Today we are tackling one of the most useful building blocks in all of Serbian grammar - the past tense of the verb biti (to be). This is one of those topics where a small amount of learning goes a very long way. Once you know these forms, you can immediately start talking about yourself, your life, your experiences, and the people around you. That is a lot of power for just a handful of words!

Whether you are a brand-new beginner or someone who has been studying Serbian for a while and wants to tidy up this corner of the grammar, you are in exactly the right place. Let's work through it together, step by step.

How do you say "was" and "were" in Serbian?

In Serbian, the past tense of biti (to be) is formed using a special past-tense form called the L-participle, combined with a short present-tense form of biti used as an auxiliary (helping) verb.

The core forms to know are:

The key thing to understand straight away is that the form changes to agree with the gender and number of the subject. This is different from English, where "was" and "were" are the only two options regardless of gender. In Serbian, the language reflects gender in a much more visible way - and this is one of the places where that shows up clearly.

The forms of biti in the past

Here is the full picture. Study this table carefully - and then, most importantly, read the example sentences below it aloud!

Pronoun Serbian (masculine) Serbian (feminine) English
ja ja sam bio ja sam bila I was
ti ti si bio ti si bila you were (singular)
on on je bio - he was
ona - ona je bila she was
ono ono je bilo it was
Plural forms
mi mi smo bili mi smo bile we were
vi vi ste bili vi ste bile you were (plural / formal)
oni oni su bili - they were (masc. / mixed)
one - one su bile they were (fem. only)
ona (pl. neut.) ona su bila they were (neuter)

A quick orientation note: the auxiliary verbs in the middle column (sam, si, je, smo, ste, su) are the short present-tense forms of biti. They are called enklitike (clitics) in Serbian grammar - short, unstressed words that attach to the rhythm of the sentence. You will get very comfortable with them through practice.

Hear it in action

Watch the short video lesson below to hear the forms of biti in the past tense spoken aloud. Listening to the pronunciation is just as important as studying the table - let your ear get familiar with how these forms sound in natural speech.

After watching, try pausing and repeating each form aloud. Say "ja sam bio" or "ona je bila" out loud several times. That physical act of speaking will lock the forms into your memory far faster than reading alone.

More Serbian examples

Now let's see these forms in real, natural sentences - the kind of things you might actually say or hear in everyday conversation. Read them aloud, and notice how the form of bio/bila/bilo/bili/bile/bila always matches the subject of the sentence.

Juce sam bio kod kuce.
Yesterday I was at home. (male speaker)

Ona je bila u Beogradu.
She was in Belgrade.

Bili smo zajedno.
We were together.

Dete je bilo srecno.
The child was happy.

And here are more sentences to reinforce each form across a range of contexts. The more variety you see, the more naturally these patterns will start to click:

Juce sam bila kod prijateljice.
Yesterday I was at my friend's place. (female speaker)

Da li si bio umoran?
Were you tired? (asking a male)

Da li si bila umorna?
Were you tired? (asking a female)

On je bio student u Novom Sadu.
He was a student in Novi Sad.

Vreme je bilo lepo celog vikenda.
The weather was nice all weekend.

Mi smo bili u restoranu sinoć.
We were in the restaurant last night.

Vi ste bili veoma strpljivi.
You were very patient.

Oni su bili na putu tri dana.
They were on the road for three days.

One su bile zajedno na casovima srpskog.
They were together in Serbian classes. (all female)

Deca su bila u parku.
The children were in the park.

Gde si bio prosle sedmice?
Where were you last week? (asking a male)

Nisam bila tu u to vreme.
I was not there at that time. (female speaker)

Look at that last example - nisam bila. Did you notice it? To make the past of biti negative, you simply replace the short auxiliary (sam, si, je, etc.) with its negative form: nisam, nisi, nije, nismo, niste, nisu. The participle (bio/bila/bilo) stays exactly the same.

Nisam bio gladan.
I was not hungry. (male speaker)

Nije bila sigurna.
She was not sure.

Nismo bili kod kuce.
We were not at home.

A tip to remember

The single most important thing to remember about the past tense of biti is this: the participial form - bio, bila, bilo, bili, bile - agrees with the gender and number of the subject, not with the object or anything else in the sentence. So if a woman is speaking about herself, she says bila sam; if a man is speaking, bio sam. Simple as that.

Do not worry if it feels unnatural at first - in English, "was" does not change for gender, so this takes a little adjustment. But the wonderful thing is that Serbian native speakers will always understand you, even if you occasionally mix up bio and bila. Communication comes first. Accuracy will come with practice, and it will come faster than you think!

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between "bio sam" and "sam bio"?

Both mean the same thing - "I was" (masculine). In Serbian, the short auxiliary forms (sam, si, je, etc.) are clitics: they cannot stand at the very beginning of a sentence and they tend to occupy the second position in the sentence's rhythm. So in a simple statement you will most often hear "Bio sam kod kuce" or "Juce sam bio kod kuce". The order can shift slightly depending on what comes first in the sentence, but the meaning does not change.

How do I use the past tense of biti to say something like "it was cold"?

For weather and general conditions, Serbian uses the neuter form bilo: "Bilo je hladno." ("It was cold.") "Bilo je lepo." ("It was nice.") "Bilo je kasno." ("It was late.") The formula is bilo je + adjective for most impersonal expressions like this.

Is the past tense of biti used as a helping verb for other past tenses too?

Yes, and this is one of the reasons it is so important! The same short present-tense forms of biti (sam, si, je, smo, ste, su) are used as auxiliary verbs to form the perfect past tense (perfekat) of almost every other verb in Serbian. So by mastering biti now, you are laying the groundwork for the entire Serbian past tense system. It is one of the highest-value grammar topics you can study.

What does "bio" look like in the negative?

The negative forms replace the auxiliary with a fused negative auxiliary: nisam bio (I was not, male), nisam bila (I was not, female), nije bio (he was not), nije bila (she was not), nije bilo (it was not), nismo bili (we were not), niste bili (you were not), nisu bili (they were not). The participle always stays the same; only the auxiliary changes.

How do I ask a question using the past of biti?

The simplest way is to add "Da li" at the start of the sentence: "Da li si bio tu?" ("Were you there?" - to a male). You can also raise your intonation on a statement to make it a question, just as in English: "Bio si tu?" ("You were there?"). In everyday spoken Serbian, both approaches are completely natural.

Should I learn the Cyrillic forms of these words too?

Serbian is written in both the Latin script (which we are using here) and the Cyrillic script. For now, focus on getting the Latin-script forms solid. Once these feel natural, adding the Cyrillic forms is quite straightforward - the correspondence between the two alphabets is very regular, and knowing one makes learning the other much easier.

You have just taken a really solid step forward in your Serbian. The past tense of biti might look like a lot of forms at first glance, but I promise that with a little practice - reading the example sentences aloud, making up your own, and listening to the video - it will start to feel completely natural. You are building something real here, one lesson at a time.

Odlicno ste radili danas! (You did excellent work today!)

Marina Petrovic

Ready to go deeper with biti? Visit my More on the verb biti hub for the full collection of lessons on this essential Serbian verb.