Thirty letters, thirty sounds
Ten minutes with the platform's core reading rule in action: pick out that every letter has exactly one sound, including the three letters that need two characters in Latin script - љ, њ and џ - and read short real words aloud with total confidence before the unit's own reading and listening ask you to do it at speed.
The part of the grammar page this lesson drills — read it here, then use it.
30 letters, 30 sounds
The Cyrillic alphabet has exactly 30 letters, each representing exactly one sound. Three - Љ, Њ and Џ - correspond to two-letter combinations in Latin script (Lj, Nj, Dž), but in Cyrillic each is a single, indivisible letter and sound; do not think of љ as л + ј.
The full correspondence is in the table below. Because reading is always literal, once you know these 30 letter–sound pairings you can read aloud any Serbian word you see, even one you have never met before - pronunciation is never memorised separately from spelling.
| Letter | Example |
|---|---|
| A a | avion |
| B b | brat |
| V v | voda |
| G g | glava |
| D d | dan |
| Đ đ | đak |
| E e | evo |
| Ž ž | žena |
| Z z | zec |
| I i | ime |
| J j | jaje |
| K k | kuća |
| L l | lav |
| Lj lj | ljubav |
| M m | mama |
| N n | noć |
| Nj nj | njiva |
| O o | oko |
| P p | pas |
| R r | ruka |
| S s | sunce |
| T t | trava |
| Ć ć | ćilim |
| U u | usta |
| F f | film |
| H h | hleb |
| C c | cvet |
| Č č | čaj |
| Dž dž | džep |
| Š š | šuma |