Ep.8: Modal Verbs In Serbian

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Okay, should we start?

Yep. Hajde da...

What was start?

Aha!

Hajde da počnemo.

Dobar dan svima.

Počnemo. Dobar dan.

Dobro došla, Ivano.

Hvala. Bolje vas našla.

Kako si, Maki?

Super sama ti?

Odlično. Mada ću uskoro da spavam.

Odmarala si?

Ne. Odmaraću. Okay.

in the future i'm asking if she has rested because she's just back from

her holidays which was i

think which were quite long yeah right i think uh i listened to the

last episode and when you and uh

survived serbian what's her name i forgot now man alexandra alexandra yeah um i

knew it and then i

forgot it but when you said like oh i said oh we're envious of

ivana and i'm like yeah i'm so glad i I was part of that

conversation, even if I wasn't there.

So, yeah. You were, you were.

Cool. Okay. So you have come back and I said, okay, let's talk about

a little bit grammar.

I mean, this season was mostly about culture and interviews, but

I'm sure some of our followers

really want to have more vocabulary and structure so

this episode is going to be about something new which is the model verbs

in Serbian yeah which I

think they're not as complicated do you think and also I think they are

not actual model verbs like

as we know in English no they are like more like verbs actually yeah

I don't remember it when I was learning serbian i don't really i mean

when i was younger obviously learning the grammar

of serbian i don't remember them being like well these ones are specific verbs

like they're called

modal verbs actually the first time i encountered this was in english so and

in german then later

but did you have any separate group like not modal verbs but maybe the

ones that go with da

like blah blah blah blah blah i don't think we were explicitly taught this

actually

um because there are two ways how you can go about this usually in

serbia you can use that right the construction so uh hot you the spavam

for example which is very appropriate for me now

but uh there's another uh way how you can say it which is not

so common in serbia but you will

hear it i think it was common before hot you spavati which is a

bit easier it's the same meaning um but it's just the infinitive so you

don't have to think about that plus sleep what

the first person exactly single but if you could just um spavati right the

infinitive and that's it um that is mostly i think mostly used in the

surrounding uh countries but not so

much in serbia i think we mostly use that and yeah i remember when

i was younger um and my mom is from Bosnia, my aunt is from

Bosnia and we all lived in different cities in Serbia

because they went to study and work in Serbia and so on.

So we would have all of these people that we would know from different

parts of Serbia

and from Bosnia.

We would travel there every year and I could easily identify if someone was

from Serbia,

at least from my part of Serbia,

because I would almost guarantee you

that I would almost never hear Hojus Bhavati.

But I know it's grammatical,

so I'll be like, okay, but it's just not common, I guess.

So yeah. So people are like thinking,

what are they saying now?

Like, what are these model verbs?

You guys know them.

Hojus, you already know them.

Moje, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

The most common one is Moje.

You should know it

if you're listening to our podcast, Moje Kava.

yeah exactly so they are a bit different from the english equivalents for sure

yeah and we said

the similarity between them is for serbian like speakers is you use them you

say da and then you

use the main verb and then you conjugate it as well that's the similarity

among them so both the modal verb plus the the main verb that follows

that they are both conjugated in the first in the

person that you wanted right like yeah if you're speaking the first person first

person singular

okay let's put them in categories like let's talk about the ones about ability

like we use

we use that in english but it's not the same thing but still you

can have that kind of a categorization to follow much more easily, I think.

Yeah, yeah, I think, and when I remember when I was looking at it

there's several ways how you can say things actually so I think the first

one is actually

the one that we use in our podcast right which is exactly so moj

and the infinitive is mochi

I know it's a regular it's a regular and then it has a totally

different form when you conjugate sorry for that but yeah mogu yes

i know that one so that this is to be this is can or

be able to

actually has both meanings i think as in english um yeah mogu yeah do

you want to continue yeah

why not timorish on on a może oh no there's

one more thing i was thinking yeah exactly yeah

and they are also mogu yes that's interesting yeah mogu on a mogu yeah

that's true that's true never really thought about that you see this is where you are

like foreigner perspective comes in yeah exactly so so the before

the example the negative version i would

like to say just ne you add right yeah exactly so

yeah mogu yeah ne mogu you not to forget

not to forget that you can actually omit a pronoun right yes so you

can say you don't have to say you can say

like

also

that means

that if you

want to add

a negation it would be

yeah

no

no

no

just ne mogu yes and you write ne separately right yes this is an

important part there's only

i think five verbs in serbian that are written together with the verb ne

is written together

with the verb isam one of them is nisam one of them is yeah

one of them is necciu and so on these ones are separate so if

if the verb makes sense alone it's separate

actually no me some me is like it's a negative but it's not me

right so it's like weird anyway we we topic for another episode but yeah

okay this is great question for you yes things you

wanted to you can do i'm asking that i want that i can do

right that i'm able to oh that's the new one she

can surf yeah i can surf uh I can dance.

Plesham. Dance. Yes.

Exactly. I can dance.

I can dance salsa.

Right? I can dance salsa.

Salsa. Koga šta.

That would be accusative.

Salsa. I can dance.

Pivas? Pivas?

Pivas? I can sing?

Well, not that well, but pretty.

Yeah. I remember our episode about songs now.

Yes.

You were saying.

Hey, I was saying, yeah.

What can you do?

I can speak.

I speak a lot.

That's very good, yeah.

Super. I can speak a little bit of a plan.

Planinarim. Planinarim, not planinari.

Yeah. I can speak a little bit of a Serbian.

Oh! Every time.

Every time, bravo.

I'm honored.

I'm She said thanks to you.

And I said, I'm honored.

Yeah, that's a hard word.

I'm always trying.

Actually, this is now a bit different.

The meaning would be.

Yeah, okay. One of the meanings is I cannot.

Okay. What can I do?

I don't know.

That's the thing.

You see, usually you would say, I don't know how to...

Ah, okay.

Yeah, you wouldn't say, you wouldn't say,

I can't sing.

Because actually you can sing, right?

Yeah. The question is how you're singing.

I can't sing good.

That's what you can say.

Yeah, yeah. I can't sing good.

I can't run fast.

And double da.

No, one da.

One.

Ne mogu brzo da.

Okay. Yeah. Cool.

Cool.

I learned something new, actually.

And I actually do not hear this much, but Umeti is also like Ken.

Yes. I wrote down Ken, know how to.

I know how to do it.

I think it's, to me, at least in my ears,

it sounds a bit more formal yeah znam would be more common yeah right

i would usually

exactly so umeti is um i can know how to and it goes yeah

um or just umem uh ti umesh On, ona, ume.

Mi umemo. Vi umete.

Oni, one, ona, umeju.

Meju. Umeju, yeah.

And negation is ne umem or ja ne umem.

It's the same for every, like for moci.

I see. So what kind of difference do you feel if I say because

i think when i use umem i would definitely think of a skill

like um i would always think of a skill no man like it's something

that i you had to actually

learn i don't know how to i don't

know how to explain it it's a bit weird like it it refers to

something that you learned like that yeah something that has something you learn yeah

you consciously that doesn't have to be conscious but usually it means that you

you

consciously know

that you have to

like consciously learn it, right?

Or that you really have to have to make an effort or it's usually

regarding a skill.

I don't really know.

I mean, Znam is also, I mean, Znati is also

regarding a skill, but it's a bit more, to me, a bit more formal.

Like,

um yeah i

think i get a bit more elevated would be um there you go that's

why i don't hear it or

even if i heard maybe i didn't pay attention but znam is always there

in the conversations you can always replace umeti with znahti i think and uh

i think znam also refers to like an

information right like you wouldn't say like nesam znala za to i didn't know

about it nesnam za to i don't know about it uh but you cannot

say ne umem

because it's it's umeti is just for a skill like i don't

i didn't know about the war you cannot say i i couldn't you know

what i mean so for but

for surfing for example uh no i wanted to use past

tense but uh see i have to say you can

use it i don't hear it often

i don't hear it often but yeah you can use it i just think

it's just not as frequent

a bit more elevated mostly connected to a skill um and mostly used in

the in the present tense

but you can of course it has a past and future but just the

frequency sounds so not

like casual yeah yeah but do use it do use it because it's so

posh

sounds good

at least yeah yeah what else do you have and for abilities i guess

one more is is it ability i'm not sure though smitty no it's uh

uh possibility or yeah how do you call it

oh my god if you're yeah i don't know if you're allowed to do

something i don't know

it's like may in english right yeah you may not you may exactly and

um

i don't i wouldn't use may quite a lot in english i think it's

just the american english that i'm using that i would just i would mostly

use like you're not allowed to but i wouldn't say you may not you

know what i mean but but definitely may yeah may and allow to

yeah yeah i use may in emails a lot you may see the patch

blah blah so yeah yeah in serbian you

would say smeti for that let's say you're writing an email no actually no

no this is um no this is different contexts so while you would use

uh you may you may find this attached you would be like

it would actually be can right it wouldn't be like you might you're

allowed yeah yeah or

you're more like allowed to then okay it is allowed to okay people for

people who know german it's

basically just i don't know you probably won't know but there's literally

because in english you can use for allowed to you can also use can

can i touch this can i take this

can i eat this um it's may i may i right am i allowed

to but in german these two do not go together because can is the

ability like am i able to do this and may dürfen is um am

to do it so they're obviously separated in english it's a bit more mixed i allowed

exactly so here it's also

separated okay let me read the conjugations then yeah smem to smem it's

a bit longer smem okay And smeesh?

Mm-hmm. Okay. On, ona, ono, smeh.

Mm-hmm. Mi smemo, vi smete, vi oni, one, ona smeyu.

Mm-hmm. Okay. And your example is?

I wrote down,

smem da idem na žurku.

I'm allowed to go to the party or I may go to the party.

that's whatever you hear this

party is like

for some reason

you just came from that's normal yeah smepi

so let me just think of what else

there's a song sorry there's a song nesmemda blah blah

nesmemda se zalibim u tebe

no I'm not sure, but I first time I, you know, learned about smell

was because of a song.

I don't remember now, but then I saw I heard it in other songs

as well that's a really good

point because i was just thinking of like what other meaning can smethe can

can have right um

and it can have a meaning of i shouldn't because there's a song there's

a song like uh nesme

i should not fall in love with you like i can i know i

can and no one's stopping me but it's it better not right i shouldn't

so you shouldn't do that shouldn't you should

not do that okay i'm adding should to this explanation yeah actually that's good

because it's very difficult because like when you think of modal verbs yeah this

is the meaning that

it has but it has so many other meanings so the question is do

we like go through all of these meanings right probably not probably just the

most common ones okay good yeah so treba everybody

knows that i guess not but most of us know it uh treba me

but you you feel like this is different

from all the others because this is not conjugated yes it's not conjugated but

first of all obviously

you learn everyone needs to learn this because in the beginning you should just

be able to express like what do you need right because you're in a

foreign country you're like i need to get there right like i need this

i need that so this is like one of the first things you should

and it's easy because as you said it's not conjugated so it's always treba

learn

which is the

third person singular basically like uh used for every person

that's why i when i thought about

model verbs the first thing that came to my mind was treba because like

models in english you wouldn't conjugate, you know, that one only.

So I was like, treba is a model verb.

It is a true model.

It's a true model.

Yeah. there you go.

How did you? Treba da ucim.

I always use treba in the supermarkets or the classic sentence like ne treba

mi kes. Yeah.

Actually, this is a good point.

If you want to express that you need one thing, then you say treba.

If you want to express that you need multiple things, then it is treba

you.

So, for example, if you want to say, I need an apple.

Treba mi jabuka.

I need apples.

Treba you mi jabuke.

Okay. The number is important.

But only if you say, like, specify, I need this one thing, like, physically

or something. Treba you mi jabuke.

I don't know.

Prietegi.

Prietegi. Yeah. Oh my God, that's crazy.

But for example, well, you can also say

trebami puno jabuka.

Here it's different.

Here you use, and I need a lot of apples.

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But it's in singular.

Singular. Yeah. When you use, we use puno, then you use singular.

I just thought of it.

It's a bit,

it used to be weird i don't know why anyway everybody has to know

this one at least

exactly so we did these examples is treba me but yeah that's

true we use treba da right

that's a that's a good point treba da

um i need to buy an apple actually yeah i actually need

to apologize because this thing

that i just said uh this is another use of uh trebati which is

conjugated and that's why you

use yeah which is a verb where you don't use da right so it's

a proper verb it means to need as well and it's used for um

man i don't know it's gonna be like a different episode