Conjugating verbs in Serbian follows a very logical structure once you understand the basic patterns.

You need to know how to change the endings of verbs to match the person performing the action.

This guide will show you exactly how to form the present, past, and future tenses in Serbian.

I’ll break down the rules step by step and provide clear examples.

Serbian verb infinitives

Before you can conjugate a verb, you need to recognize its infinitive form.

The infinitive is the base dictionary form of a verb.

In Serbian, almost all verbs end in either -ti or -ći in their infinitive form.

For example, the verb for “to work” is raditi.

The verb for “to go” is ići.

When conjugating, we usually remove this infinitive ending to find the core stem of the verb.

The present tense

The present tense is used to describe actions happening right now or habitual actions.

To form the present tense, you drop the infinitive ending and add a specific set of personal endings.

Serbian verbs are divided into three main groups based on their present tense endings: -am, -em, and -im.

Let’s look at the verb čitati (to read), which belongs to the -am group.

Here are some examples of the present tense in action.

In Serbian, we often drop the personal pronoun (ja, ti, mi) completely because the verb ending already tells us who is doing the action.

The past tense

The past tense in Serbian is called the perfekt.

It’s a compound tense, which means it requires two words to form.

You need the present tense of the helping verb biti (to be) and the active past participle of the main verb.

The past participle changes based on the gender and number of the subject.

To form the past participle, remove the -ti from the infinitive and add specific endings.

For masculine singular, you add -o.

For feminine singular, you add -la.

For neuter singular, you add -lo.

Let’s look at the past tense conjugation for raditi (to work).

Here are examples of how the past tense looks in a conversation.

The future tense

The future tense in Serbian is also a compound tense.

You form it by using the short present tense form of the verb hteti (to want/will) alongside the infinitive of the main verb.

The short forms of hteti are: ću, ćeš, će, ćemo, ćete, će.

Let’s look at how to conjugate the verb putovati (to travel) in the future tense.

If you drop the personal pronoun in the future tense, the helper verb attaches directly to the end of the main verb.

When this happens to verbs ending in -ti, you must drop the final i before attaching the ending.

So, the phrase ja ću putovati simply becomes putovaću.

Learning to conjugate verbs opens up your ability to speak Serbian correctly.

Start by memorizing the present tense endings first.

Once you’re comfortable, move on to practicing the past and future helper verbs.