Set phrases and clichés

Lesson opening

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

Set phrases and clichés: how they live in real speech

The lessons “Words that go together” and “Idioms and sayings” gave you a stock: pairs of words that go together, idioms, proverbs and the rule “learn them whole”. That is enough to understand them, not to handle real texts. A newspaper breaks a proverb off half-way: Ko drugome jamu kopa… An advert suddenly takes an idiom literally. Someone drops in hteo – ne hteo, which no rule will take apart. A dictionary prints dići/dizati ruke (od nečega) and never explains the slash or the brackets. This lesson is about what you can change in a set phrase, which case it demands, how to spot a bent phrase in a headline, how to answer an etiquette formula, and how to understand a phrase that no dictionary lists.

How to spot a set phrase and understand a new one

Four questions find the step: can you swap a word for a synonym, put an adjective inside, add up the meaning by translating word for word, and picture the words literally without leaving the conversation? A free combination says “yes” to all four, an idiom “no”; the fourth question settles doubtful cases.

Each step is handled differently: a free combination you build; a pair you learn with its partner and its case; a cliché you recognise and ration; an idiom you learn whole, with its register and the case it demands. The border is not sharp: pasti na ispitu “to fail an exam” is still a pair, but Plan nam je pao u vodu “our plan fell through” (literally fell into the water) is an idiom: there is no water in sight.

A new idiom is understood in two steps: picture it literally (a head carried in a bag can be lost at any moment), then test the guess on the conversation (his pay is miserable), and you get “to risk one’s life”.

What you can change in a set phrase, and what you cannot

“A set phrase never changes” is only roughly true. Each phrase has a moving part and a frozen part; learn the border with the phrase. The verb usually follows the ordinary rules: person, number, tense, mood, often aspect too: digao je ruke, dižu ruke, nemoj dizati ruke “he gave up, they give up, don’t give up” (the lesson “Idioms and sayings”).

Variant words form a closed list: no synonyms of your own, but a choice among those that exist. Dictionaries separate them with a slash.

An optional part goes in round brackets in the dictionary: držati (nekome) fige “to keep your fingers crossed (for someone)”, (baš) me briga “I (really) couldn’t care less”, ni (za) živu glavu “not for the life of me”. In the same way Ne pada mi na pamet. “I wouldn’t dream of it” is made stronger as Ne pada mi ni na kraj pameti. (literally not even to the edge of my mind). You can add a word of your own where the image is still visible: Pao mi je veliki kamen sa srca. That’s a huge weight off my mind. (literally a big stone fell from my heart). Where no image is left, an added word breaks the phrase: “ni velikih pet ni šest”.

The frozen part is case, number, preposition and word order: u četiri oka “in private” (literally in four eyes, like German unter vier Augen) never becomes “u dva oka”, and ni pet ni šest “without a second thought, just like that” never becomes “ni šest ni pet”. Some keep a form the language has lost: iz vedra neba “out of a clear sky” (as in “a bolt from the blue”) and iz čista mira “out of nowhere, for no reason at all” keep the old short form of the adjective (the lesson “Definite vs indefinite”); today it would be vedrog, čistog. An old dative is frozen in the same way in zlu ne trebalo “just in case”.

And some phrases lack part of their forms, the main trap for a learner who confidently conjugates everything.

Which case and preposition a phrase demands

A set phrase behaves like one long word: it demands its own case and preposition for whoever or whatever it is about. It is the phrase as a whole that demands them, not the verb inside it, and it rarely matches English (the lesson “Which case a verb takes”).

Cheat sheet

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

Set phrases and clichés in brief

Checks: swap a word, add a word, add up the meaning, picture it. A new idiom: picture → context.

What can change

Verb: person, number, tense, mood, aspect: digao je ruke, nemoj dizati ruke.

Variants (slash): pasti / doći na pamet; praviti se lud / blesav / nevešt; sedeti / biti na dve stolice.

Optional (brackets): držati (nekome) fige; (baš) me briga; ni (za) živu glavu.

Frozen: case, number, preposition, order: u četiri oka; ni pet ni šest; iz vedra neba; iz čista mira; zlu ne trebalo.

Missing forms: ne mrdnuti ni prstom, ne vredeti ni pet para, ni traga ni glasa (negative); pukao mi je film, pala mu je sekira u med (3rd person singular); Ma nemoj! (imperative).

Case and preposition

Faded or live image

Plan je pao u vodu: translate the meaning. oprati ruke, podviti rep, zavrnuti rukave, pokazati zube, okrenuti leđa: two readings; clues: who acts, od nečega, added detail, scene.

Bent phrases

Half (Ko drugome jamu kopa…), a word swapped, a word added (Pukla tikva i u koaliciji), literal sense, blend, proverb reversed. Odd word → original → shift. Recognise, don’t make.

Comparisons and formulas

Clichés, etiquette, quotations

Linking u svakom slučaju, sa druge strane; officialese u skladu sa, shodno tome; fashionable na kraju dana. Standard: u vezi s tim.

Pairs: Dobro došli! – Bolje vas našli!; Prijatno! – Hvala, takođe.; Živeli! – Živeli!; Nazdravlje! – Hvala.; Srećna slava! – Hvala, u zdravlje!; Hristos se rodi! – Vaistinu se rodi! Condolences: Primite moje saučešće. Wishes whole: Bog te blagoslovio! (to anyone). Letters: S poštovanjem.

Quotations (carstvo nebesko, Bolje grob nego rob) are rarely neutral.