Serbian Alphabet with Pronunciation
-
There
are five vowels and 25 consonants.
- Stressed vowels tend to be pronounced more clearly and distinctly than their unstressed counterparts. Stressed vowels are designated with :
-
Note
that r can be both a consonant and
a vowel, as in trn
(thorn).
- Consonants: t, d, s, z, l are dental, which means that the tip of the tongue touches back of the upper teeth
- Consonants: p, t are unaspirated at the beginning of a syllable. So, in this position, p and t sound like soft English b and d respectively.
-
Both
Latin and Cyrillic scripts are shown in the table below. The letter
before ‘/’ is the Latin variant and the letter in blue ink, after
‘/’ is a corresponding Cyrillic variant.
- Pronunciation is given using both an English word (as a reference) and a Serbian word. To hear either a Serbian or English pronunciation, just click over the word in orange.
A /Aa | B / Бб | C / Цц | Č č / Чч | Ć ć / Ћћ |
[a:]
‘car’ |
[b] big | [ts] ‘cats’ | [ch] ‘chocolate’ |
No
English equivalent; [ty] ‘tune’ in B. English |
Ana | Beograd | cipela | čokolada | Zlatić, ćošak |
D / Дд | Dž/ Џџ | Đđ / Ђђ | E / Ee | F/ Фф |
[d]
'dog |
[g]
‘George’ [j] ‘junk’ |
[dj]
‘juice’ |
[e]
‘bed’
[ei] ‘make’ |
|
danas | džak | đak | Evropa | Filip |
G/ Gг | H / Xx | I / Ии | J / Jj | K/ Kк |
[h]
‘hot’
|
[i:] ‘police’
[i] ‘fit’ |
|||
guska | hvala | ima | jaje | kokoš |
L/ Лл | Lj/ Љљ | M/ Mм | N / Hн | Nj / Њњ |
[l]
‘loop’,
‘cool’ |
[ly]
‘million’
(as
in British English) |
[n]
‘no’
|
[ny]
'New''
, 'New York' |
|
|
ljubav | mama | ne | njen |
O/ Oo | P / Pп | R/ Pp | S / Cc | Š š/ Шш |
[p] ‘spot’ | [r]
‘berry’ |
[s] ‘sun’
|
||
ono | pismo | Srbin, krava | sunce | ništa |
T / Tt | U / Yy | V / Bв | Z / Зз | Žž / Жж |
[z] ‘zero’ |
[zh] ‘pleasure’, ‘Zhivago' | |||
tata | uvo, kuda | veliki | zec | život |