Society & politics

Lesson opening

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

Society and politics: institutions, elections, money, the environment

“Education & media” taught you to pass on the news and name your source. This lesson is about what the news discusses.

Država i institucije: who runs what

The framework is the three branches of power: zakonodavna, izvršna i sudska vlast, legislative, executive and judicial.

Who does what. The Narodna skupština has 250 members (narodni poslanik, an MP): it passes laws and the budget and elects the government, the Vlada. Its head is the predsednik Vlade, in the news premijer, the prime minister. The head of state is the predsednik Republike, elected by the citizens. Predsednik means both “president” and “chair”: a predsednik opštine heads a municipality, and the opština runs local affairs (see “Serbia: geography & society”). Uprava is an administration: Poreska uprava, the tax office.

Learn each verb with its institution: Skupština donosi (usvaja) zakone “the Assembly passes (adopts) laws”, Vlada donosi uredbe “the government issues decrees”, sud donosi presudu “the court delivers a verdict”, ministar podnosi ostavku “the minister hands in his resignation”.

Izbori: glasati, stranka, opozicija

English says “the election”; Serbian elections are always plural, izbori. The singular izbor is just “a choice”. Elections are called with the verb raspisati, built on pisati “to write”. To turn out and vote is izaći na izbore, literally “to go out to the elections”.

Cheat sheet

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

Society and politics

Institutions

Elections

Economy

Society, environment

Arguing