće sagrađena or će biti sagrađena “will be built” uses the future from “Future I”: Sve će biti urađeno do petka “Everything will be done by Friday”. So English “was built” is usually just je sagrađena; bila je sagrađena is closer to “had been built”.

Deeper semantics

Vrata su otvorena: a result or an action?

The biti + participle construction has two faces. Vrata su otvorena can be read in two ways: as a state, “the door is open (right now, standing wide open)”, and as an action, “the door has been opened (somebody opened it)”. The first describes a result; the second reports a deed. The bare sentence does not always tell you which is meant; context settles it. A word of time pulls towards the event: Izložba je otvorena juče “The exhibition was opened yesterday”, while Izložba je otvorena on its own rather means “the exhibition is open”.

English has exactly the same double reading: the shop was closed can mean “it wasn’t open when I got there” (a state) or “somebody closed it” (an event). German, by contrast, keeps the two apart with two different helpers: Die Tür ist geöffnet “the door is open” (with sein, a state) against Die Tür wird geöffnet “the door is being opened” (with werden, a process). Serbian has its own way: to say plainly “the door is being opened (right now)”, a Serb will reach for Vrata se otvaraju and keep Vrata su otvorena for the state “it is open”. So whenever you hear biti + participle, ask: a frozen result or somebody’s action? More often it is a result.

The se-passive: processes and rules

The second construction is the Serbian workhorse. Take an ordinary verb in the 3rd person (singular or plural) and add se: the doer is not mentioned, and the thing acted upon becomes the subject and decides the number of the verb. This is the same se as in reflexive verbs: a clitic, a short unstressed word that never starts a sentence and goes in second place in the clause, wherever the verb happens to be (“Reflexive verbs (se)”): Ovde se govori srpski, Kako se to piše?

Notice the agreement in number: kuća se gradi (singular) but knjige se prodaju (plural), and likewise Ovde se prodaju karte “Tickets are sold here”. To find the subject, ask “what is sold?”: the answer is the subject, and the verb follows it. The number is the Serbian noun’s, not the English one’s: povrće “vegetables” is singular in Serbian, so se prodaje. The se-passive loves the present tense and the imperfective aspect: an ongoing process, a general rule, a custom. Ovde se ne puši “No smoking here”, Tako se ne radi “That’s not how it’s done”, Vino se pije uz jelo “Wine is drunk with food”. It is the language of shop signs, notices, recipes and instructions, everywhere English writes “for sale”, “to let” or uses a vague “you” or “they”: Prodaje se stan “Flat for sale”, Izdaje se stan “Flat to let”. In the past the verb with se takes the perfect, and je drops out next to se, as in “Reflexive verbs (se)”: Kuća se gradila dve godine “The house took two years to build”.

Cheat sheet

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

The passive voice: kuća se gradi and kuća je sagrađena

The passive (pasiv) makes the thing acted upon the subject. Participle passive: biti + past passive participle agreeing with the subject (a result). se-passive: 3rd-person verb + se (a process, a rule). Where English uses a passive, Serbian very often uses se.

Participle passive: biti + participle

Examples

Serbian	English
Kuća je sagrađena.	The house has been built. (feminine)
Pismo je napisano.	The letter has been written. (neuter)
Vrata su zaključana.	The door is locked. (plural)
Zadatak će biti završen do sutra.	The task will be finished by tomorrow.

Biti sets the tense: je sagrađena “is built; was built (in 1900)”, bila je sagrađena “had been built”, biće / će biti sagrađena “will be built”. Usually a perfective verb.

se-passive

Examples

Serbian	English
Kuća se gradi već godinu dana.	The house has been under construction for a year.
Ovde se govori srpski.	Serbian is spoken here.
Knjige se prodaju na kiosku.	Books are sold at the kiosk.
Kako se to piše?	How is that spelled?
Vino se pije uz jelo.	Wine is drunk with food.
Prodaje se stan. / Izdaje se stan.	Flat for sale. / Flat to let.

Se stands second in the clause. The verb agrees with the Serbian subject: kuća se gradi, knjige se prodaju; povrće is singular, so se prodaje. Home ground: present tense, imperfective (Tako se ne radi. “That’s not how it’s done.”). Past: Kuća se gradila dve godine. The house took two years to build.

Impersonal se: no subject at all

Examples

Serbian	English
Ovde se ne puši.	No smoking here.
Radi se do pet.	They work until five.
O tome se ne priča.	People don’t talk about that.
Kako se dolazi do centra?	How do you get to the centre?
Ovde se lepo živi.	Life is good here.

Where English says “you”, “people”, “they”. “It is said that…”: Kažu da će sutra padati kiša. They say it’s going to rain tomorrow.

Which one: aspect decides

Examples

Meaning	Construction	Example
process, going on now	se + imperfective	Kuća se gradi.
result, already done	biti + perfective participle	Kuća je sagrađena.
general rule	se + imperfective	Tako se to radi.
one-off outcome	biti + perfective participle	Posao je urađen.

The doer: od strane, better avoided

Bureaucratic: Zakon je usvojen od strane parlamenta. The law was passed by parliament. Odluka je doneta od strane suda. The decision was made by the court. No bare instrumental for the doer.
In speech, leave the doer out (Zakon je usvojen.) or use the active: Parlament je usvojio zakon. Parliament passed the law. Object first by word order: Ovu kuću je sagradio moj deda. This house was built by my grandfather.