Learn Serbian & Može kafa podcast: Episode 12 - Serbian Language Textbook A1-A2

Kafa Podcast. I'm Nikola, and here's Maki.

And Maki, ojde.

Ćao Maki, kako si?

Ćao.

Malo bolasna sam, ali bit će bolje.

Ok. Ozdravi brzo, get well soon.

Hvala.

Today we're here to talk about a new book that's come out, Learn

Serbian. It's a Serbian language textbook.

It's something I've been working on for a long time and it's finally out.

So we can go through it and see what are the contents of the

book, how exercises look like, texts and similar.

Hvala, što će naši sami.

Hvala, što ste sviđali.

Hvala, što je uvijek.

Vi nema nema nemajši suvnjene in Serbija.

So, što je uvijek za uvijek na njegovima, što je uvijek na srbavu.

Što Zvijek si uvijek za njegovu.

Zvijek za njegovu nemajnoguća.

Hvala, što je uvijek za njegovu.

new things or will help me review my knowledge yeah i mean it is

i noticed that there's so little materials you can use to learn Serbian online

there's some written ones the audio files there's not many of them that you

can listen to this book does only have texts and exercises no audio files

maybe in a second edition in the future there will be some audio files

in there why not why not and the book is in pdf form for

now printed form might be able we might be able to do it in

the future we'll see yeah how about um using this for social media are

you planning to make some reels uh on based on some of the exercise

so that we hear at least for the difficult ones how they sound uh

reels based on the texts uh that's a good idea i might do something

that yeah i'll share some content of the book uh through reels and posts

of course um that would be great yeah i look forward to seeing and

hearing them yeah so i'd like to ask you a couple of things before

we start to see how it looks or how it is designed first of

all how long time did you put uh into creating this book so this

book um actually i've been i was let's say writing it or making

it from april of this year okay so um almost

a full year but actually this book is a collection of lessons that i've

been making myself for over five six years right and i i

updated the lessons i had new things and so you can fit the the

format of the book well so actively almost a year and that's a long

time but still in one year you managed to finish more than 200 pages

yeah yes that's a huge success i want to thank you i want to

say i did everything by myself meaning that there might be you know i

never made a book myself um i never published anything so i um this

is a one-man project so there might be stuff that are not supposed to

look like that in books i tried to do my best i tried to

follow the rules of making a book like formatting and stuff like that so

if you notice any mistakes or stuff like that that's the reason um but

in the future if i do like a printed version i plan on like

consulting someone um who does publishing yeah but i mean that's

completely understandable i mean you are creating this and you have i mean you

are looking at the same text by yourself it's hard to see the spot

the you know little mistakes like typos and stuff that's completely understandable i think

the people who buy this will definitely understand and you know still appreciate everything

so you picked a lot of topics like more than 25 vocabulary topics how

did you come up with them so in my lessons i like in a1

a2 level i plan to i usually do vocabulary that's most useful right something

you need immediately so of course basic greetings and stuff like that most frequent

vocabulary but stuff that you can use practically in real life ordering at the

restaurant asking for directions and based on frequency and how much you need

it in real life that's how i put them in order and some basic

stuff as well that you frequently talk about during the day

So that's kind of the logic behind it.

Yeah. So you imagined how they would use the language.

I mean, the environment, the situations, and you're trying to create dialogues.

Are they mostly based on dialogue?

Like each chapter has a dialogue or some of them have dialogues and others'

texts? Yeah. Each chapter has, well, not dialogue, but each chapter

has a text.

So it can be a dialogue and a text or both.

Sometimes there are two or three texts.

But yeah, there's a text.

That's nice. And I saw that you have answer keys for these exercises.

Does it also include, like this one, read and translate kind of exercises as

well? Yeah.

text there's key to exercises and there's also translated text texts after that that's

so important because i love these translation based exercises but i'm never sure if

it's right or if i missed anything so it's gonna be nice and what

was the hardest part of creating this book for you uh the hardest part

was finding time to do it because i do lessons during the day whole

day and then the book I did on weekends or after I finished lessons,

like late night late night not every day but when I had time I

did that but other than that checking for errors,

which there are still errors in the books, like typos probably but

But checking for answers, like going over answers, writing them.

So that was the hardest part.

I see. And what was the most fun part of writing this book for

you? The most fun part is designing the book.

That's fun.

um i see that you use the serbian black colors like dark blue dark

yeah is it a coincidence or no that was the intention yeah it's almost

like purple like but yeah it's um that's the red and blue are the

themes of the book inside and the covers and a background obviously so that

was fun and nice um well writing the lesson itself not doing the like

checking for correction but writing the like um explanations and texts yeah

you feel like you're you are using your creativity when you're writing a text

out of nothing right in your mind yeah exactly you feel like an author

yeah it's yeah it's definitely more interesting uh i do feel like an author

now but uh it's still weird for me i see this as like a

collection of my lessons still not like a whole book on its own it's

very weird feeling yeah it's a textbook based on exercises it's like uh not

a like a storybook for sure i'm sure it's going to be very useful.

And what were you thinking?

Like this book to be used individually to support their learning for the learners?

Or do you think this is also suitable to work on with a tutor?

Yeah, people can use it individually or with a tutor, so it doesn't matter.

I try to make it, to do a lot of explanation in the book

so people can do it individually.

I think they can do both.

yeah where can they buy the book on your website on my website uh

serbianlanguagelessness.com um it's a pdf form um

so it's there for now maybe in the future on some other platforms i

was gonna ask you like maybe as your i think learners or podcast listeners

are from different countries like a website is definitely fine with putting it on

amazon or other bookstores would be that's that's the plan yeah uh for

that it's a little bit more technical difficulties there and stuff you need to

cover but that's the plan to put it on some other platforms for now

let's do it i'm doing this like as a test round for now to

see how everything works and then maybe in the second how do you say

edition let's say it will be put out in different platforms or in printed

form I see I was looking forward to hearing

for B2, B1, B2, C1 level books are you also planning to have books

for a level because you know when people are intermediate and plus intermediate levels

they can work by themselves more efficiently maybe You know, they at least know

the basics. Yeah.

So it would be great if you did that as well.

Yeah, definitely. the plan is to put out as much material as possible out

there so people can learn

that would take probably an entire year for B1B2

so let's say the earliest we can hope for that is the end of

next year I see, fingers crossed

no what was it držim palčeve držim good

let's do a mini exercise so that people understand how this book is designed

at least a little peek into the book together

can you see the shared screen here yes I do okay let's see this

is page 100 This is lesson 19, which has adverbs in it.

So most frequent adverbs.

And it also has topic of house and vocabulary.

Vocabulary related to the house.

Do you want me to read the full text?

Yeah, you can be A and B and I can try to translate.

Okay.

So, dobro došla u moj novi dom.

You wanted to be?

No, you go ahead.

I was going to translate.

Maybe after each pair, I will translate.

Okay. So again.

Dobrodošla u moj novi dom.

Bolje te našla.

Wow, ovo izgada odlično.

That's nice. So dom and kuća are synonyms.

They are houses like home, right?

Dom is home, kući is home.

Yeah, welcome to my new home.

That's a very nice phrase, bolje te našla.

It's nice to see you.

It's nice to, it's like, it's nice, bolje, yeah, nicer to find you kind

of meaning, but it means good to see you.

Yes, good to see you.

Yeah, and this looks amazing, great, odlično.

Hvala, kupila sam ovu koću pre mesec dana.

Sada još uvek sređujem i čistim.

Ovo je hodnik, a levo je dnevna soba.

Nice.

So, thank you.

I bought this house a few months ago.

And I'm still...

Sregijem is like arranging?

Yeah, tidying up, arranging.

And cleaning, čisto.

And cleaning, yes.

Here is the hall or corridor.

And on the left is living room.

Baš je velika.

Imaš lep kauč pored ove visoke lampe.

Da, kauč je nov.

Obično ovdje samo jedem jer imam veliki sto sa stolicama.

Uvek odmoram u drugoj sobi pored kupatila.

Hajde da vidiš.

Nice So it's really big I think the living room And you

have a beautiful couch

In front of Next to Next to the tall lamp

Lamps actually It's plural Singular Because it's genitive Okay

Guarante i nominati look the same in singular.

I see, okay.

I'm glad that I'm confused in a good way.

I mean, yeah, guarante i singular look the same in singular.

It's nominative plural, so it can be confusing.

I see. And you're saying, yes, the couch is new.

Usually I eat here because I have a big table

with chairs.

So you don't need to use the big table for one person, I guess,

right? Yeah.

and I always rest in another room next to the bathroom.

Come see it.

I did a bit of a dish.

Aha, vidim. Ova soba je mala, ali ima mnogo više namještaja.

Da, trenutno sam u ovoj sobi dok ne spremim dnevnu sobu.

Ovo je spavača soba.

Krivet je stariji, a ormar još nisam naručila.

oh i see this room is small but it has a lot of more

uh furniture a lot more a lot more yeah and

right now um i'm here more like because i'm preparing

my bedroom yeah i'm in this room until i get like prepare or set

up. Yeah, darkness premium, yes.

Until I set up my

bedroom. Dinevno sobo.

Dinevno sobo, yeah, that's true.

Living room, that's true.

This is the bedroom.

The bed is old, but the wardrobe I haven't ordered yet.

A orma još nisam naručila.

Okay. Šta imaš napolju u dvorištu?

What do

In the middle of the garden, we often sit in the garden and read,

if it's nice.

you have outside?

No, that's okay.

It can be either a flower garden, but it can also be like vegetables.

I see. Good.

So the word is the space, like the...

Yard. Yeah, the yard with the garden.

And I mostly, like, usually sit...

Often. Often sit there and read if the weather is nice.

Ovo sve izgleda odlično.

Nigde nisam videla ovako lepo kuću.

oh that's a nice compliment uh everything looks great i haven't seen um that

beautiful house ever in my life yeah okay so the idea is to have

a text combine everything covered in the in the lesson or previous lessons so

this covers genitive for example and adverbs Yeah,

and it's confusing for many of us where to put them.

You know obično, but do you say, oh, the obično, obično, all that, and

it shows that it's better to use them, for example, in the beginning.

Yeah, if you want to emphasize.

It all depends on the context, on the structure of the sentence.

Yeah.

This is one.

Right, let's jump to the exercise quickly then.

because I think it's quite interesting.

So you have a connection with verbs with connection verbs with proper norms so

chistity is clean we can clean

house i was looking for but there was no house so it can be

of course so yeah it can be a lot of things chistity sobo yeah

that makes sense yeah i mean based on the the context and pegleti is

uh ironing right to iron yeah yeah so they should then but yeah

i know this verb what was it vacuum vacuum yes right the

yeah yeah yeah and

brisa tea that's uh shave right um that's

briety brisa is to literally wipe but like with a cloth um in

english you don't use it for it's a bit like mop uh yeah it

can be like mopping as well.

Then, sporet? Sure, it can be a lot of things.

We also say a lot brišati prašinu.

Brišam prašinu. Ah, prašinu.

Prašina means? Dust.

Prašina is dust.

Ah, okay. Got it.

Prati is to do or to make.

So, it would be praviti.

Ah, that's true.

Praviti. And prati is to wash.

Ah, that's true.

pray, but it's an irregular verb, that's why I'm confused, right?

So you can wash so many things.

Odechu would work, tepi would work, right?

Maybe the frequent ones are posuji, to wash the dishes.

Ah, yeah, posuji, yes, makes sense.

Or, yeah, posuji.

Oključiti is lock, I know.

so you have to be careful because klj is key but there's so many

verbs with that so you have zaključati odključati

so this is turn on turn off then yes ok

would be svetlo then so for svetlo it's

information in this lesson

you use upaliti ogasiti

yeah use it for electrical devices usually okay got

it you see i thought it would be so easy for me but it's

not yeah whose city is uh-huh you want to explain that it's

based on previous like pages and that's why it's uh i see yeah i

mean it shows that you need to reframe everything depending on the context so

okay is glitchity then would be a different one to turn off yeah

but what would work with televisor then uh excuse it is part excuse it

Nice for it.

Okay, good. And pustiti is like to put also throw,

I guess, right?

Pustiti is to let, like let go.

upality as you said then it's going to be working better with sweat law

very nice okay thank you so much I'm much more into this

exercise book now obviously I need it and I'm sure so many Serbian learners

also need such a book thanks again thank you and I hope this

will help you and other students learn and I hope I did a good

job here so we'll see time will tell if it goes well.

And our listeners, please feel free to give your feedback to Nicola and share

whatever suggestions you have.

I think it's going to be used for the second edition.

Exactly. It would be very helpful.

Okay. All right.

Hvala and vidimo se.

See you. Ciao.