Hey guys!
I am currently developing a Serbo-Croatian A1 course.
As you know, I live for languages and language learning.
I also enjoy language courses a lot and have been wanting to set up some courses of my own for a long time now.
So, here we are!
I am developing this as a side project, which means I will be adding pieces whenever I have time.
Instead of keeping everything back and keeping you waiting, I decided to let you guys in on the progress and show you every step along the way.
It will still be in a provisional form, so don't expect overly professional "high polish" designs or anything, it will just be a few words and sentences, maybe dialogues or grammatical explanations.
Sometimes, I will also add a few thoughts of my own about the process as well as elaborations of my thoughts behind the content, why certain expressions are important to know, for example.
I invite you to follow me, comment on my progress and, if you like, try and learn a bit of Serbo-Croatian from these posts already!
Here's a first glance at the fascinating similarities between Russian and Serbo-Croatian:
Maps of where the two lanugages are spoken
I want to do a quick comparison of the words for simultaneously in both Russian and Serbo-Croatian, explain their make up and compare that with the German equivalent. Let’s begin!
Serbo-Croatian istovremeno
Russian odnovremenno
What's interesting here is the similar construction of both words (morphology) and the difference in the part meaning "same". Before we look at further details I want to add, that these two words are built similarly to the German gleichzeitig.
gleich-zeit-ig
same-time-ADV
,simultaneously'
isto-vreme-no
same-time-ADV
,simultaneously'
odno-vreme-nno
one-time-ADV
,simultaneously'
You can see the identical stem, vreme, denoting time, as well as the almost identical adverbial suffix. Interestingly, the first part of the word, corresponding to German gleich- is different. In Serbo-Croatian there is the word isto that can generally be used like same and gleich in English and German, respectively. Here, it is being used as a semantic component analogously to gleich- in German.
While Russian has the adjective odinakovyj, denoting similarity, it means something like "of the same manner or quality" and cannot be used in this instance. Instead, the base of this word odin (here: odno) which is nothing else than the word for "one" in Russian, is used instead.
Even though the literal composition might be understood as *one-time-ly , there is no confusion in the head of Russian speakers as the meaning for once is carried by a different expression: raz.
(Note to fellow linguists: I deliberately left out morphological details and explanations as to not overly complicate the situation and highlight the crucial aspects, so non-linguists can easily follow the comparison.)
Commentary
When learning related languages it is a clever and time-saving approach to take similarities in morphology and instead of learning the whole set anew in the second language, you just take the already known structures and create a set of rules for the deviations.
For example: Once I started learning Serbo-Croatian, it was obvious right from the start how much these languages were related, e.g. govoriti (S-C) corresponds to govorit' (RUS), so you do not need to learn a new verb-stem. In other situations, the stem deviates a bit from the Russian one but is generally recognisable, e.g. mleko (S-C) and moloko (RUS). With verbs, you need to learn new conjugation patterns, but there you can also rely on the ones you already have. Knowing Russian provided me with about half of all endings in present conjugation. The specific endings, however, did not exactly correspond to the Serbo-Croatian ones, but it was way easier to "calibrate" or replace them, instead of having to learn the whole paradigm from scratch.
In closing, I want to note that - of course - phonology is not simply the same in a related language, so you want to make sure you learn the rules and patterns of the new language, so your pronounciation can get as close to the original as possible. A good start is always word stress and regarding Serbo-Croatian especially vowel-length!
Please, let me know if you have any questions, comments and suggestions!
I will be happy to receive your thoughts and ideas:)
See you next time!
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