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Molim, dobro veče, izvini, drago mi je…
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Do you want or need to learn Serbo-Croatian? At Break Into Lingo, we have native Serbo-Croatian teachers to teach you via Teams, Zoom, Skype or Google Meet in a one-to-one format.
Would you like to try out a course? Sign up here!
Courses are tailored not only to your level but also to your specific interests and needs, whether you need to learn Serbo-Croatian for personal or professional reasons, or both.
The Croatian language, known natively as “Hrvatski jezik”, is the official language of the Republic of Croatia. It is a Slavic language spoken by around 6 million people. Serbian (“Srpski jezik”) is the official language of the Republic of Serbia. Serbian is also a Slavic language and is spoken by around 7 million people. When you read about the Croatian and Serbian languages, you may find them associated with Bosnian and even Montenegrin. Indeed, all these languages are extremely similar, as the countries were all part of the former Republic of Yugoslavia.
If you speak one of these languages, you can understand and speak the others perfectly well. Although they can fully understand each other, there are differences in grammar and vocabulary. If a Croatian speaks to a Serbian, they will both know which country the other is from thanks to the accent, choice of vocabulary and grammar.
However, because of the shared history, the proximity of the countries and the cultural links through mediums such as music, for example, these differences do not affect communication in any way. Some people would say that the difference between Croatian and Serbian is the same as the difference between Australian English and British English.
One notable difference would be the fact that a large proportion of the Serbian population uses the Cyrillic alphabet, whereas Croatians only use the Latin alphabet and most young Croatians don’t even know the Cyrillic alphabet. There is also a difference in religion, with Croats being predominantly Catholic and Serbs Orthodox.
Learning Croatian and Serbian may not open many doors as far as your career is concerned, but it does open your eyes to a completely different culture. In Croatia, you can find everything from interesting old communist architecture to ancient Roman ruins and a beautiful coastline where you can practise your Croatian.
In Serbia, you can practise your language skills by chatting to Serbs about their famous tennis player Novak Djokovic or their NBA champion Nikola Jokic, the Joker, while drinking the national brandy, called ‘rakija’.
