Ep.9: Children’s Games in Serbia

We are Ivana and Maki, your hosts.

In this podcast, we discuss interesting details about Serbian language and culture from a

learner's and teacher's perspective.

We offer new and fun resources for learners of Serbian.

To follow each episode with annotated scripts, vocabulary and quizzes, join us also at

Može Kafa podcast on Instagram.

So if you're ready, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the podcast.

here we

are of this exactly okay we're gonna take you to childhood today

yes i love this topic i

love this episode because we're gonna do some games and these games children's games

but the thing is that it doesn't have to be children's games it can

be adult games too yeah and some of

them specifically are really good for your vocabulary uh expansion so I think this

linguistically a really good idea definitely so I watched Squid Game as other many

is also

other millions

of people not me though good I mean it's quite brutal and

I thought while watching it how about the Serbian local games, what do they

call and, you know, specific

vocabulary jargon for games I got curious about.

And I said, let's do this.

Yeah, I think this is a great idea.

Also, you learn about the Serbian culture, right?

So I think that's really cool.

And for me, it brought me back to my childhood and we still do

some of these

things when we are home.

And yeah, there's so many games.

We have so many because we are a very community-driven, social culture.

So of course, it only makes sense that we do have a lot of

So could have ridden so many of them.

games.

But actually, some of them are quite international.

So I think that's also really nice so that you can see some parallel,

but also you can learn some new things.

i think even in serbia in different regions there might be different games that

kids are more used to depending on their environment right and also i'm pretty

sure that some of these games have

different roles in different regions yeah pretty sure i'm pretty sure because i mean

like you know

it's kind of like the word of mouth when a lot of things get

lost in translation actually it's Similar to one of the games that we'll talk

about today.

But yeah, should we start?

I will ask you also a couple of games in Squid Game, maybe, that

I thought maybe Serbian Kids know this or not.

So we are going to talk about it as well.

Do you want to start with that?

Or do you want to start with the...

Let's go with them because maybe you already have them.

So I will tell, ah, this was also in Squid Game or not.

Okay. So the first one is like the international one.

Everyone knows it.

is rock, paper, scissors.

Oh, right. The same thing, the same rules, right?

So you have rock that beats the scissors and so on, you know, the

rules. The only difference is just obviously

how you say it.

We don't say rock, paper, scissors or whatever, you know, we say kamen, papir,

makaze, which is basically means rock, paper, scissors.

I knew papir and makaze, but Kaman is new for me.

Yeah. So it goes like this.

Kaman papir makaze.

Ah, Kaman papir makaze.

Exactly. So this is the rhyme.

Let's do it once.

Let's do it once.

Okay. Okay. Kaman papir makaze.

What is that?

what did you do you you too no it was common common okay because

i was reading i didn't look at you

sorry so okay so usually this would be common this would be popular ah

this would be popular

okay for us uh because for us it's like common pop it goes on

on the camera right but also we do this this way as well i'm

just thinking can we do it

yeah we definitely don't do this but just use one the cultural

difference you see and then the scissors are just like this so yeah that's

universal yeah but again i don't do this

okay that's quite cool actually i remember just doing because you don't change the

orientation of the hand yes you do i do yeah because you

do come and puppy my cousin i don't know this is

probably something that we you see it's such an international game but still there

okay definitely maybe this is something that i learned in my area and probably are differences

i'm pretty sure

that somewhere else is different okay how do you say i win in this

case so you won now actually you one but i lost so okay

feminine or masculine version i can try feminine first okay because i

won for baby lesson for baby lesson masculine

for baby awesome and then to lose is is gubillessome is gubillessome

or is gubillessome yeah exactly there you go i don't have to teach anymore

good for genders at least yes okay then the second one is again very

a very international one and these are ones are really easy by the way

we're starting with the easiest ones it's um i

don't know how it's called is it called hot and cold hot and cold

yeah i guess so it's we say

which is hot and cold and basically you hide an object somewhere in

a room or in an apartment or

whatever and then that person is not allowed to be in that space and

then the other person comes in and you guide that person by saying hot

or cold so if if they're near and the object then it's hot

uh you can also play around with it yeah so you can so we

usually what we would do is like

if you're getting closer it's like you can use also which is like lukewarm

something like that

like it's getting it's getting warmer right warmer i think so so you can

say also you can say freezing

almost there yeah it's completely somewhere completely yeah so you can say oh

you can just make it up you know so the only thing you do

have to have in mind because it's

a fun game right so the only thing you have to have in mind

is conceptually just what you're

using that it's denoting something that's cold something that's warm so you can play

around with You can say frigider, you can say zamrzivac, which is like a

I can say padasnek.

freezer.

Yeah, you can say padasnek, you know, so they're like,

Okay, so that means cold.

Okay, go somewhere else.

So you can just play around.

It's usually, that's the point.

That's the whole point.

It's not about the object.

Always in that form, we say them.

So if you want to be technical,

you can say but it's just, you can just use the two of these

words, right? But you can use whatever you want

just to devote a temperature.

Okay, cool. Okay.

The third one is?

na slovo na slovo na slovo in something in something right yes na

is on actually but um in this case the point is tell me something

starting with this letter with

letter right so na slovo it means it starts with

the letter na slovo oh okay so the last letter or the first letter

the first letter okay and this one has many variations right so um you

can do

also this with colors or whatever like with however you want it yeah but

what you could do

for example one of the variations is basically you're in a room or if

you're in a train or you're

in a bus or whatever and then you see something like you see like

okay someone is wearing like headset right and then uh naslava naslava right like

and then you tell the letter after naslova

naslova yeah so you said which letter it starts with and they have to

guess which um which object

it is in the room and okay or which object in in their mind

if they are going by car or if they're

not in a room like with many objects right well i think if you're

going beyond the objects in the room,

it gets quite difficult, actually, right?

Because you can just think of anything.

So that's easier because you can play it for a longer time.

Actually, we play it like that.

We put the category, like animals or city names.

And then, yeah, we say that.

But the start is not the same in Turkish.

So I guess you can do this with almost anything.

It kind of like a similar thing.

There's a similar thing in English as well, which is like, what in the,

something like that,

like what in the room is red or something.

There's a sentence, something like that.

We did that when we used to go to conferences.

I spy with my little eye.

I spy with my little eye, exactly.

That's basically it.

It's just the version of like, which I spy with my little eye,

something that starts with the letter R or whatever.

That's it. I should ask you a new one

or you also find with some you tell me you okay not slower not

slower I was

expecting telephone ah okay anyway good what is keyboard keyboard okay that's

a beautiful name

so because the the um button is taster like this kind of kind

of that tastatura i don't know it's

they use the same in german anyway okay before we continue with the show

here's a quick reminder

this podcast is free for everyone and supported by listeners like you We hope

that this podcast is useful and companion to you.

This is a labor of love for both of us.

To help us continue creating useful content for everyone, we will appreciate your help.

If you have the means, you can support us in different ways.

You may just go to buymeacoffee.com slash mozdecafapodcast and send us some cups of

coffee. You may also become a member of our show on patreon.com slash mozdecafapodcast

and get extra benefits like bonus content,

pull transcripts of the show in Serbian, or even join us on the show.

We rely on your support to help everyone more

in learning Serbian language and culture.

Thanks for joining us today.

And now let's get back to our episode.

This one I love.

I think I can play this one for hours, guys.

It's called Kaladont.

Kaladont. It's like a borrowed word or not?

Kaladont.

I, if I'm not mistaken, there is like a brand, there was at least

a brand color.

I'm not quite

sure. I don't know.

It has a, it has a point though.

So this is how it goes.

Basically you

give me a word and then I have to create a new word, existing

word in Serbian from the last two

letters. It has to be two letters, the last two letters.

And you know, it gets, it gets really tricky so the thing is that

this really works well with serbian because there's a one-to-one

course like correspondence with the letters and sounds right so it's quite in english

difficult because you have to think of something i did that in english though it's quite

too it worked it

worked but it didn't work as well right i will challenge you then go

ahead this is exactly the Yeah.

No, I don't know.

I don't care.

But OK, this is exactly where you want

to go to and caladon this is where caladon comes in a place which

is it you start with caladon ta

and then this is the first word always the first word ta and then

i have to say ta testatura ra

ra that was the thing from

ikea you can tell the brands

so

depends on the rules

it really depends on the rules

okay let me try something

actually I think also the names are not allowed proper names are not allowed

i think it has to like be like

an object or an abstract thing so ikona ikona okay i was gonna say

ikona it will go on like that exactly the thing is that

you you lose if you get to a point where you can't really think

of anything right um and also you lose

if you choose a word that ends in ka because then it's kaladont so

if i say something with ka the other person says kaladonta and exactly and

you lose so it has doesn't cannot be ka and also if

it happens that you cannot remember a word or maybe there is just no

word like maybe with maybe

there's no word sounding with i'm not gonna say it but maybe there isn't

well so that's when you

lose yeah i see all right cool kaladonta yeah next one is

gloomy telephony gloomy telefones Yes, means that phones.

I think there's the variation of this game almost anywhere.

Basically there are several

people they line up sit next to each other and there's one person who

thinks of a sentence

and then whispers it to one like the first person in the line so

let's say I want to say

I don't know the weather I like pasta whatever and then you whisper it

and obviously no one should

listen and if the other person and the other person has to understand what

you said right and then they should tell it to the to the second

person and there's no no one can ask you additional

questions nothing so they like while you're here no and you get the most

bizarre sentences after

that completely different completely because because it's exactly you're like because it's

whispering right it's not like you're saying something properly it's like you're whispering then

and you're not allowed to repeat it so you just get the I love

pasta can in the end be I hate

spiders I hate spiders exactly it's just the most random things so I used

to have my students play

that yeah and they they did change on purpose though so to embarrass the

last person to say that

that's so mean oh yeah I could I could definitely I've been so naive

I could definitely imagine that Yeah.

Okay. And the, oh no, there's two more.

These two more are actually something that I learned,

I would say a bit later in my teenage years, it wasn't something you

really kind of need to a bit

more grown up, I would have to say.

So it's the first one is a counting game.

And we usually used

to do that in a bus train.

So when we are traveling, so you have to clap your hand, your hands,

If

uh if a number ha consists of a number three or if it's multiplications

of three right three six nine yeah or if it's divisible divisible is

that how you say divisible by three so for example so you everything else

you clap so you'll be one two four five right because six is divisible

right seven eight ten eleven and then because

12 is divisible by three and 13 has three in the in the number

right uh-huh so that's how it that's

fine okay got it so you have to have some math skills and concentration

exactly and the thing

is that of course you do this with like you can do with two

people right but it's better if you do it with more and the thing

is that you cannot be slow so if you're taking more than a second

clap or or maybe one you say one two and then you clap right to

four five and clap yeah sorry i think i

mixed it up in the beginning so you have to very very very fast

when you're speaking it or clapping

right because if you're taking a lot more time then that's not the point

of the game and it should get

much faster and faster and faster that's true and when the numbers are bigger

you just lose your concentration yeah and you also want to count on other

people like making sure that you are not

making a mistake because you can be very like busy with making sure that

you are doing the right

clapping right or like the right thing but um and then usually someone else

points out like oh you

know you didn't clap for this one or like this one is incorrect you

know so someone has to be aware

accountable of these things so you can do that let's do it shall i

start okay you're done Two, four, seven, eight,

awesome that's it yeah

ten, eleven.

honest

and then i need to clap because it's 13 exactly you

can do this with any language you can do this

with turkish or whatever but yeah that's good for revising numbers in serbian you're

like

you see this is what i said linguistically it's really cool because in terms

of vocabulary you're

really gonna learn a lot the last one i love this one as well

uh and it's kind of silly and again we

usually do that if we're like in a bus or a car or something

like that it's called hop soup hop soup

yeah cup soup soup yeah so i don't know if you know but hop

soup usually is like when you dance you're like hoppa tupa hoppa tupa hoppa

tupa you know that's how it goes i don't really know why

here it's hop tup there's also like a hop tup nakalup it's like anyway

it's used in in serbian

so it's i do know this game in in english which is called fezbaz

fezbaz sounds kind of familiar but tell me the rules so you again you

go with again with numbers i guess i made a mistake fizz

buzz is similar to the counting game because here instead of clapping you have

replacing any number

divisible by three with the word fizz and any number divisible by five with

the word buzz so

this gets very complex and then if you have divisible by three and five

like 50 then it's Fizzbuzz.

In your case, it's hop-top.

No, no, sorry.

This is connected to the counting game.

One, yeah, one, two.

So it's similar.

This is something different.

Okay, let's start from scratch.

Hop, Tsup. Not similar to Fizzbuzz.

What do you do?

So you basically, again, go in a circle and you have to say hop

three times. So each person, so it's like, I say hop, you say hop.

And then the other third person says hop.

Then you say Tsup three times.

Tsup, Tsup, Tsup.

And then you do this again twice.

and then one time and then you say i don't know this one is

weird uh for some reason

so it goes like this hop hop hop soup soup soup hop hop soup

soup hop soup uh