Accusative pronoun clitics

Once it is clear who you are talking about, you stop repeating the name. Instead of Vidim Anu ("I see Ana") you say Vidim je — "I see her". These little words for me, you, him, her, us, them as the object of a verb are the subject of this lesson.

They are the same idea as the accusative you already know: the person the verb happens to. What is new is that they are tiny and unstressed. You do not lean on them when you speak; they lean on the word in front of them, the way sam and je do.

The forms

The short column is what you use almost all the time, and it is what this lesson drills. The long column exists for two jobs: after a preposition, and when you want to point at the person — Njega poznajem, nju ne ("Him I know, her I don't"). Recognise it; you do not have to use it yet.

Ono is the word for a neuter thing — dete (child), pismo (letter). Its object form is ga, exactly like on. So ga covers both "him" and "it".

For "us" and "you (plural)" the two columns are identical: nas and vas. Only the stress differs, so you never have to choose.

Where the short form stands

This is the part that feels strange at first. The short form can never be the first word of a sentence. It has nothing to lean on there. So it slips in right after the first stressed word — whatever that word happens to be.

• after the subject pronoun: Ja ga poznajem. — I know him.
• with no subject at all, after the verb: Poznajem ga. — I know him.
• after a name or a noun: Ana nas čeka. — Ana is waiting for us.
• after a question word: Ko ih zna? — Who knows them?
• after da li: Da li me razumeš? — Do you understand me?

So the rule to remember is never first, not "always before the verb". Because Serbian usually drops the subject pronoun, you will hear the short form after the verb (Vidim te) just as often as before it (Ja te vidim).

With the negative ne, the particle and the verb stay glued together, so the short form goes after them both: Ne poznajem ga. Never Ne ga poznajem.

Je meaning "her" is spelled the same as je "is". When two of them would meet, Serbian swaps the object one for ju. In a simple present-tense sentence like Ana je zove this never comes up — but if you see ju, it is just "her".