Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian - help - are they the same?

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Flag of Serbia

Flag of Bosnia

Problem
I just spent time learning Croatian spelling and pronounciation. Do I have to start all over again with the other nearby languages, and when I drive a few miles north-south or east-west?

The good news is that Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian are written more or less the same. Know one and you know the others. The only difference is that Serbian can also be written in Cyrillic. (Pronounced like Cyril - easy to remember Serbia and Cyril start with the same sounds.)

So if you don't know Cyrillic, you have to look for the words written in the Latin alphabet. However, be generous, for those who grew up reading Cyrillic, or anybody who has just lerned it and wants to practise it, in Serbia you have two alphabets.

Go back to my post on Croatian. Much simpler than you think, once you analyse it.

Say:
"Show me the church,"  š=sh  č = ch
"Er, it's my pleasure." r = er ž=s as in sure or pleasure or shall
"Sh!" š=sh
"It's full of cats. This is a joy, you know."  ć=ts dž=j
"Thanks a million." j=ly

"D'you know how to pronounce the d with the line through it?"
"Yes, dy."

You have now pronounced all the sounds. You can read and speak Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian.
(If you want to learn the Cyrillic I have a post on that.)

Useful Websites For Languages
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_standard_Bosnian,_Croatian,_Montenegrin_and_Serbian


TRAVEL
CROATIA
Tourist Board
croatia.hr
Independent Information
wikipedia (detailed including history)
simple wikipedia
wikitravel (with ads)
wikivoyage (without ads)
Travel Advice for your nationality and from your home government

Tour operators (Often for specific regions, or types of travel, such as budget or luxury)
Outgoing operators
Outging (usually show flights from your country of origin). If you are researching on holiday in Italy, the tickbox allowing them to know where you are will give flights from where your phone or laptop is physically, which is handy if you are planning on ongoing journey, no good if you want to go home and start from here later in the year.

Incoming
After you have booked your flights, these operators arrange tours within the country. It's worthwhile comparing which combination gives the best deal. For example, some airlines will give you a reduced price hotel room for a stopover.

Why The Reduction?
The airline might own the hotel or have some deal. I imagine that's an incentive from either the hotel, or the tourist board giving a subsidy or reducing tax to get visitors because the spend per day in the country (there are tables for figures on how much visitors from each country spend, broken down by age groups, time of year and all sorts of things - they know from the VAT they collect. The visitor's spend will be higher than the reduction on the room.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I can offer you courses, one to one online or in person in the UK and Singapore, and workshops or entertaining after dinner speeches for clubs and businesses in the UK, one-off or a series. This can be worldwide anywhere if you can organize a ipad or screen connection by whatsap, Skype, visual conference call or something better, or fly me to your destination.
Please share links to your favourite posts. I have posts on learning many languages.

Serbian Signs At Airports and Streets Translated

What do the Serbian words mean?

Answer
Most are pretty easy. You will see them translated on the airport map. Any you don't recognize can be found in Google translate.

Make yourself an alphabetical list of those you see in Serbian or want to translate from English. After you have learned them you will find you can recognize the Serbian at a glance without bothering to waste time reading both the Serbian and the English.

Serbian can be written in the same alphabet as English or in the Cyrillic alphabet also used by the Russians and Bulgarians.

I have listed them alphabetically in both Serbian and English first.

Serbian - English
ambulanta - infirmary (like ambulance, walking wounded)
apoteka - pharmacy
banka - bank
i - and
informacije - information
od - from
od i do - from and to
polisija - police
prodavnica - shop (produce, products)
putovanji - travel
restoran - restaurant
stepenice - steps / stairs
telefon - phone
to - do
toalet - toilet
trafika - newsstand (UK news agent)
usluge - services

English - Serbian
and - i
bank - banka
from - od (like out of)
from and to - od i do
infirmary - ambulanta (like ambulance)
information - informacije
news agent (UK) / newsstand (US) - trafika
pharmacy - apoteka (like apothecary)
phone - telefon
police - polisija
restaurant -restoran
services - usluge
shop (produce / products) - prodavnica
stairs / steps - stepnice
to - do (t and d are similar sounding consonants)
toilet - toalet
travel - putovanji  (sounds and looks like put on a van)

Serbian and Romanian, like Spanish and Italian, have so many words which have similar roots and similar spelling to English that they are easy to recognize and remember.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Teacher of English and foreign languages. I can teach workshops and teach adults and children worldwide by Skype. See my other posts on languages and destinations in Europe, the USA and Americas, Asia and Australasia. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts.

The Boulevard restaurant, South Croydon, serves lovely lunches

A few steps downhill from South Croydon station is The Boulevard. it sounds French and the menu is somewhat French but staff are an eclectic mix. The owner, a chef, is Serbian and his name is Mr Ljubinko. The friendly staff include a bearded waiter who served me who told me he was Romanian and his name Ion is the Romanian equivalent of Ian (or Jan or Sean) or John.

I loved the atmosphere, the decor of tiles and arches. The restaurant is a sort of L shape with two front areas and another part leading to a space behind the bar.

From the wide choice on the menu and the blackboard I chose smoked salmon with polenta. So hard to find polenta, and it was cooked solid, just the way I like it.

I thought I ordered duck but it could have been chicken because it was hidden in an envelope of something resembling chou or filo pastry, very tasty. Actually, when you are in a group, enjoying a conversation, it's good to have food you can fork or spoon into your mouth and shovel away, with your eyes on your companion, and not needing to watch your plate as you carve meat off the bone.

I was on a table of ten and managed to try five desserts. (We shared five plates of cheese, one in the middle between each couple facing each other, and five different desserts which we passed around. I was quite full and could have done without four of the desserts, but I loved the crumble and custard which was just right, sticky and filling and sweet but with plenty of bland custard to offset sweetness.

If I lived nearer I'd make it my regular eating place. Great for groups. If you have a birthday you can write your name on the chalk board on the wall to the left of the menu board.

Look out for the A board on the pavement outside offering bargain lunches.

The Boulevard
7/8 Ruskin Parade,
South Croydon
CR2 6PW
Tel: 0208 649 9990.