Serbian Lesson 2.3 - Descending and ascending long accents - Serbian language courses

[@mihanich]

As a Russian, i now understand what kind if struggle foreigners have with our palatalization and ы sound after trying to hear difference between different tones

[@polyphoniac]

Иосиф Бродский coached me on the pronuncuation of 'ы' in my parents' living room. (I grew up in Ann Arbor, and he and my girlfriend's sister had been sharing an apartment there.) It was a bit of a struggle initially, but one day it suddenly clicked into place, and it's been easy ever after.

[@papi_dummy]

@@polyphoniac interesting

[@ChristianJiang]

Very interesting, thank you!

[@itskikiandalexei2185]

Speaking about Serbia I’m from Serbia and very impressed with how you pronounced it

[@SameerKumar-jf5mi]

thank you ma'am, very helpful

[@christianspanfellner3293]

I can hear the length distinction, but not the different pitch accents.

[@abc33155]

What she is saying is that with the long falling accent ^ the intonation first rises, then falls, that’s why the symbol makes sense. 0:30

[@SameerKumar-jf5mi]

it should be quite clear, try pronouncing like the teacher

[@carsicis]

pareil pour moi

[@dosquintoiuos]

for Serbian native speakers it is veeeery different and we get triggered when not pronounced correctly

[@joalexsg9741]

As one who hates phonemic tones and can't learn them, I was surprised by your clear pronunciation which made me distinguish many of them. However, in some other words I think the difference became much subtler and I guess in fast daily pronunciation it must be hard do notice it for non natives like me who often have terrible difficulty with distinguishing tones. Много вам хвала for the useful video - I just wish there were English subs to it!:-)

[@MOPCLinguistica]

you can add English subtitles in the videos tool menu

[@joalexsg9741]

@@MOPCLinguistica Thank you, sometimes the automatic translations are awful but fortunately in this one it seems pretty accurate. As the letters were too tiny for my poor eyesight, I tried to find a way to enhance their size and fortunately could manage to get them big enough for my visual needs! Много вам хвала again🙏

[@jakubklusek5816]

I'm polish speaker. As for me, serbian grammar and vocabulary is quite easy, but these tones are impossible to learn.

[@MacakPodSIjemom]

Don't worry too much about this. Most of Serbs pronounce accents different than the official norm suggests. Actually, different pronunciation of accents is the main mark of local dialects of Serbian, because the vocabulary is almost the same in all dialects (except South Serbia). Especially in Belgrade speech, the difference between tones often disappears. So the most important thing about accents for you, is a place of stress in words. That's the thing you should focus, and tones will come later, and if they don't, no biggie. Just note that usually Serbian stress is more to the beginning of the word, unlike Polish.

[@carsicis]

je parle français et cela me rassure je n'y arrive pas non plus

[@joalexsg9741]

@@MacakPodSIjemom Oh, thank you so much for this explanation. I had already given up trying to learn Serbian for the ones when I found this video and didn't find the Serbian tones as difficult as I often find any other ones in languages! I actually hate tones as phonemes (i.e. to distinguish words) and was admired that I could distinguish them in this teacher's pronounciation but in certain words the difference became much subtler to my ears. I think in fast speech it must be quite difficult to distinguish them for a non native like me. As one who loves all Slavic languages, I'm really happy to read your comment about this not being a hindrance to learning the language that much!

[@joalexsg9741]

Tones as phonemes are a total turn-off for me but MačakPodŠlemom's comment gives us hope to learn Serbian:-)

[@MacakPodSIjemom]

@@joalexsg9741 No problem. I absolutely stand behind my words. Although I'd like very much if our school system would try much harder to impose the "accent norm" with all 4 tones accurately used. But this is utopia, it will never happen. Actually the "de facto" standard is what we mostly can hear from TV, and that is a little modified Belgrade accent. It is much simpler that the standard norm, as I said. If you, by some miracle act, succeed in learning the standard completely, you will stand out as an odd specimen :). Remembering the right place of the stress within a word is hard enough (it can be anywhere except the last syllable, and it is not marked in a regular text), and if you master that you've done the major part of the job. Next you can focus on the length of the stressed syllable (is it short or long), and later if it is falling or rising (but only for the long stress, the difference between short falling and short rising stress is too vague for the overwhelming majority of Serbs). Then, when you are done with that, if you could add a non-stressed length here and there, you can call yourself (almost) a master ;)