Numbers and Cases

01

'jedan' Behaves Like an Adjective

The number one, jedan, agrees with its noun in gender and case, exactly like an adjective, and the noun stays singular.

• Kupujem jednu bananu.

  I am buying one banana.

• Imam jedan plavi i jedan sivi.

  I have one blue and one gray.

02

Two, Three, Four: the Counted Form

After dva (two), tri (three) and četiri (four), the noun takes a special counted form that looks like the genitive singular - a leftover of the old "dual" number. dva also has a feminine form dvije.

• Imam dva auta.

  I have two cars.

• aut-a, not the plural aut-i - after two, three and four the noun takes this counted form

• tri motora

  three motorbikes

• dvije starije sestre

  two older sisters

• Ova farma ima dva konja i tri ovce.

  This farm has two horses and three sheep.

03

Five and Up: the Genitive Plural

From pet (five) onward, the noun goes into the genitive plural, and the number itself stops changing. It is worth dwelling on how odd this looks: a subject phrase like "five years" puts the counted noun into a form that elsewhere means "of years".

• šest jaja

  six eggs

• deset godina

  ten years

• Imam samo trinaest dolara.

  I have only thirteen dollars.

• devedeset i pet godina

  ninety-five years

04

Compound Numbers Follow Their Last Word

In a compound number, the final word decides the case. So twenty-one ends in "one" and takes the singular, while twenty-five ends in "five" and takes the genitive plural - the band is set by the last digit, not by the size of the number.

• trideset i jedan dolar

  thirty-one dollars

• četrdeset i devet centi

  forty-nine cents

• dvadeset i dva auta

  twenty-two cars

05

Numbers in the Oblique Cases

All of the above is for the subject (nominative) and the direct object (accusative). Bosnian does have oblique forms for the small numbers - dvaju, triju, dvama, trima - but in everyday speech they are largely avoided: the number is simply left as it is and the noun keeps its counted form, whatever preposition stands in front.

• s tri prijatelja

  with three friends

• o pet knjiga

  about five books

• neither tri nor prijatelja has moved into the instrumental; the phrase is frozen and the preposition does the rest

06

Counting People

For children and mixed-gender groups Bosnian switches to collective numbers (dvoje, troje), and for groups of men to a separate set (dvojica, trojica); all of these are followed by the genitive.

• Imam dvoje djece.

  I have two children.

• trojica prijatelja

  three friends (men)

07

Counting on Its Own

When you just recite numbers, no noun is involved and nothing declines.

• jedan, dva, tri, četiri, pet

  one, two, three, four, five

08

Big Numbers as Nouns

hiljada (thousand) and milion (million) act like nouns and are themselves followed by the genitive.

• hiljadu tristo eura

  one thousand three hundred euros