Common preposition slips
The rule
Osnovni predlozi

The part of the grammar page this lesson drills — read it here, then use it.

У and на - location versus motion

Both у (in/at) and на (on/at) have two different endings depending on the question they answer. For location (где? - where?), masculine and neuter nouns take a fixed ending, the same pattern days-months-a1 used for months: у Београду (in Belgrade), на столу (on the table). Feminine nouns take instead: кућа → у кући (at home).

For motion toward a destination (куда? - to where?), the noun instead takes the accusative pattern from cases-introduction-a1: masculine and neuter nouns stay unchanged, feminine nouns become . Идем у Београд. (I'm going to Belgrade) leaves Београд unchanged; Идем на плажу. (I'm going to the beach) changes плажа to плажу.

Из, од, до - the from family

Из (out of/from), од (from/since) and до (to/until) all take the same genitive-shaped ending numbers-a1 already introduced as the 5+ count form: masculine/neuter стостола-type ending, feminine .

Долазим из Београда. (I'm coming from Belgrade), Идем од куће до школе. (I'm going from home to school) - Београда, куће and школе are all genitive-shaped, not nominative.

Special cases

Са (with) takes yet another ending, -ом, on the noun that follows: путујем са сестром (I'm traveling with my sister). The short variant с is used before most words, but са replaces it before words starting with с/з/ш/ж/ц/ч (to avoid an awkward consonant cluster) and always before the pronoun мном (me): са мном, never с мном.

За, in the sense of for - direction or purpose - reuses the accusative pattern from the motion section above; за has other senses with a different case pattern, covered in a later lesson. О (about) reuses the same location endings as у - for masculine/neuter, for feminine nouns: причамо о Београду (we're talking about Belgrade) looks exactly like живим у Београду (I live in Belgrade).

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