There is something about a song from school days - a gentle, nostalgic ballad about first love and football positions and theorems you half-remember - that makes grammar feel less like work. "Prva ljubav" (First Love) is exactly that kind of song: warm, a little wistful, and quietly packed with the verb biti and plural nouns that make perfect gap-fill material. It is the kind of song that a native speaker will recognise with a smile, which gives your Serbian practice a real cultural anchor.
Below you will find two separate exercises drawn from the song: one focused on the verb to be, and one on plural noun forms. Work through them before you watch the video, then listen and check. The melody will help the answers lodge in your memory.
The song - fill the verb to be
Read the opening lines of "Prva ljubav" below. Each blank represents a form of the verb biti (to be) - some in the past tense, some in the present. Fill them in before you listen.
Tad još ___ ništa znao i još ___ verovao da na svetu tuge ima.
Jedino mi važno ___ da postanem levo krilo il' centrfor školskog tima...
Think about person and tense as you fill each blank. The first two blanks are past tense first person - "I had not yet known," "I still believed." The third is also past tense. Getting these right is a solid test of how comfortably the past forms of biti sit in your memory.
The plural nouns - fill them in
The song also uses the plural forms of a range of nouns. Below is the singular form of each one - your job is to supply the plural that fits the song. The plural ending varies: some nouns take -i, some -e, some -a, and a few are irregular. Work through the list and write your answers.
| Singular | Meaning | Plural (fill in) |
|---|---|---|
| oko | eye | oci (irregular) |
| kosa | hair | ______ |
| vreme | time / weather | ______ |
| teorema | theorem | ______ |
| strip | comic strip / comic book | ______ |
| stvar | thing | stale (note the stem change) |
| zvezda | star | ______ |
| dan | day | ______ |
| pesma | song | ______ |
| tip | type / guy | ______ |
After you have written your answers, listen to the song below and check. The natural stress and rhythm of the melody will often confirm the right form before you even consciously process it - that is the magic of song-based learning.
Hear it (carried forward)
Here is "Prva ljubav" - listen for the verb forms and the plural nouns as they appear. The melody is gentle enough that you can follow the lyrics without losing your place.
What you practise
This exercise gives you two things at once. The biti blanks train the past-tense forms across persons - forms that appear constantly in storytelling, in conversation, and in Serbian media of all kinds. The plural noun blanks introduce the range of plural endings in Serbian, which follow patterns but do have enough variety (neuter -a plurals, feminine consonant-stem shifts like stvar / stale, irregular forms like oko / oci) that they reward repeated exposure rather than simple rule memorisation.
A song you enjoy hearing is the best possible delivery vehicle for that kind of repeated exposure. You will want to replay it, and every replay is another effortless encounter with the forms you are learning.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this song appropriate for beginner learners?
- The song itself is not simplified or slowed down - it is a real recording sung at natural speed. That said, the exercises are structured to guide you: you know which verb to look for and which nouns to watch for before you listen. Used that way, it works very well from an intermediate-beginner level upward. Pure beginners may want to study the biti conjugation table first and then return.
- Why do Serbian plural nouns have so many different endings?
- Serbian nouns carry grammatical gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and the plural ending reflects both the gender and the original stem of the word. Masculine nouns most commonly take -i, feminine nouns in -a take -e, neuter nouns take -a, and there are a handful of irregular forms that simply need to be learned individually - like oko / oci above. The patterns become intuitive with enough exposure, and songs are a very efficient way to accumulate that exposure.
- Am I filling in biti or the nouns - or both in the same exercise?
- Both - but they are separated into two distinct exercises above so that you can focus on one thing at a time. The first blockquote is purely a biti drill. The table is purely a plural noun drill. Complete them separately and you will get a cleaner picture of which one needs more of your attention.
I am Marina Petrovic, and I have always believed that a song you love is worth a hundred grammar drills. "Prva ljubav" has been a reliable favourite for this kind of exercise - the melody is kind, the vocabulary is rich, and the nostalgia does not hurt. If the verb to be feels like the piece you most want to strengthen, there is dedicated practice waiting for you at More verb to be practice - it covers all the forms, tenses and common sentence patterns in one place.