Teaching Your Spouse or Lover to Speak Serbian | B92 Blog

Re: foreign languages can be :)

Brunehilda — Tue, 20 May 2008 08:49:08 GMT

spanish is not a romance language. spanish and serbian grammar are sooooo alike, almost identical.

This is news for me. Since when Spanish is not a Romance language??????

I am a Serbian and I live in Spain. I don't find those two languages so similar as to say they are almost identical....

Learning Serbian....

Bilja19 — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:06:42 GMT

I don't know about you Rosemary, but I've just learned more Serbian (and a bit of Serbian language history on the way) just by reading this blog, which I've come across completely by chance! What a discovery! It thrilled me so much I had to register.

I was born in Serbia but immigrated to Australia when I was 3, along with my very young villager parents, who's own language knowledge was of the 'non educated" variety to start off with. Here they never learnt English well, forgot a lot of what little they did know of their mother tongue, and along the way invented their own language (what I called Juglish as a child) - which somehow everyone seems to understand - particularly other immigrants of the same era.

Still, I'm very proud to say that at 41 my understanding of the language is reasonable (better than my parents) and I certainly get by well when I visit or meet fresh imports over here. Socially I'm fine, and I can sing along to all the songs, but it's when I get down to the serious language - reading news articles or trying to read a novel when it all falls apart - I spend most of my time in a dictionary and then give up.

For me the bursts of improvement in learning, understanding, and most importantly remembering the language have come from everyday stuff like this blog, which has a mixture of both languages and even if I don't understand completely I get the jist of what is meant. You are in the fortunate position of being immersed in the language (how very jealous I am of you in this moment) - so perhaps instead of looking for books or sites that will help you learn it, stop thinking of yourself as being an American in Serbia, think of yourself as a new Serbian and have tonnes of English free time, make friends who don't speak English - and tell that husband of yours not to speak to you in English anymore either :)

Best of luck!
Biljana

Re: It's not that hard, but then again it

Maja Rabasovic — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:14:56 GMT

Anthony Bock

As to the comment that Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin are all the same, I must disagree. For native speakers they may seem like the same language but to non-natives things like using/not using grammar in certain regions, ijekavski/ekavski and accent on different vowels within a word can change the language dramatically.

It's true that there are regional differences when it comes to accents and spelling, and in some cases entire word usage, but that doesn't make Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegran all different languages. If that's the case, then English, Scottish, Irish, Canadian, American and Australian are all different languages. It's true that to an untrained ear, perhaps someone who's learning a language, these little differences are enormous, but that doesn't change the fact that the language is one and the same.

Serbian for foreigner - on my web pages

larisa — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:50:51 GMT

I can recommend my pages for learning Serbian (and all other variants):
www.lztranslation.com
www.studyserbian.com/proba

On these pages you can find a hard-core grammar stuff, but also some fun, 'survival' phrases and questions arranged by context.
I am also offering online lessons.

Serbian is hard but if you learn it step by step, and every day, that is a road to success.

Re: A little help...

Atomski mrav — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:10:06 GMT

Jamie, that is the problem for everyone who tries to learn a foreign language. First you learn some words and then you manage to understand foreigners when they talk by recognizing the words + looking at their faces, gestures, etc. It is a lot harder to start talking yourself, and even harder to write something... but it's OK, if you take it step by step, you will improve your Serbian very fast. It would help if you could get some of our movies with English titles - that's how I have learned English even before I started to learn it in school and that is how I managed to get by in Russia with almost non-existing previous knowledge of Russian :)

Re: A little help...

Jamie M. Enright — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 19:02:04 GMT

Moja favorit: Fotokopije - FOTO-WHO-DRINKS.

Hahahah! Veoma dobro :)

As a teenager, I lived for 2 months in Belgrade with a good friend who was from there one summer. For months before leaving, I memorized as much vocab as possible. (Probably 200 words) Upon arrival, the family I stayed with couldn't believe I could follow their conversations. It was, and still is, much easier for me to follow a conversation. However, I get very nervous when joining in. My sentence structure is very poor. I have all of the words, but have a difficult time, when speaking quickly, putting them together.
Nonetheless, I have made far more progress than even I could have imagined and am a firm believer that learning Serbian can be done. You just have to have the willpower & some patient "teachers." I never had any formal training -- just a lot of very helpful friends. :)

Jö napot/Hello/Ciao/Aj u p... m...

schneetzla — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:39:02 GMT

When I was 21 I fell in love with a Hungarian girl from Szombor város, and I spent two years learning Hungarian. Well, for most of those two years I tried to learn how to pronounce the vowels correctly, and it was completely frustrasting. Even more so, because at the time, I spoke perfectly fluent English, Italian, and Portughese (I was somewhat of a child prodigy when it came to languages, and somewhat of an idiot when it came to physics). At one point, I had to give up. Some twenty years later, I was invited to lecture on American contemporary literature in Budapest for two months, and during that time, for some unknown reason, Hungarian sort of opened up to me, and I learned it quite easily. I can't speak fluently (there wasn't enough time for that), but I can understand more than I can say, and that's enough - Í know now it's not impossible.

And if you're wondering why on Earth am I writing all this, I'll get to the point. As I said - I know it's not impossible. You just have to relax and go with it. Once you "feel" the language and stop thinking about getting it right, you will get it right. Just listen to people around you. Read books in Serbian even if you don't understand them, talk even if you make the most ridiculous mistakes, listen to Serbian music, watch Serbian movies. At one point - and you probably won't even notice it - Serbian will get into your head, and it will come to you naturally when you try to speak.

Re: A little help...

dunjica — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:49:27 GMT

how yes no - kako da ne

Re: A little help...

Tanja Jakobi — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:21:02 GMT

i little tomorrow - malo sutra

Textbooks

riddles — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:02:37 GMT

Actually, there are several good textbooks, one of them being "Serbian For Foreigners", published by the Faculty of Philology (Uni. of Beograde). You just have to know where to look :)

Re: You CAN teach an old dog new tricks!

Rosemary Bailey Brown — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:05:56 GMT

Wow - this is fantastic advice and makes me feel much better about my extremely slow progress in learning Serbian.

Re: You CAN teach an old dog new tricks!

Filip2412 — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:52:37 GMT

Germanic tribes of Angles, Saxons and Jutes moved to England before Serbs came to the Balkans. So there.

How's that related to language?

There's not much point to discuss which one is older cause English and Serbian at the end both origin from Indo-European group of languages, it's just that they evolved in very different way.

Anyway, English is gramatically simplified. I really have no arguments to explain why we have gender for not living objects for example... Yeah, there is such thing in French & German but English got rid of it somehow.

Re: !

Atomski mrav — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:40:44 GMT

A sećate li se Gidrine frau Elze iz Žikine dinastije? 'Ebi ga... :)

Re: !

automat — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:29:27 GMT

Dawngreeter
We Westerners probably never heard or read a single word of Serbian until we met you.Oh, I'm pretty sure you did. Vampire (Vampir in Serbian). The only Serbian word that got exported to other languages.:)

kao i Slobodan=free :)

moja kuma je meksikanka. moj kum ju je učio da kad neko kine, kaže mu se 'crkni'. svekrva je gledala belo, a lore htela da bude fina :)

ima i fora kad je pitala šta je to svinja? objasni joj muž, a ona pita: 'pa zašto onda svi kažu isvinjavamo se?'

i uporno, uporno , i uporno je radila i naučila srpski, i završila filološki fakultet u beogradu.

easy does it.

pozdrav

Re: On-line (skype)

Atomski mrav — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:29:15 GMT

Upoznao sam jednog Nemca koji je ranije letovao u Dalmaciji pa je naučio solidno hrvatski a sad pokušava da iskoristi to znanje i da što više priča na srpskom. Posebno se oduševljava raznim izrazima, izrekama, uzrečicama... pogotovo turcizmima, lokalizmima i slično. Upoznao sam i Amerikance koji su naučili ćirilicu vrlo brzo, rekli su da im nije bilo teško osim što ih ponekad bune slova koja isto izgledaju ali su različita (P i R, N i H...) - rekao sam im, nije problem to se dešava i nama...

Re: On-line (skype)

dunjica — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:02:19 GMT

excuse for not attempting to learn the language, at least, is in the Serbian language complexity. Such b.s.

Dobar izgovor zlata vrijedi, kaze narod, ali ovo je stvarno b.s.

Da pohvalim Nijemce, zasluzeno: generalno su veoma voljni i odlucni (na)uciti jezik svojih partnera. Ja to osobno veoma, veoma cijenim.

Re: On-line (skype)

Atomski mrav — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:00:12 GMT

Eh, BabelFish... :)

Ne daj se Rosemary :)

Emir Halilovic — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 08:41:45 GMT

Here's a little fun lesson :):

Re: On-line (skype)

Jelena Pavlović — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 08:41:18 GMT

Ja koristim Altavistu i prevodim na i sa svih jezika koji me interesuju. Jes da su prevodi kabasti, ali beggars cannot be choosers:))
I have some friends married to the Serbs whose excuse for not attempting to learn the language, at least, is in the Serbian language complexity. Such b.s.

Shortly after that...

MarijanaM — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 07:22:46 GMT

"Shortly after that, lessons will languish, the promise will be broken. years of bickering ensue."

Ha ha, thank you, I always thought it had only been my mistake.

!

Dawngreeter — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 06:52:07 GMT

We Westerners probably never heard or read a single word of Serbian until we met you.

Oh, I'm pretty sure you did. Vampire (Vampir in Serbian). The only Serbian word that got exported to other languages.

:)

A little help...

Atomski mrav — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 06:15:28 GMT

Dear Rosemary, this is an example how some people try to translate Serbian to English:

Mnogo sam se sekirao - I AXED MY SELF VERY MUCH.
Pričam sam sa sobom - I'M TALKING ALONE WITH THE ROOM.
Računaj na mene - CALCULATE ON ME.
Čekanje u redu za hleb - WAITING ALL RIGHT FOR BREAD.
Ko te šljivi - WHO PLUMS YOU.
Ko te šiša - WHO CUTS YOUR HAIR.
Nosi se - CARRY YOURSELF.
Tekuća pitanja - LIQUID QUESTIONS.
Od malih nogu - SINCE THE LITTLE LEGS.
Malo pre - SMALL BEFORE.
More bre - SEA, BROTHER.
Voditi računa - TO LEAD THE BILL.
Samoubica - ONLY KILLER
Napet sam - I'M ON FIVE.
Hajde da igramo karte - LET'S PLAY TICKETS.
Delim vaše mišljenje - I DIVIDE YOUR OPINION.
On je svetla točka - HE IS A BRIGHT FULL STOP.
Spetljao se s njom - HE LOOPED HIMSELF WITH HER.
Želim se nasloniti na tebe - I WISH TO ELEPHANT ON YOU.
Šta ti pada na pamet - WHAT IS FALLING ON YOUR BRAIN.
Pucali smo od smeha - WE WERE SHOOTING FROM LAUGHTER.
Pijan je ko majka - HE IS DRUNK AS A MOTHER.
Iz čista mira - OUT OF CLEAN PEACE.
Fotokopije - FOTO-WHO-DRINKS.
Upala mišića - THE INFALL OF A LITTLE MOUSE.
Supruga - ARE-RAILWAY.
Blago tebi - TREASURE TO YOU.
Veni, vidi, vici - FADE, SEE, JOKES.
Sve što je izgubljeno, može se povratiti - EVERYTHING THAT IS LOST CAN BE THROWN UP.
Pop-pevač - PRIEST-SINGER.
Sve je gore i gore - EVERYTHING IS UP AND UP.
Sranje kroz gusto granje - SHITTING THROUGH A DENSE BUSH.
Sarajevo - SARA IS AN OX.
Dedinje - HE BELONGS TO GRANDFATHER
Mali Lošinj - LITTLE BAD CITY.
Skoplje - CASTRATION CITY.
Neda Ukraden - NO YES STOLEN.
Ružica Sokić - LITTLE ROSE LITTLE JUICE.
Slobodan Milošević - FREEMAN GENTLEFUCK.
Alija Izetbegović - BUT I AND BROTHER-IN-LAW ESCAPE.
Mirjana - PEACE I ON.
Tugomir - SADPEACER.

And, at the end, I remembered a joke about the Englishman who was on a vacation to France:
- Did you have any problems with your French?
- No, but the French did. :):):)

heh

Marko Kozic — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 05:37:05 GMT

Pfff nemam pojma u cemu je frka, Srpski nije tazak za ucenje kao Madjarski ili Holandski!! Iz mog iskustva znam da su u Srpskom teski samo padezi.. Moj stav o stranim jezicima je da svi moraju da znaju Engleski, dobro je znati ostale jezike ali nije neophodno. I za koji djavo bi trebao da ucim moje devojke da pricaju Sprski??!! Mozda dve ili 3 moje bivse devojke znaju Srpski a ostale neznaju ni da beknu i nikada nisam imao potrebu da ih ucim Srpski.

Dont know what if fuzz about, Serbian is not so hard to learn like Hungarian or Dutch!! From my experience only hard thing in Serbian language are verbs. My additude about foreing languages is that everyone should know English, alternative languages are good to know but not necessary. Why the hell i should learn my lover to speak Serbian??!! Maybe 2 or 3 mine ex girlfriends know Serbian and rest of them dont know to say "Hello" on Serbian i never haved need to learn them Serbian.

P.S. Sorry for bad English but Education in Serbia is extreamly bad so i ware forced to learn German and Russian instead English, so everything i learned is from Movies, TV Shows and Video Games.

Re: You CAN teach an old dog new tricks!

Gassalasca — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 05:36:58 GMT

Just like to point out that Serbian is by no means older than English.

Germanic tribes of Angles, Saxons and Jutes moved to England before Serbs came to the Balkans. So there.

Now talking about more complex... I'm not prepared to make any claims there. :)

You CAN teach an old dog new tricks!

Whyomar — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 00:13:45 GMT

That is the good news; the bad is that some are slower than others. --Like me: my best qualification as a teacher of English in Norway is the fact that I have such difficulty with foreign languages, -so I understand why my pupils struggle and where the problems are, having had the same trouble myself.
BUT maybe these thoughts might help:

1) We are all born able to learn a new language: our mother tongue. As soon as our sense of hearing formed and we could hear her talking we started learning in our mother's womb. What is more: nobody gave us any formal
lessons to begin with. We worked it all out ourselves until the code became a coherent whole, -and we can still do it! Not as fast as when we were small, maybe, but the ability is still there waiting to be put back into use even though it takes much longer.

Let me give you an example. A Norwegian family that had been in the NS during the war fled the country when the allies were victorious, and ended up in Argentina.
Being Norwegian, they couldn't speak a word of Spanish, nor any other tongue that could help them get along. So they turned on the radio, and played it in the background all day and every day. To their surprise, after about six months the words began to make sense, the sentences take on a meaning and they found they could speak, and understand the language of their new homeland.

2) Learning a language (even your own) is a lifelong process. You are actually picking up new things all the time but you don't notice it happening.

3) There are a large number of resources to help you that you may not think about. One of the really useful ones is TV when it is texted rather than dubbed. The translations are sometimes way out, but not always, and you pick up an occaisional word or phrase in the process. This then, is stored up in your subconscious, and sooner or later works its way into the right place in the jigsaw puzzle. Another one is the Bible: you can get in Serbian online and compare it with an English one (also available online). Of course there are pitfalls to this because sometimes Bible translations are deliberately archaic, but that doesn't make them useless.

4) There are connections between indo-european languages, and this means that sometimes you can trace the connections between words and even recognise them in the "other" language if you learn some of the tricks. A good idea is to get hold of a book of elementary lingustics. It can help you understand the way languages work in general, and the nice thing about it is that lingusitics is far more logical than your average grammar book.

5) Don't expect too much too fast. If you can hold a simple conversation within three years then you're doing fine. Also, language learning happens in jerks! For a long time you feel you haven't learned a thing, and then there is a sudden breakthrough. And don't underestimate what you can learn in the long run.

6) Nobody expects to swim the English Channel straight off. You have to practice first. So never give up. Nobody becomes a crack shot without missing the bullseye lots of times before they do. If you never speak until your'e sure what you say is a 100% right you will never say anything, so treat every time you speak as a training session, not an Olympic Event. And you need to be able to laugh at yourself because some of the thing you say are going to be hilarious! Learning why it was so funny is all part of the lesson!

7) Finally: It really does you good to learn a foreign language! It opens up new ways of looking at things, forces you to find other ways to express your ideas, gets your brain going, and possibly releases other abilities under way. Possilby it even raises your IQ!

It's not that hard, but then again it is..

Anthony Bock — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:36:48 GMT

The first thing to do is learn the Latinic and Cyrillic alphabets and practice pronouncing each letter individually paying special attention to the R, Lj, Đ, Č, and Ć. The Lj is very easy to pronounce by itself but presents quite a challenge when surrounded by other letters.

After that you can start on vocabulary and grammar.....

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Croatian-Serbian-Language-Thomas/dp/0271015365

The above link is the best book out there for English speakers trying to learn Serbian. It does a good job of explaining the complex grammar which is essential to properly learning the language. The cases are the most imperative and probably most difficult part for English speakers to learn/understand. One trying to learn Serbian should place a lot of emphasis on learning when each case is used, the different noun/adjective endings for each case and the different personal pronouns for each case. You should also think about brushing up on English grammar and re-familiarizing yourself with grammar rules and terminology. Stay away from just learning phrases, figure out the different aspects of grammar within the phrases you learn and try to apply them using other vocabulary that you know.

Vocabulary is easy or difficult to learn depending on your ability to remember things. There are different methods for learning new vocabulary and you need to figure out what works best for you. When I studied Serbian in school I found that flashcards were the best method for me. Try to make a game out of it, games are much more fun than learning. You should study vocabulary within specific themes like food, animals, colors, etc. Learning verbs is a little trickier because you have to conjugate the verb differently depending on if it was I, you, he/she/it, we, you guys/you (formal) or they who is performing the verb. Verb conjugation is difficult to learn but there are rules (with exceptions) which when learned make it much simpler.

The biggest part of learning and really getting a strong hold on the language is speaking. Use every opportunity you have to speak and insist on surrounding yourself with the language. Make your spouse/significant other speak in only Serbian for an hour or two and see how well you do.

As to the comment that Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin are all the same, I must disagree. For native speakers they may seem like the same language but to non-natives things like using/not using grammar in certain regions, ijekavski/ekavski and accent on different vowels within a word can change the language dramatically. I do however agree that anyone who looks at you funny, comments or gets mad for you using a word from another region is an idiot and in my experience most people are just happy/impressed that you are making an effort.

Good Luck!

foreign languages can be :)

Vera Johnson — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:48:38 GMT

dear rosemary,

i moved to the u.s. from serbia (onomad). here are my two cents:

spanish is not a romance language. spanish and serbian grammar are sooooo alike, almost identical. regarding your stepdaughter's attempt to translate poetry: all words do translate, it's just that one must be in a "possession" of adequate vocabulary. translating, especially poetry, requires many years of training and adequate vocabulary (again).

if you are maried in a foreign country: try first to communicate with children - 5-7 years old. your vocabulary will be on the same level, then develop it through other means.

my daughter, born in serbia, barely speaking the language (serbian) has a boyfriend who is irish american. he was learning serbian quickly while my little niece, tea (6 years old) was here. he is now complaining that we do not speak serbian around him any more :( tea had to go back home. her 6 months u.s. visa expired :( the catch is, we are all grown ups (maybe), and most of us are eloquently (possible) speaking the language.

good luck ;)

vagabunda — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:34:04 GMT

there are those dual-language (english-serbian) books of e.g. simplified short stories... granted, they are meant for learning english, but they can serve the purpose. if one lives in serbia, watching movies in english with serbian subtitles for sure helps. ideally, of course, one would watch serbian movies with english subtitles, but few of those you can rent have this option.

i learnt one foreign language basically with no formal lessons, and not even in the country where it was spoken. the absolutely crucial factor was the infinite patience that some people had when i was asking millions of little questions every day. more important than explanations, this provided motivation. this language is far easier than serbian, but i think that the take-home message is still there.

btw, it is not entirely true that serbian has no latin/germanic/international words. they are obviously not the majority, but they are actually more common than in some other languages. here a list from a completely random dictionary page: plagijator, plan, planeta, plastičan, plaža...

good luck

uzmu

Tine i Radojka — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:32:42 GMT

ziku iuz
pjesmu
ljuba
saban
jasar
naidrazi ucitelj

Re: On-line (skype)

dunjica — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:16:20 GMT

Brooklyn
dunjica
Poznajem iznenađujuće mnogo ljudi koji uče ili su učili srpski/hrvatski/bosanski. Moje iskustvo je da se srpski najviše uči iz privatnih razloga - ljubav Hrvatski češće zbog poslovne suradnje ili čestih odmora na Jadranu.

sto mislis da su srbi toliko fleksibilniji u biznisu od hrvata?

Ovo je tvoja interpretacija, Brooklyn. Nije mi jasno kako si došla do ovakvog zaključka? Riječ je o jednostavnoj statistici na osnovu iskustava nekolicine škola i samostalnih učitelja jezika po Zapadnoj Evropi. Gotovo su mi svi rekli, a i vlastito je iskustvo, da se životni odn. privatni partneri Srba češće odlučuju naučiti sprski, nego je to slučaj s onima koji su za životnog partnera izabrali Hrvata/icu ili Bosanca/ku.

Oni koji uče naš jezik iz poslovnih razloga, natproporcionalno se odlučuju za hrvatski. Većina njih je u nekim poslovnim kombinacijama s Hr ili su često na Jadranu.

Ovo su rezultati empirijski i ne sadrže nikakvo vrednovanje istih.

Learn one and you'll know all of them

talicni — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:11:39 GMT

Croatian and Serbian are pretty much the same language. After gaining independence some Croatian linguists went on word inventing spree in a vain effort to create some kind of artificial difference.

Preporuka za učenje srpskog

dunjica — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:09:32 GMT

većina jezičkih eksperata i korisnika se slaže da je "Naučimo sprski - Let s learn Serbian" u izdanju novosadskog "Dnevnika" i Univerziteta u NS najbolja knjiga trenutno na tržištu. Postoji 1. i 2. dio, te radne bilježnice za vježbu. Za intenzivno učenje koristiti dodatne materijale, ako se nude.

Moj favorit za hrvatski, gdje je izbor daleko veći, je "Učimo hrvatski", Školske knjige iz Zagreba.

And last but not least, if you want to know more about on-line lecturing, my favourite option, send me a private message.

Re: On-line (skype)

Brooklyn — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:06:51 GMT

dunjica
Poznajem iznenađujuće mnogo ljudi koji uče ili su učili srpski/hrvatski/bosanski. Moje iskustvo je da se srpski najviše uči iz privatnih razloga - ljubav Hrvatski češće zbog poslovne suradnje ili čestih odmora na Jadranu.

sto mislis da su srbi toliko fleksibilniji u biznisu od hrvata?

On-line (skype)

dunjica — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:02:02 GMT

Poznajem iznenađujuće mnogo ljudi koji uče ili su učili srpski/hrvatski/bosanski. Moje iskustvo je da se srpski najviše uči iz privatnih razloga - ljubav Hrvatski češće zbog poslovne suradnje ili čestih odmora na Jadranu.

Moj apsolutni favorit za poučavanje jezika su online lessons. Skype i email omogućavaju učenje jezika gotovo bez razlike u odnosu na live prisustvo kursu. Plus fleksibilno u prostoru i vremenu. Svakako treba probati!

Tuti

Solomon — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:03:36 GMT

Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegroan - are all the same language.
If I go from NY to New Orleans I'll experience more of a difference than if I go from Belgrade to Zagreb.
The same "GENIUSES" that divided these peoples divided the languages. Don't believe the Hype.
Learn any of those you want and if anyone (Serb, Croat or whatever) gives you a nasty look - know that they are an Idiot. Good Luck !