serbian alphabet with pronunciation

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’

[f] ‘father’

danas džak Ďak Evropa Filip

G/ г H / Xx I / Ии J / Jj K/ Kк

[g] 'god' [h] ‘hot’ [i:] ‘police’ [i] ‘fit’

[j] ‘you’ [j] ‘boy’

[k] ‘king’

guska hvala ima jaje kokoš

L/ Лл Lj/ Љљ M/ Mм N / Hн Nj / Њњ

[l] ‘loop’, ‘cool’

[ly] ‘million’ (as in British English)

[m] ‘mother’ [n] ‘no’ [ny] 'New'' , 'New York'

lopov ljubav mama ne njen

O/ Oo P / п R/ Pp S / Cc Š š/ Шш

[o:] ‘bowl’ [o] ‘caught’

[p] ‘spot’ [r] ‘berry’ [s] ‘sun’ [sh] ‘shop’

ono pismo Srbin, krava sunce ništa

T / Tt U / Yy V / Bв Z / Зз Žž / Жж

[t] ‘tone’ [u:] ‘food’ [u] ‘put’

[v] 'victory' [z] ‘zero’ [zh] ‘pleasure’, ‘Zhivago'

tata uvo, kuda veliki zec život