Directional prefixes on verbs of motion

You already know ići — to go. It says that someone is moving, and nothing more: Idem u grad tells you I am on my way to town, but not whether I am arriving, leaving, going in or coming out. Serbian answers that question not with a new verb but with a small piece glued to the front of the one you have. Five of those pieces cover almost everything you need to get around a city.

One verb, five directions

Read the prefixes as arrows. do- is an arrow pointing at a target; ot- is an arrow pointing away from one; u- goes into a box and iz- comes out of it; pre- goes across a line. Once you see them that way, you will recognise the same arrows on many other verbs later — doneti (bring), izneti (carry out), preneti (carry across) — but this lesson keeps to the verb of motion.

The prefix and its preposition

Each prefixed verb likes to be followed by a preposition that repeats its direction. You already know the prepositions themselves — u and na with the accusative for motion towards, iz and od with the genitive for the source, do with the genitive for as far as. The new thing is which verb they pair with.

The prefix and the preposition echo each other: ući u zgradu, izaći iz zgrade. A beginner's commonest slip is to mix them — izaći u or ući iz. If the preposition does not point the same way as the prefix, one of them is wrong. Only preći is different: with a street or a bridge it simply takes the accusative, preći ulicu, preći most, as if the thing crossed were a direct object.

How they conjugate

The prefixed verbs follow ići exactly, with one wrinkle. The bare verb has idem in the present and išao / išla in the past. The moment a prefix is added, the d softens to đ in the present (dođem, uđem) and the past keeps the š (došao, ušao). And otići is the odd one: its everyday present tense drops the t entirely — odem, odeš, ode.

Do not try to build these forms by rule from ići. Learn dođem – došao, odem – otišao as a pair each, the way you learnt idem – išao. The imperative of otići is otiđi, even though the present is odem.

The aspect side: each prefixed verb is perfective

Lesson 28 showed you that verbs come in pairs, one perfective and one imperfective. Every verb in the table above is perfective: it names the arrival, the departure, the crossing as a single completed event. That is why dođem in the present is not I am coming but I will come / once I come — the same thing you saw with napišem. For the ongoing or repeated version each prefix has its own imperfective partner built on -laziti, and the pairs are regular.

So Svaki dan dolazim na posao u osam — I come to work at eight every day, a habit — but Juče sam došao u osam — yesterday I arrived at eight, one event. The prefix carries the direction in both; the ending carries the aspect. The rule this lesson drills is the prefix. Which partner to pick is the rule you already have from lessons 28 and 29.

Giving directions

Directions are given in the imperative, and the imperative of a prefixed verb is perfective — you are telling someone to complete each step. Izađite iz zgrade, pređite ulicu, uđite u prvu zgradu levo — go out of the building, cross the street, go into the first building on the left. To say the bare motion between the steps you go back to ići: idite pravo, go straight on.