Питања
Overview
Serbian asks a yes/no question in one of two equally correct ways: add the particle да ли before the normal statement word order, or put the verb first and attach the enclitic particle ли right after it.
Open questions (who, what, where…) use a question word at the very start of the clause, followed directly by the verb.
Yes/No questions: да ли and ли-inversion
Да ли is the safest way to ask a yes/no question: place it first, then keep the statement's normal word order unchanged. Да ли говориш српски? (Do you speak Serbian?) is literally Да ли + Говориш српски.
The alternative is ли-inversion: move the verb to the front and attach ли directly after it, in second position, like any other enclitic. Говориш ли српски? asks the same thing. With бити, the long form combines with ли: Јеси ли уморан? (Are you tired?) - see verb-biti-present-a1.
Ли can never stand at the very start of a sentence, and can never attach to a noun or pronoun directly - it always leans on the conjugated verb leading the clause.
Question words
The core set: ко (who), шта (what), где (where), кад(а) (when), како (how), зашто (why), колико (how much/how many) - see the table below for examples. Each word starts the clause, immediately followed by the verb.
Two question words also agree with the noun they modify: који/која/које (which) and чији/чија/чије (whose) change ending to match the noun's gender and number - see the table below for који/која/које in each gender.
Ко always takes a singular, masculine-style verb form, regardless of who is actually being asked about - Ко је дошао? (Who came?) keeps дошао even when asking about a woman, never дошла.
Answering
Answer a yes/no question with Да. (Yes) or Не. (No), optionally followed by a full sentence. A one-word affirmative echo of бити uses the long form: Јеси ли студент? - Јесам. (Are you a student? - I am.) - see verb-biti-present-a1.
Open questions are answered by giving exactly the information the question word asked for, usually without repeating it: Где живиш? - У Београду. (Where do you live? - In Belgrade.)
Tables
| Word | Example |
|---|---|
| ко | Ко је то? |
| шта | Шта радиш? |
| где | Где живиш? |
| кад(а) | Кад долазиш? |
| како | Како си? |
| зашто | Зашто плачеш? |
| колико | Колико кошта? |
Examples
Compared with…
English builds yes/no questions with the auxiliary do (Do you speak…?) or by inverting to be/modal verbs (Are you…?, Can you…?). Serbian needs neither: no auxiliary verb exists, and the question is built purely with да ли or the ли particle attached to the main verb itself.
Common mistakes
Tips & exceptions
- When unsure, default to да ли + normal word order - it always works and never sounds wrong, unlike some casual shortcuts of ли-inversion.
- Ли behaves exactly like the short forms of бити you already know: unstressed, never sentence-initial, always leaning on the word before it.
- Learn који/која/које together with the noun-gender lesson - the ending you pick simply mirrors the noun's gender.
- In fast colloquial speech да ли is sometimes shortened to је ли regardless of the main verb („Је ли долазиш?“) - informal and not used in writing.
- Шта and ко never change form for gender or number, unlike који/која/које - they stay invariant no matter what they refer to.
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.