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How to begin Serbian from scratch.... | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| jordancrabb Newbie Scotland Joined 5800 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes | Message 1 of 16 31 March 2009 at 11:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey,
I'm interested in learning Serbian (to impress a Serbian girl :P), but the only course containing audio that I can find is TY Serbian. I have never studied a Slavonic language before so I think audio will probably be essential. As far as I'm aware Pimsleur don't have any courses in Serbian and I can't find the Linguaphone course online. Can anyone recommend any? I have a friend who is a native speaker of Serbian, so would it be possible to learn the language without much audio, and ask them to correct my pronunciation? Also what are the main differences between Serbian and Croatian, and would it be possible to learn Serbian from a Croatian course and vice-versa? Thanks in advance... Jordan. Edited by jordancrabb on 31 March 2009 at 11:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| GibberMeister Bilingual Pentaglot Groupie Scotland Joined 5806 days ago 61 posts - 67 votes  Speaks: Spanish, Catalan, Lowland Scots*, English*, Portuguese | Message 2 of 16 31 March 2009 at 11:52am | IP Logged | ||
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Croatian and Serbian are basically two dialects of the same language. The advantage of Croatian is that it's written in the Latin alphabet, and not in Cyrillic as Serbian is.
If I were you I'd learn Croatian. This will save you time and get your impressing off to a good start. (Remember to give us an 'impressing diary' news update btw!) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jordancrabb Newbie Scotland Joined 5800 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes | Message 3 of 16 31 March 2009 at 3:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks, I'll let you know if it works. ;)
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7154 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 4 of 16 31 March 2009 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | ||
You can use Pimsleur Croatian if you like Pimsleur's approach (I don't, BTW). Croatian and Serbian today are effectively variants of the same dialect and the overlap is still very high. Some Serbian acquaintances complimented me on my knowledge of Serbian even though I had used TY Croatian and never really learned to write using Serbian Cyrillic (I can read it though). TY Serbian is one of the better courses in the series so I wouldn't dismiss it. It's also less skimpy than TY Croatian. http://fsi-language-courses.org has an online version of FSI Serbo-Croatian (it's missing the audio for Vol. 2, though). Since your friend is a native-speaker of Serbian, you could also consider getting the new book by Ronelle Alexander and Ellen Elias-Bursac called "Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, a Textbook with Exercises and Basic Grammar" which comes with CDs. It has lots of exercises and your friend can correct your homework as necessary. Serbs can use either a Latin or Cyrillic alphabet but you can get away with using just the Latin alphabet if you're not that interested in getting too deep into the language. Cyrillic has greater symbolic value but isn't really that popular because of the preponderance of computers or other electronic devices that are programmed to put out Latin characters only (most Serbs send SMSes or emails in Latin alphabet). You can't really learn Serbian from a Croatian course or vice-versa, any more than you can learn British English at a school in the USA. Figure out what that means ;-) While most Serbs and Croats can usually identify each other as Serbs or Croats based on a quick analysis of each other's conversational patterns, they'll usually understand each other 99% of the time (like how native New Yorkers and native Londoners can identify each other's hometown based on accent or vocabulary). Discarding political or sociolinguistic considerations, it's very hard if not impossible to decisively consider Croatian and Serbian to be different languages when comparing grammar, lexis and phonology of the two variants. The most notable differences seem to arise in spelling or vocabulary (like the variants of English) English: chemistry, cinema, coffee, happy, plate, table Croatian: kemija; kino; kava; sretan; tanjur; stol Serbian: hemija; bioskop; kafa; srećan; tanjir; sto A subset of these differences in spelling arises from how standard Serbian and standard Croatian treat a sound that predated the emergence of the modern standard variants. Croatian tends to have "ije" or "je" while Serbian tends to have "e". English: child, milk, river, wind, word Croatian: dijete, mlijeko, rijeka, vjetar, riječ Serbian: dete, mleko, reka, vetar, reč In still other cases words in the standards appear noticeably different: English: airplane, bread, carrot, history, June, passport, station, thousand Croatian: zrakoplov, kruh, mrkva, povijest, lipanj, putovnica, kolodvor, tisuća Serbian: avion, hleb, šargarepa, istorija, jun, pasoš, stanica, hiljada There are also some false friends between the two. For example: Croatian: deva = "camel"; slovenski = "Slovenian"; zrak = "air" (rarely: "beam (of light)" Serbian: deva = "virgin"; slovenski = "Slavic"; zrak = "beam (of light)" Lastly there are a few differences in grammar. A very obvious one is that Serbs are more likely to avoid using the infinitive, whereas Croats are more likely to use it. English: I want to work. Croatian: Hoću raditi. Serbian: Hoću da radim. (literally: "I want that I work") Another difference exists in creating "yes-no" questions. Serbs usually begin such a question with "Da li..." while Croats almost always use "li" in the second position of the question-sentence. "Da li" and "li" translate roughly as "do...?" or "is it that...?" English: Do you want to work? Croatian: Hoćeš li raditi? Serbian: Da li hoćeš da radiš? (literally: "do you want that you work?") In very informal Croatian, I sometimes hear: Da li hoćeš raditi? (apparent mix of Serbian and Croatian tendencies). Questions in this form are also used by Serbs but they crop up rather infrequently. Keep in mind that these differences in grammar arise more as tendencies than hard and fast rules. Croats living in Serbia (who often consider themselves to be speakers of "Croatian") are more likely to use the "Serbian" constructions than their compatriots in Croatia. It works the same in reverse as well. Serbs living in Croatia (who often consider themselves to be speakers of "Serbian") are more likely to use the "Croatian" constructions then their compatriots in Serbia. A common Croatian parody of Serbs' speech includes a total eschewing of the infinitive which even Serbs would find mildly comical if not stylistically awkward. There are posts on WordReference's forums and an article on Wikipedia that go into greater detail about the differences. Be forewarned that articles or posts that go into detail about the differences between Croatian and Serbian tend to have an air of "grasping at straws". Some descriptions or word lists that are meant to compare the two sometimes maximize the degree of divergence or convergence by mixing registers of colloquial and formal language or by misinterpreting tendencies as a immutable rules/prescriptions. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6032 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 5 of 16 31 March 2009 at 7:35pm | IP Logged | ||
Just a slight correction here. Computers can't be blamed for the limited usage of Cyrillic because nowadays they all have built in support for it. Setting up Cyrillic was a moderately complicated procedure some 10 years ago but nowadays it is trivial. Both Windows and Linux handle it (almost) perfectly. Edited by Sennin on 31 March 2009 at 7:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7154 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 6 of 16 31 March 2009 at 8:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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That's true now but there is a sort of inertia that still limits Cyrillic from making greater inroads as Serbs got used to the internet (and later text-messaging) in the days of relatively poor setup for Cyrillic.
Another thing is that Serbian printed on billboards or posters in urban areas (especially those in northern Serbia including the capital) often appears in Latin script. In rural areas, it's a little more common to see printed Cyrillic. In any case, worrying over Cyrillic versus Latin in Serbian isn't that big of a deal. Serbs are taught to use both scripts so most won't have a problem with foreign learners who're more comfortable using one script over the other (notwithstanding Serbian nationalists who insist on the supremacy of the "purer" Cyrillic alphabet :-P) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6009 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 7 of 16 31 March 2009 at 8:19pm | IP Logged | ||
Heck, that course was probably originally sold as "Pimsleur Serbo-Croat" before the civil war anyway and just hastily rebadged afterwards.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kubelek Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland chomikuj.pl/Kuba_wal Joined 6850 days ago 415 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 8 of 16 31 March 2009 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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Assimil le Serbo-Croate sans peine is a good course in French. From what I've noticed when using it, the Croatian elements is mostly in the notes. The dialogs themselves are in Serbian (I can only speak about the first half of the course, perhaps it changes later)
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