Present tense
Lesson opening
This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.
The present tense: three classes, one set of endings
You have already conjugated one verb: the irregular biti "to be", with its double set of forms, jesam and sam; it had a lesson of its own, “biti in the present”. Now for the workhorse: the regular present tense, the form you use to say what you do, think or want, right now or in general. (To conjugate a verb is to run it through its persons: I, you, he or she, we, you, they.) And the news is good: the Serbian present is economical. Every regular verb takes one and the same set of personal endings; what tells verbs apart is a single linking vowel in front of the ending.
That vowel sorts verbs into three classes: -am, -im and -em. We will take one model verb for each: čitati "to read", raditi "to work, to do" and pisati "to write". The present is built on the present stem, the one of a verb’s two stems that carries the personal forms (you saw why there are two in “Infinitive & stems”). Learn three sets of forms and one trap, and you can put almost any Serbian verb into the present: from the “I” form of the dictionary pair (pisati, pišem) you can build the other five yourself.
Three classes, by the linking vowel
A verb's class is the vowel you hear in front of the ending in most of its forms: čit-a-mo, rad-i-mo, piš-e-mo "we read, we work, we write". The "I" form shows the class at once:
The -am class: the simplest
Let's start with the easiest. In -am verbs the linking vowel a holds in every form, and nearly all of these verbs end in -ati in the infinitive. Here are the full paradigms of three very common verbs, čitati "to read", znati "to know" and imati "to have":
Notice how even it all is: čita-, zna-, ima- never change, and the endings are simply glued on. The he/she form takes no ending at all: čita “she reads”, where English needs its -s. The same pattern covers gledati "to watch, to look", pitati "to ask" and slušati "to listen": gledam, pitam, slušam. The 3rd person plural of this class ends in -ju, said like the English you: čitaju, znaju, imaju.
The -im class: verbs in -iti and some in -eti
The second class has the linking vowel i. It takes almost all the verbs in -iti (the exception here is piti “to drink”: pijem, which you will see below), some of the verbs in -eti (yes, the infinitive ends in -eti, yet the class is -im: videti “to see” → vidim “I see”) and a few in -ati, such as držati “to hold” → držim. Our models are raditi "to work, to do", govoriti "to speak" and videti:
Cheat sheet
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The present tense: three classes, one set of endings
The present (prezent) is an action now or in general: čitam = "I read" and "I'm reading". The personal endings are the same for all regular verbs: I -m, you (singular) -š, he/she no ending, we -mo, you (plural / polite) -te, they -ju/-e/-u. Verbs differ in the linking vowel (a, i or e), which names the class and shows in the "I" form. The present is built on the present stem, which does not always match the infinitive, so a verb is learnt as a pair: pisati, pišem. The “I” form gives you the other five. Only mogu and hoću have no -m in the “I” form.
Full paradigm: three classes and the -ovati type
Models: "read", "work, do", "write", "buy". The classes part ways only in "they": -am → -ju, -im → -e, -em → -u. Deca čitaju. The children are reading. Studenti rade. The students are working. Oni pišu pisma. They are writing letters.
Which verb goes where
- -am: simplest; infinitive almost always in -ati, stem (čita-) unchanged. znati → znam (know), imati → imam (have), gledati → gledam (watch), pitati → pitam (ask), slušati → slušam (listen).
- -im: almost all in -iti (but piti → pijem), some in -eti, a few in -ati (držati → držim, hold). govoriti → govorim (speak), videti → vidim (see), učiti → učim (learn), misliti → mislim (think), nositi → nosim (carry, wear).
- -em: the most varied; the present stem often differs from the infinitive. ići → idem (go), piti → pijem (drink), zvati → zovem (call), razumeti → razumem (understand); its verbs in -eti take -ju for “they”: razumeju.
- -ovati / -evati: -ova- becomes -uj- in all six present forms: putovati → putujem, putuju (travel).