Serbian Adjective Agreement in the Nominative
In Serbian, an adjective is never frozen — it changes its ending to match the gender of the noun it describes. In the nominative singular, that's wonderfully simple: masculine takes no ending, feminine adds -a, and neuter adds -o. So one adjective gives you three shapes: dobar čovek, dobra žena, dobro dete. The same pattern works for any adjective — velik grad, velika kuća, veliko selo — and notice only the ending moves; the stem stays put. You read the gender straight off the noun: a consonant means masculine, -a means feminine, -o or -e means neuter. The classic beginner slip is leaving the adjective unchanged (dobar žena), but the noun decides, so it must be dobra žena. Like in English, the adjective sits before the noun.
Examples
- dobar čovek a good man
- dobra žena a good woman
- dobro dete a good child
The full lesson
Everything in the video, in text.
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Say 'dobar žena' and a Serbian speaker hears right away that something's off. An adjective has to agree with its noun, and in this lesson you'll learn how.
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An adjective is a word that describes a noun — good, big, beautiful. In Serbian an adjective isn't fixed. It changes shape to match the noun it stands with.
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Today we look at the simplest case: the nominative singular. Here the gender of the noun — masculine, feminine, or neuter — decides the adjective's ending.
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Here's the whole rule in one picture. Masculine takes no ending — dobar. Feminine adds -a — dobra. Neuter adds -o — dobro. Three genders, three endings.
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How do you know a noun's gender? Usually from how it ends. A consonant means masculine, an -a usually means feminine, and an -o or -e usually means neuter.
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Let's start with the masculine. The noun 'čovek' ends in a consonant, so it's masculine, and the adjective takes no ending. dobar čovek
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Now the feminine. The noun 'žena' ends in -a, so the adjective takes the ending -a too. dobra žena
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And the neuter. The noun 'dete' is neuter, so the adjective takes the ending -o. dobro dete
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The same pattern works with any adjective. Take 'velik'. With the masculine noun 'grad' it stays with no ending. velik grad
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With the feminine noun 'kuća', the same adjective takes -a. velika kuća
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And with the neuter noun 'selo', it takes -o. Notice that only the end of the adjective changes — the stem stays the same. veliko selo
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Here's the most common mistake. Beginners leave the adjective in the same form for every gender. 'Dobar žena' is wrong — 'žena' is feminine, so it has to be 'dobra žena'.
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One more small thing: the adjective usually comes before the noun, just like in English. Adjective first, then noun — 'dobra ideja', 'lep dan'.
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Let's recap. In the nominative singular: masculine takes no ending, feminine adds -a, neuter adds -o. The adjective matches the noun's gender and comes before it. That's all.