Brojevi
Overview
Serbian cardinal numbers are used constantly - for age, quantities, prices, phone numbers, and (as its own lesson covers) telling time. The numbers themselves are simple to learn, but they interact with the noun that follows: its ending changes depending on the number in front of it.
This lesson covers the numbers 0–100, the gender agreement of један (one) and два (two), and the key rule for numbers with nouns: 1 keeps the noun in its normal form, 2–4 puts it in a special counting form, 5+ puts it in the genitive plural. Full declension paradigms come later - for now, learn the count forms of nouns you already know as fixed chunks, the way cases-introduction-a1 introduced nominative vs. accusative.
Cardinal numbers 0–100
0–10: нула, један, два, три, четири, пет, шест, седам, осам, девет, десет. 11–19 are formed with -наест: једанаест, дванаест, тринаест, четрнаест, петнаест, шеснаест, седамнаест, осамнаест, деветнаест.
The tens are their own words: двадесет (20), тридесет (30), четрдесет (40), педесет (50), шездесет (60), седамдесет (70), осамдесет (80), деведесет (90), сто (100). Compounds are simply additive, with no hyphen: двадесет један (21), двадесет два (22), тридесет пет (35).
Један and два agree with gender
Један (one) is the only cardinal number that behaves like an adjective all the way through: један (masculine), једна (feminine), једно (neuter) - and, like an adjective, it also takes case endings, so as a direct object it becomes једну (feminine) or једно (neuter); the masculine form becomes једног only when the noun is animate (a person or animal) and otherwise stays један. Два (two) has a simpler two-way split: два for masculine and neuter, две for feminine. Три and четири never change for gender.
„Имам једну сестру.“ (I have one sister.) puts један into the feminine accusative једну, agreeing with сестру.
Special cases - the noun-count rule
After 1, the noun stays in its normal singular form: један сто, једна сестра. After 2, 3 or 4, the noun takes a special counting form - for masculine and neuter nouns this looks like the genitive singular (сто → стола), for feminine -а nouns it looks like the nominative plural (сестра → сестре). After 5 and up, the noun takes the genitive plural (сто → столова, сестра → сестара).
For compound numbers, only the last digit decides the form: двадесет један сто (21) behaves like 1, двадесет два стола (22) behaves like 2–4, двадесет пет столова (25) behaves like 5+ - however large the whole number is. The teens (11–20) are the one exception: they always take the 5+ genitive-plural form, regardless of what they end in.
Tables
| Number | Word |
|---|---|
| 0 | nula |
| 1 | jedan / jedna / jedno |
| 2 | dva / dve |
| 3 | tri |
| 4 | četiri |
| 5 | pet |
| 6 | šest |
| 7 | sedam |
| 8 | osam |
| 9 | devet |
| 10 | deset |
| 11 | jedanaest |
| 12 | dvanaest |
| 15 | petnaest |
| 20 | dvadeset |
Examples
Compared with…
English numbers never change the noun's ending beyond a plain singular/plural split - two tables and five tables both just add -s. Serbian's three-way split (1 / 2–4 / 5+) with a genuinely different noun ending each time is a new concept for an English speaker, not a stricter version of something English already does.
Common mistakes
Tips & exceptions
- Learn each new noun's 2–4 form and 5+ form together with its dictionary form, the same way you already learn nominative/accusative pairs - treat all three as one vocabulary chunk.
- The rule cares only about the number's last digit: 21, 31, 101… behave like један; 22–24, 32–34… behave like два/три/четири; 25–30, 35–40… behave like пет - except the teens (11–20), which are always the 5+ genitive-plural form no matter what.
- Сто means both table and hundred - two unrelated words that happen to be spelled and pronounced the same; context always makes it obvious which one is meant.
- The teen numbers једанаест–двадесет (11–20) always take the 5+ genitive-plural noun form, breaking the otherwise reliable last-digit rule.
- Два/две, три and четири have no case agreement of their own beyond the masculine/neuter vs. feminine split of два/две - три and четири stay identical for every gender.
- For many neuter nouns like село, the 2–4 form and the 5+ form are spelled identically (села either way) - context, not the ending, tells them apart.
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 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.