Bosnian grammar

Every grammar guide of Lingora’s Bosnian A1 course, with examples you can listen to.

01Verbs: Present TenseBosnian verbs change their ending (conjugate) to show who is doing the action. Because the ending already identifies the subject, the subject pronouns…
02Perfective vs. Imperfective VerbsBosnian verbs come in two aspects: imperfective and perfective. Aspect is not about when something happens, but about how you view it - as an ongoing…
03Definite and Indefinite AdjectivesMost Bosnian adjectives come in two versions, a short one and a long one, and English has nothing corresponding to the choice. Bosnian has no words for a…
04Yes/No Questions with 'li'To turn a statement into a yes/no question, Bosnian uses the small word li. It is never the first word: it comes right after the verb, and the sentence…
05The Verb 'biti' (to be)The verb biti (to be) is the most important verb in Bosnian. It links a subject to a description, it points things out, and it also helps build the past…
06Nouns: Accusative CaseThis is the form a noun takes when it is the thing the action is done to — what English calls the direct object. You meet it constantly, because almost…
07Nouns: Genitive CaseThe genitive is the busiest case in Bosnian. It does the work of English "of", it follows a long list of prepositions, and it appears after numbers,…
08Nouns: Locative CaseThis is the form for saying where something is, and for naming what you are talking about. It is the one Bosnian case that never appears alone: a…
09Nouns: Instrumental CaseThe instrumental case answers "with what?" or "with whom?". Its two core meanings are the tool you do something with and the company you keep. A few…
10Nouns: Dative CaseThe dative case marks the indirect object - the person to whom, or for whom, something is done. It answers "to whom?" or "for whom?": the receiver of…
11Nouns: Vocative CaseThe vocative case is the form you use to address or call someone directly - the Bosnian equivalent of "Hey, John!" or "Dear Madam,". It is neither…
12Nouns: GenderEvery Bosnian noun has one of three genders: masculine, feminine or neuter. Gender is not about biology - it is a grammatical class that decides the…
13Nouns: AnimacyBosnian masculine nouns are split into two kinds: animate (living beings - people and animals) and inanimate (objects, places, ideas). The distinction…
14Verbs: Past TenseBosnian has one everyday past tense, and it covers everything English splits between "I did", "I have done" and "I was doing". It is two words: the…
15Verbs: Future TenseThe Bosnian future is built from the future auxiliary - the short forms of htjeti (to want) - plus the infinitive of the main verb. The same construction…
16Verbs: Conditional MoodThe conditional expresses what would happen - wishes, polite requests, and hypothetical "if" situations. It is two words, exactly like the past tense: a…
17Verbs: Imperative MoodThe imperative is the command form - used for orders, instructions, requests and invitations. Bosnian has three imperative forms: one for ti (one person…
18Adjectives: DeclensionA Bosnian adjective must agree with the noun it describes - it copies the noun's gender, number and case. So a single dictionary adjective such as nov…
19Adjectives: Comparatives and SuperlativesAdjectives have three degrees: the plain positive (star, old), the comparative (stariji, older), and the superlative (najstariji, oldest).
20Relational AdjectivesBesides describing qualities (big, new, good), Bosnian has a large class of relational adjectives that say what something relates to or is made of - like…
21Possessive AdjectivesPossessive adjectives say whose something is - my, your, his, her, our, their. In Bosnian they behave like adjectives: they stand before the noun and…
22Personal PronounsBosnian has subject pronouns for every person, but because the verb ending already shows who acts, they are usually dropped and used only for emphasis or…
23Pronouns: DeclensionEnglish changes only a handful of its pronouns by role — he becomes him, who becomes whom, and that is nearly the end of it. Bosnian does this to every…
24Polite Pronoun 'Vi'When you address someone you do not know well, an older person, or anyone in a formal setting, Bosnian does not use ti (familiar "you"). Instead it uses…
25Reflexive Pronoun 'se'The little word se turns an action back on the subject - "myself", "yourself", "oneself". It goes with a large number of Bosnian verbs, some of which…
26The Reflexive Possessive 'svoj'svoj means "one's own": it marks something as belonging to the subject of the sentence. Whenever the owner is the same as the person doing the action,…
27DemonstrativesBosnian has a three-way set of demonstratives - pointing words - graded by distance from the speaker: ovaj (this, near me), taj (that, near you or just…
28Numbers and CasesBosnian numbers do something English numbers never do: they control the case of the noun they count. The rule depends on which number you use, so it is…
29Declension of 'jedan'The number one, jedan, is not a fixed word: it behaves like an adjective and changes for gender, number and case to match its noun. It is also the model…
30Declension of 'dva'The number two, dva, is special. It keeps a trace of the old dual number that Bosnian once had, so it still changes for gender and puts its noun into a…
31Declension of 'tri' and 'četiri'The numbers three (tri) and four (četiri) round out the small-number band. Together with dva, they share one key behaviour: the noun after them takes the…
32Collective NumeralsBosnian has a special set of collective numbers - dvoje, troje, četvero and so on - used for counting a group rather than separate items, especially…
33Verbal NounsA verbal noun turns an action into a thing you can talk about - "to swim" becomes "swimming". Bosnian builds these freely, and they behave as ordinary…
34DiminutivesA diminutive is a noun reshaped to say "small", or to add warmth, affection or politeness. Bosnian uses them constantly - in the kitchen, with children,…
35Passive ParticiplesA passive participle is a verb form that works like an adjective: it describes a noun by the action done to it. English uses past participles for this -…
36NegationBosnian negates with the little word ne, but two features will surprise an English speaker: some verbs fuse the negation into a single word, and Bosnian…
37Clitics and Word OrderBosnian has a set of tiny unstressed words - clitics - that cannot stand alone and cannot be stressed. They include the short forms of "to be" (sam, si,…
38The Dative of ExperienceBosnian often describes how you feel not by making you the subject, but by putting you in the dative - the "to me / to you" case - while the feeling…
39Modal and Governing VerbsA small group of verbs - the modals - combine with another verb to express necessity, ability, permission or wish. In Bosnian they are followed either by…
40Prepositions and Their CasesIn Bosnian every preposition governs a case: it forces the noun after it into a particular form. There is no way around it - to use a preposition you…
41Existential 'ima' and 'nema'To say "there is" or "there are", Bosnian does not use a special phrase like English. It presses the verb "to have" into impersonal service: ima for…
42Dates and Ordinal NumbersBosnian dates are built almost entirely out of ordinal numbers ("first, second, third"), and ordinals behave like adjectives - they agree with their noun…
43Subordinate ClausesA subordinate clause is a smaller clause tucked inside a sentence - "I think that he is right", "We stayed home because it was raining". Bosnian joins…