Основни предлози
Overview
A Serbian preposition never changes itself, but it forces a specific ending onto the noun that follows - the same case-agreement idea from the lesson introducing cases, now applied to a set of everyday prepositions. This lesson catalogs the highest-frequency ones as ready-to-use chunks, each paired with the ending pattern it takes and reusing patterns already familiar from the days-and-months lesson and the numbers lesson; full declension tables come later.
У and на - location versus motion
For location (где?), у and на take locative: masculine/neuter nouns usually end in -у, feminine -а nouns in -и (у Београду, на столу, у кући).
For movement to a place (куда?), use accusative: Идем у Београд; Идем на плажу. The feminine ending -а changes to -у; inanimate masculine/neuter nouns stay unchanged.
Из, од, до - the from family
Из, од and до take genitive: из Београда, од куће до школе.
Special cases
Са + instrumental means ‘with’: са сестром, са братом, са пријатељима. Use са before с, з, ш, ж and before мном; elsewhere с is also possible. Са леве стране means ‘on the left’.
За meaning ‘for’ takes accusative (за сестру). О meaning ‘about’ takes locative: о Београду.
Tables
| Preposition | Location (где?) | Direction (куда?) |
|---|---|---|
| у + Београд | у Београду | у Београд |
| на + сто | на столу | на сто |
| у + кућа | у кући | у кућу |
Examples
Compared with…
English prepositions never change the noun that follows at all: in Belgrade and to Belgrade both leave Belgrade untouched. The meanings (in/to/from/with/about) map onto familiar English prepositions, but the idea that a Serbian preposition forces a specific noun ending is new.
Common mistakes
Tips & exceptions
- The preposition itself never changes - only the noun after it does, and it reuses endings you already know from the numbers lesson, the days-and-months lesson and the lesson introducing cases.
- Ask yourself где? (location) or куда? (motion) for у/на: location takes -у for masculine/neuter nouns and -и for feminine -а nouns, motion always takes the accusative pattern.
- Са is not interchangeable with с everywhere - it is used before words starting with с/з/ш/ж (to avoid an awkward consonant cluster), always before мном, and in some other clusters that are hard to say; elsewhere с is the usual choice, not just the more casual-sounding one. Learn the common combinations with their examples.
- Поред (next to), између (between), иза (behind), испред (in front of) and изнад (above) all take the same genitive-shaped ending as из/од/до: Клупа стоји поред реке. (The bench stands next to the river.)
- Masculine place names have identical nominative and (inanimate) accusative forms, so motion into looks unchanged - don't confuse that with the locative form, which always adds -у (feminine -а nouns take -и instead).
- Feminine -а genitive singular and the 2–4 count-form/nominative-plural endings are spelled identically as -е (already flagged in the lesson on numbers); од куће is genitive, not a plural.
- A few fixed idiomatic phrases, like од срца (from the heart, meaning sincerely), keep the case pattern but are best learned as one whole chunk rather than built up rule by rule.
- За has more than one case pattern: the for/direction sense taught here takes the accusative, but other senses - like a static position, behind or at - take a different case not covered in this lesson. Treat за + accusative as one specific chunk, not a universal rule for every use of за.