Work & study
Lesson opening
This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.
Work and study: what do you do?
Two things you need from your first day in Serbia: saying what you do and, if you study, where. Here are the professions (in their masculine and feminine forms), the vocabulary of the workplace, the words for remote work, in IT and elsewhere (the reality of many readers of this course), the words of study, and a short job-interview scene. The anchor words of the lesson: posao, firma, kolega, plata, fakultet, ispit.
Professions: he and she
Most English job titles serve a man and a woman alike; most Serbian ones come in two forms, masculine and feminine. The feminine usually takes the suffix -ica or -ka (how this works as a system comes later, in the lesson “Noun-forming suffixes”). So a woman who writes code usually says Ja sam programerka, though the masculine programer is often heard for a woman too. Here are the common pairs (masculine / feminine):
One trap straight away. In English a professor is a senior university title. The Serbian profesor is much wider: it is what you call a secondary-school teacher as well as a university lecturer. The teacher of the first four grades has a word of their own, učitelj/učiteljica, and from the fifth grade to the eighth a teacher is usually called nastavnik/nastavnica. So the English “teacher” splits in three. And a doctor is lekar or doktor, but not vrač: that word exists in Serbian, but it means a sorcerer or folk healer, a “witch doctor”.
The workplace: posao, firma, kancelarija
The core of it: posao “work, job, position”, firma / kompanija / preduzeće “firm / company / enterprise”, kancelarija “office”, kolega/koleginica “colleague”, šef “boss”, plata “salary, pay”, radno vreme “working hours”, pauza “break”, sastanak “meeting”, godišnji odmor “annual leave, holiday”, zaposlen/nezaposlen “employed / unemployed”, radno mesto “workplace, post”, poslodavac “employer” (literally “job-giver”).
A word of its own about ugovor “contract, agreement”. You have already met it in the lesson “Home & daily life”, as ugovor o zakupu “tenancy agreement, lease”. At work the same word gives ugovor o radu “employment contract”. It is one ugovor, and what follows it says what kind: o zakupu “about renting” or o radu “about work”.
Cheat sheet
The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.
Work and study: what do you do?
Professions: he and she
Masculine / feminine; the feminine in -ica or -ka.
Traps: profesor is a lecturer or a secondary-school teacher; grades 5–8 have a nastavnik / nastavnica. Doctor: lekar or doktor, never vrač (sorcerer).
Three ways to name your job
The workplace
posao work, job; firma / kompanija / preduzeće firm, company; kancelarija office; kolega / koleginica colleague; šef boss; plata salary; radno vreme working hours; pauza break; sastanak meeting; godišnji odmor annual leave; zaposlen / nezaposlen employed / unemployed; radno mesto post; poslodavac employer.
Contract: ugovor: ugovor o radu employment contract, ugovor o zakupu lease.
Remote and freelance
rad na daljinu remote work; raditi od kuće work from home; frilenser freelancer; honorarno on a fee basis; IT sektor; klijent client; rok deadline; projekat project.
Study
fakultet faculty, uni; univerzitet university; student / studentkinja student; učenik / učenica pupil; škola school; predavanje lecture; ispit exam; diploma diploma; kurs course; upisati enrol; osnovna škola primary school, 8 grades; srednja škola secondary school.