Guided lesson A1 8 activities
The seven cases: what each one answers
Ten minutes meeting the system itself: Serbian marks a noun's role in the sentence - subject, possessor, object and more - with one of seven case endings, each traditionally learned by the question it answers. Build sentences naming what you know and what you're learning before choosing and translating your way through the rest, ahead of the one contrast you can already use: nominative versus accusative.
The rule
Uvod u padeže
The part of the grammar page this lesson drills — read it here, then use it.
The seven cases
Every noun's ending changes with its case. See the seven cases and the questions they answer in the table below.
Each case is traditionally learned by the question it answers: ко?/шта? - nominative, кога?/шта? - accusative, and so on.
| Case | Question | Use |
|---|---|---|
| nominativ | ko? šta? | subjekat rečenice |
| genitiv | koga? čega? | pripadanje, „od“ |
| dativ | kome? čemu? | indirektni objekat, „ka“ |
| akuzativ | koga? šta? | direktni objekat |
| vokativ | - | direktno obraćanje |
| instrumental | (s) kim? čim? | sredstvo, društvo |
| lokativ | o kome? o čemu? | mesto, tema (uvek s predlogom) |