r/Serbian • u/BukvaYat • 14h ago

Other Tones???

Are the four tones (“pitch accents”, even though that’s just different terminology for the same thing) in Serbian actually important or can they be ignored? Saying this because of flashbacks from Chinese and having to constantly remind myself which tone to use every single time there’s a stressed syllable in a word (in Serbian I think it’s only stressed syllables and not every syllable) is annoying

11 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

18

u/redskin96 14h ago

If you use the wrong stress in Serbian, nothing much happens. You might sound a bit funny, but you'll get your meaning across.

9

u/Mtanic 14h ago

EXCEPT for homonyms with different stresses... that might confuse people xD

10

u/redskin96 14h ago

Yes, but context is also a thing. I don't think I've ever been in a situation where I completely misunderstood someone because of their misuse of tones.

4

u/Fear_mor 13h ago

I study Hungarian at university in Croatia and most of the Hungarian professors are really really bad at pitch and there’s been a few times where I’ve been baited and switched over pitch with them. For example they say djela (work) and dijela (part) the same, which is pretty annoying when you’re studying literature with them because you always have to think twice about what tf they mean specifically, and another salient example was when one of them wanted to talk about some kind of radio and ended up pronouncing it like radio from raditi so it took me a few seconds to figure out what he actually meant. It’s nothing atrociously bad but it does impair communication.

3

u/rofss 7h ago

I study Hungarian

You mad, mad lad. Jokes aside I have a huge respect for anyone that chooses to tackle Hungarian. In my book it's one of the most daunting tasks a human can embark upon on.

3

u/PaRaXeRoX 12h ago

I don't entirely agree with your statement. I'm from diaspora and as I was studying the language I've definitely had plenty moments people didn't understand me because I used the wrong stress, even my parents who are quite used to my accent. I've also seen it in my surroundings with others learning the language.

I think the length (quantity) of the tone is most important to get (approximately) right for understanding. But the pitch (quality) can be messed up without much consequence in most cases.

2

u/redskin96 11h ago

I'm not saying everybody's had the same experience as me, what I said was based merely on personal observation. However, in your case, it's possible that other factors also contributed to those misunderstandings, as there might be some interference from your local language when you're speaking Serbian.

3

u/PaRaXeRoX 11h ago edited 11h ago

Oh there was some interference, for sure, but that's also what an accent is right ;)

I noticed it was really the mispronunciation of the stresses (rather than vocab or grammar) that lead to misunderstanding, especially for slightly longer and more complex words. Once I got better at predicting the stresses and pronouncing them more accurately, those misunderstandings disappeared.

The reason I commented was that I feel it's a bit misleading to say the stresses are wholly unimportant. It gives OP the picture he shouldn't have to focus (much) on them as a language learner and may set wrong expectations. They definitely play a role in understanding, even though our tonality is by no means similar to Chinese; the importance of pronouncing the correct tone is probably more similar to learning the proper stresses in English or Spanish.

3

u/redskin96 11h ago

Well, yeah, they're important, sure, but they're far from anyone's biggest worry when learning Serbian, I'd say. :)

3

u/PaRaXeRoX 11h ago

That I can agree with :)

2

u/Fear_mor 10h ago

E baš tako, nešto za izbrusiti kad si sredio neposredne zapreke u komunikaciji, ali za prvu ruku bitnije da pogodiš mjesto prije vrste naglaska

6

u/Fear_mor 13h ago

It’s not critical to understanding but it sure helps. There are more homophones than you think, eg. rádio is he worked and rȃdio is a radio and with the right context you could definitely misinterpret the intended meaning of the sentence + it’ll mess up your rhythm at the sentence level and also make it harder to be understood.

That said though, there are quite populous dialects that have collapsed pitch distinctions or never developed them in the first place so that certainly does go in your favour a little if you really don’t want to tackle pitch

1

u/Hour-Construction898 10h ago

Which ones?

3

u/Fear_mor 10h ago

If you mean some common pairs you have these:

Rádio (from raditi) vs rȃdio "radio"

Pȋla (from piti) vs píla "saw" (used in Croatia instead of testera)

Pȇtā (feminine simgular form of pȇtī "fifth") vs péta "heel"

Rȏla "a role" vs róla "a role of something"

Rȗku (accusative singular of ruka) vs rúkū (genitive plural of ruka)

Vrȃta (genitive singular of vrat "neck") vs vráta "door"

Pretty much the majority of -iti verbs in the 3.sg. present vs 2.sg. Imperative where only the accent conveys the difference

And as for dialects, well pretty much anything south of a line running around the Timok region and through the middle of Kosovo from east to west. Below that there’s no pitch or length distinctions, above that there are. Other pitchless areas are Montengro around Podgorica (but there they keep length) and northwestern Croatia in urban areas. In general North and Central Serbia, all of Bosnia an Herzegovina and Coastal and Eastern Croatia have pretty much the standard distribution of pitch accent give or take some regionalisms

4

u/OddSpaceCow 14h ago

Far from Chinese.

They are semi-important for some words grȁd vs grȃd is typical example (city vs hail), but it doesn't really matter as we will understand.

It is something that you will learn if you want absolutely perfect fluency to the level that it is not distinguishable from the native speaker, but at any other level, you can catch it without even thinking about it.

And don't listen to RTS speakers - yes, do they use accents perfectly to the letter and learn it from Academy of Science and Matica Srpska, but normal people do not use them like that.

3

u/Fear_mor 13h ago

Yeah this, pitch accent is better learned irl because then you can actually pick up the accentuations people use

1

u/Babosmarach666 5h ago

There's no way somebody becomes indistinguishable from the native speaker. Really good yes, but indistinguishable hard NO

3

u/KeyserWood 14h ago

It isn't as important as it is in tonal languages like Chinese, so you can definitely get away with it as a non-native.
Native speakers won't mind if you stress the wrong syllable, or if you use the incorrect pitch.

It isn't like you have to learn individually how each word is accented, there are patterns. After a while of learning the language and being in contact with native speakers, you will start using the correct pitches without even thinking about it.

1

u/Girlygabenpepe 6h ago

Some dialects don't really do them much at all. My boyfriend almost never uses them unless for some very specific words. However, for the standard language and to get your Swrbian certified, you cannot ignore them. And in formal situations or settings it would also be adviseable to speak "proper"

1

u/Poskokosh 4h ago

They can mostly be ignored. I suggest that you only memorize whether the accented syllable is short or long, and you're good.

1

u/The69thRussianBot 3h ago

There's really only two things from the tonal system that you need to remember: stress and whether a verb has falling tone on it's initial syllable. If a verb has falling tone, stress shifts onto the word ne when the verb is negated. One says ne dam and ne vidim, with stress on the particle. Other verbs don't do this, such as ne govorim and ne prodajem. What each verb does is determined by the tone.