Imam and nemam in a sentence
Ten minutes putting the verb the grammar lesson just laid out to work: build two simple possession sentences and a third, harder one that shifts the object into the genitive after a negated имати - the pattern the vocabulary list itself flagged - then catch the mistake every beginner makes writing не имам as two words instead of one, before the unit's own reading text lists everything a stranger has and does not have.
The part of the grammar page this lesson drills — read it here, then use it.
Affirmative present
Drop -ти from имати and add the regular -ам-group endings (see the table below). Имаш ли…?, with the question particle ли right after the verb, is the natural way to ask a yes/no question.
Negative present - немати
The negative of имати is not не + имати written apart - it is its own verb, немати, built on the present stem нема- (see the table below), the same fused pattern as бити's нисам.
Age and the impersonal нема
To give your age, Serbian uses имати, not бити: Ја имам двадесет година. (literally I have twenty years) means „I am twenty years old.“
Without any subject, 3rd-person-singular нема means there isn't/aren't: Нема проблема. (No problem.) The missing thing is expressed in a special case form, covered fully in a later lesson - for now, learn such phrases as fixed wholes.
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | imam | imamo |
| 2. | imaš | imate |
| 3. | ima | imaju |