Основни придеви
Overview
Serbian adjectives describe a noun's quality and agree with it in gender and number - like један in numbers-a1, the ending changes to match whatever noun it stands next to.
This lesson covers the three gender endings for singular and plural, the fleeting-a pattern that drops a vowel when an ending is added, and where the adjective sits in the sentence.
Gender and number endings
A regular adjective like нов (new) takes no ending for masculine, -а for feminine and -о for neuter, with -и/-е/-а in the plural in that same order - see the table below.
The adjective normally comes directly before the noun it describes: добра сестра (a good sister), never сестра добра.
The fleeting a pattern
A large group of adjectives end in a consonant cluster that needs a helper vowel in the masculine, but lose it as soon as any other ending is added: добар (good) → добра, добро, добри, добре, добра - the masculine is the odd one out, and every other form is built from the shorter stem добр-.
This is reliable enough to expect by default in adjectives ending in -ан in the masculine: гладан (hungry) → гладна, гладно; жедан (thirsty) → жедна, жедно. Adjectives ending in -ак or -ар are less predictable - many keep the vowel as part of the root instead: јак (strong) → јака, not јка; стар (old) → стара, not стра.
Agreement with case
An adjective agrees not only in gender and number but also in case: when a feminine noun takes the accusative -у ending from cases-introduction-a1, its adjective takes -у too - добра сестра (nominative) → добру сестру (accusative, direct object).
Masculine inanimate nouns keep their nominative-shaped accusative; neuter nouns always do, regardless of animacy - and so does the adjective in front of either: нов сто stays нов сто whether it is subject or object.
Tables
| Gender | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| мушки | нов | нови |
| женски | нова | нове |
| средњи | ново | нова |
Examples
Compared with…
English adjectives never change form at all - good stays good whether the noun is a good book or good books - and word order is the same in both languages, the adjective right before its noun. What's new is the ending: every Serbian adjective must be learned together with its three gender forms, not as one fixed word.
Common mistakes
Tips & exceptions
- An adjective almost always stands directly before its noun and copies that noun's gender, number and case ending.
- Learn irregular adjectives as a three-form chunk from the start - добар/добра/добро - the same way you already memorize a noun's different case forms.
- If the noun's ending changed (e.g. feminine -а → -у in the accusative), check that its adjective's ending changed the same way.
- The fleeting а affects only the masculine singular form; feminine, neuter and every plural form use the shorter stem without it.
- Feminine singular -а and neuter plural -а look identical (e.g. нова) - exactly the same overlap noun-gender-a1 already flagged for nouns like село → села; context tells them apart.
- A handful of common adjectives, like мали (small), are normally only used in this longer form in everyday speech - the parallel short form barely occurs.
Summary
Opens Focus mode: one exercise at a time, with explanations — either script accepted.
Grammar Words Guided lesson Guided lesson Guided lesson Guided lesson Guided lesson Listening Reading Test
This lesson is the unit's first step. The grammar, the words and the first guided lesson are open to everyone; the rest of the unit's lessons and its text, dialogue and tasks come with Premium.