Prošlo vreme
Overview
Serbian builds the past tense from two words: the short present of бити - сам, си, је, смо, сте, су - plus a participle, a special form of the main verb. Ја сам радио is literally “I am worked” - an auxiliary that never changes its meaning, plus a participle that carries the verb.
This one form does the work of several more specific past tenses - context carries the finer distinction, so at A1 you can use it for any finished action in the past.
Making the participle
Take the infinitive, drop -ти, and add the ending - -о for a male subject, -ла for female, -ло for neuter; see the table below. Nearly every verb you have met so far works this way.
In the plural: -ли for men or a mixed group, -ле for a group of women, -ла for neuter things. A mixed group always takes the masculine -ли, even if only one man is present.
The participle agrees with the subject
The ending is chosen by who or what the subject is, not by the person speaking to you. Ана је читала and Марко је читао use the same auxiliary је and differ only in the participle - the part that carries the gender.
This includes ја and ти, which have no gender of their own: a woman says ја сам радила and a man ја сам радио - the sentence itself reveals who is speaking.
Saying it did not happen
The negative uses the fused forms you already know from бити - нисам, ниси, није, нисмо, нисте, нису - followed by the same participle. Нисам радио means “I did not work”; there is no separate не here, exactly as in the present tense.
To ask a question, put да ли in front and leave the rest alone: Да ли си радио? Word order doesn't change - same rule as in the present tense.
Tables
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | ja sam | mi smo |
| 2. | ti si | vi ste |
| 3. | on je | oni su |
Examples
Compared with…
English splits the past into “I worked”, “I have worked” and “I was working”; Serbian has one form here and lets context sort it out. In the other direction Serbian asks for something English never does: the verb must agree with the subject's gender, so “I worked” becomes радио or радила depending on who is speaking - there's no neutral option to fall back on.
Common mistakes
Tips & exceptions
- Learn био, била, било, били first. бити is the verb you will put in the past most often - worth memorising as four fixed words so they come out instantly, rather than deriving them under pressure every time.
- If you catch yourself saying a two-word past tense, check for the auxiliary before anything else - it is the error a listener notices first.
- Say sentences about yourself out loud with the right ending. If you are a woman, радила has to become automatic - it is the form you will need most and the one a textbook prints least.
- ићи (to go) does not follow the rule: its participle is ишао, ишла, ишло, ишли - not the form you would expect from the infinitive.
- бити and хтети have an irregular present tense - сам and хоћу don't come from the infinitive at all - but their participles are perfectly regular: био, била, било, били and хтео, хтела, хтело, хтели follow the same drop--ти-add-the-ending rule as радити → радио.
- The auxiliary cannot open a sentence: you say „Радио сам.“, never „Сам радио.“ Where exactly it lands in a longer sentence is a rule of its own, and A2 gives it a lesson.
Summary
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