Prezent pravilnih glagola
Overview
Serbian forms the present tense by dropping the infinitive ending and adding personal endings directly to the verb stem. Verbs fall into three regular groups, named after their 1st-person-singular ending: -ам, -им, and -ем.
Group I - the -ам group
Most verbs whose infinitive ends in -ати belong here: drop -ати and add -ам, -аш, -а, -амо, -ате, -ају - the largest and most predictable group, with no stem changes.
Group II - the -им group
Verbs whose infinitive ends in -ити, plus many ending in -ети, belong here: drop -ити/-ети and add -им, -иш, -и, -имо, -ите, -е. The 3rd-person plural ending is -е, not -у - a frequent point of confusion.
Group III - the -ем group
The fully regular, highly productive corner of this group is -овати/-евати verbs: drop -овати/-евати and add -ујем, -ујеш, -ује, -ујемо, -ујете, -ују. Spotting an infinitive ending in -овати tells you the whole conjugation.
Other -ем-group verbs exist too, often with a stem change (see the exceptions below) - those are covered in a later lesson, once you have more vocabulary to practice them with.
Dropping the subject pronoun
Because the ending alone already shows the person, the subject pronoun (see personal-pronouns-a1) is often left out: „Путујем много.“ (I travel a lot.) needs no ја. Use the pronoun only for contrast or emphasis: „Ја путујем, а он ради.“ (I travel, while he works.)
Tables
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | gledam | gledamo |
| 2. | gledaš | gledate |
| 3. | gleda | gledaju |
Examples
Compared with…
English present-tense verbs barely change (only 3rd-person singular adds -s: I watch / she watches), while Serbian changes the ending for every person. English also splits into a simple and a continuous form and needs the auxiliary do for questions and negation („Do you watch?“, I don't watch) - Serbian needs none of that: one present form, and negation is just не + verb.
Common mistakes
Tips & exceptions
- Learn every new verb together with its 1st-person-singular form (e.g. гледати - гледам) so you immediately know which group it belongs to.
- Spotting -овати/-евати in an infinitive tells you the whole conjugation instantly: replace it with -уј- and add the endings.
- Subject pronouns are optional scaffolding, not a requirement - drop them once the verb ending feels automatic, and reintroduce them only for contrast or emphasis.
- Some -ати verbs conjugate as -ем group with a stem change (писати → пишем, звати → зовем) - covered in a later lesson.
- A handful of -ати verbs unexpectedly conjugate as -им group instead (држати → држим, трчати → трчим) - worth memorizing individually.
- Highly irregular verbs (моћи → могу, хтети → хоћу/ћу, ићи → идем) don't fit any regular group and are introduced separately.
Summary
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