Negation in a sentence
Ten minutes putting the negation rule to work: build three sentences that put не exactly where it belongs - before a verb, and together with нико or никад when one of them is in the sentence too. Then correct the one mistake every beginner makes with имати, before the unit's own reading text shows a whole afternoon of a host offering and a guest declining.
The part of the grammar page this lesson drills — read it here, then use it.
не + verb - the general rule
Не is unstressed and always sits immediately before the verb it negates, never separated from it by another word. Не гледам телевизију. (I don't watch television.) - see present-tense-regular-verbs-a1.
Negative pronouns and adverbs require double negation
Serbian has a full set of negative pronouns and adverbs (see the table below). Whenever one appears in a sentence, the verb still needs its own не (or the fused нисам/нема) - dropping it is wrong even though the sentence already has a negative word.
Нико не зна literally reads "Nobody doesn't know," but means simply "Nobody knows." This double marking is required, not optional, however many negative words the sentence has: Никад никог нигде не видим. (I never see anyone anywhere.) stacks three negatives plus не, and that's entirely normal, correct Serbian.
Special cases
Немати already carries its own negation, so it's never paired with a second не before it - but it still triggers the same double-negation pattern with negative pronouns: Немам ништа. (I have nothing.), not *Имам ништа.
Нема (the impersonal 3rd-person form of немати) also means "there isn't/aren't any": Нема никог код куће. (There is nobody home.)
| Word | Means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| niko | nobody | Niko ne zna. |
| ništa | nothing | Nemam ništa. |
| nikad(a) | never | Nikad ne kasnim. |
| nigde | nowhere | On nije nigde. |
| nijedan/nijedna/nijedno | not a single one | Nijedan student ne dolazi. |