Learning Serbian personal pronouns and their auxiliary verbs is very important to start with because, once you learn them, you can already express and construct simple sentences. It’s important to remember their auxiliary verbs because, unlike in English where you use “is” for singular and “are” for plural (except for “am” in the first person), Serbian auxiliary verbs have specific partners that go with each personal pronoun. These auxiliary verbs are used a lot in Serbian grammar, so it’s very important to remember them.

Personal Pronouns

Now that you’ve learned the personal pronouns, let’s explore their specific auxiliary verbs. Understanding the forms of the auxiliary verb “biti” (to be) is essential because you’ll use them frequently in Serbian grammar. Mastering these forms is a crucial first step in learning Serbian.

Present Tense of “biti”

Here is how “biti” conjugates with personal pronouns in the present tense:

Remembering these combinations will help you start forming simple sentences in Serbian right away. Practice saying them aloud to become more familiar with the pronunciation and structure.

Now let’s have an example using these personal pronouns and their auxiliary verbs

Negation with “biti”

Negation with Personal Pronouns in Serbian

In Serbian, negation is closely linked to personal pronouns and the auxiliary verb “biti” (to be). While in English we add “not” after the verb (e.g., “I am not”), in Serbian, we form the negative by attaching “ni-“ to the auxiliary verb.

Here is how negation works with personal pronouns:

That’s why it’s very important to learn the auxiliary verbs from the very beginning, because you’ll use them in many aspects of Serbian grammar. Mastering these forms will make your learning process smoother and help you grasp the language more effectively.

Forming Questions with Personal Pronouns in Serbian

Now that you’ve learned the personal pronouns, let’s learn how to ask questions using words like who, what, where, when, why, how, which, whose, how many, and phrases like are… or do….

Question Words in Serbian

Before we start forming questions, here are the translations of common question words:

Combining Question Words with Personal Pronouns

Now let’s combine these question words with personal pronouns to form questions:

Similar to English, when we ask questions in Serbian, we switch the positions of the personal pronoun and the auxiliary verb. This inversion means that the auxiliary verb comes before the personal pronoun in the question.

Now, try to practice forming questions using “where” (“gde” in Serbian).

By constructing your own “where” questions, you’ll become more comfortable with sentence structure and verb conjugations in Serbian. Practice regularly, and soon forming questions will become second nature.