Weather words are the friendliest small talk in any language - and in Serbian they are wonderfully easy to drop into a sentence from almost your first week. Once you can say "sunny" or "it is going to rain," you have a reliable conversation starter (and a reliable rescue line for those awkward silences). Let us look at them together.
How do you ask about the weather?
The key phrase is simply: Kakvo je vreme? - "What is the weather like?" And here are the most useful answers, ready to slot straight in after "Vreme je...":
| Serbian | English |
|---|---|
| Vreme je lepo. | The weather is nice. |
| uzasno / ruzno | terrible / nasty |
| kisovito | rainy |
| vetrovito | windy |
| hladno | cold |
| toplo | warm |
| maglovito | foggy |
| oblacno | cloudy |
| suncano | sunny |
| olujno | stormy |
Weather and climate words
Once you are comfortable with the day-to-day descriptions, here are a few wider terms that come up in forecasts and geography lessons:
| English | Serbian |
|---|---|
| continental climate | kontinentalna klima |
| mild climate | blaga klima |
| moderate climate | umerena klima |
| weather forecast | vremenska prognoza |
| it is going to rain | Kisa ce! |
Two sentences to try today
Start with just these two - say them out loud, right now, wherever you are:
- Vreme je suncano. - It is sunny.
- Kisa ce! - It is going to rain!
Those two phrases will cover the two most dramatic weather events of any Serbian summer, and people will genuinely smile when they hear you use them correctly.
How to learn weather words
The single best trick is to pair each word with the actual weather outside your window right now - look up, name what you see in Serbian, and move on. Tomorrow morning, check the forecast and use vremenska prognoza in a sentence to yourself: your next lesson is literally scheduled by the sky.
Frequently asked questions
- Q: Is "vreme" the same word for "time" and "weather" in Serbian?
- Yes - "vreme" carries both meanings, just as the French "temps" does. Context almost always makes it clear: "Kakvo je vreme?" is about weather, while "Koliko je sati?" is about time. Once you have seen both uses a few times, you will never mix them up, but it is a charming quirk worth knowing from the start.
- Q: How do I say "it is cold today"?
- The simplest version is "Danas je hladno." - "Today it is cold." You just place "danas" (today) at the start and follow it with the weather adjective in the neuter form. You can do the same with any word from the table above: "Danas je suncano," "Danas je vetrovito," and so on.
- Q: Do the "-ovito" endings have a meaning of their own?
- They do - the suffix -ovito / -avito generally means "full of" or "characterised by." So vetrovito is literally "full of wind," kisovito is "full of rain," and maglovito is "full of fog." It is a very productive pattern in Serbian: once you recognise it, you can often guess the meaning of a new weather word before you look it up. Feel free to share your guesses in the comments - I would love to see what you come up with!
I am Marina Petrovic, and I have been teaching Serbian to learners from all over the world for several years. I started with classroom lessons and moved here because I wanted to reach people who could not come to a class - people who were learning on their lunch break, or on a train, or while watching the rain outside their window and wondering what the Serbian word for it was. (It is kisa, by the way, and it is a beautiful word.)
Thank you for being here. Go look out the window and name what you see - in Serbian, obviously.
More everyday Serbian: browse the Serbian Vocabulary category.