Traps with questions
Four slips that turn a correct Serbian question into a wrong one: a pronoun placed in front of the verb before ли instead of right after it, ли opening a sentence on its own, reaching for работати out of habit instead of радити, and која left unagreed with a masculine noun. Ten minutes of building the right version and catching each mistake before it happens - the last of the series, right before the unit's own trip to the shop.
The part of the grammar page this lesson drills — read it here, then use it.
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.
| Word | Example |
|---|---|
| ko | Ko je to? |
| šta | Šta radiš? |
| gde | Gde živiš? |
| kad(a) | Kad dolaziš? |
| kako | Kako si? |
| zašto | Zašto plačeš? |
| koliko | Koliko košta? |