In Montenegrin, zdravo is a general hello in informal or neutral situations; dobar dan (good day) is the safest polite greeting. Goodbye is doviđenja, and casual ćao works for both hello and bye. Nearly all are shared across the region; the familiar đe si (“hey, how's it going?”) and ijekavian forms such as živjeli give the set a distinctly Montenegrin flavour.
Published 21 September 2026
Greetings are high-value words to learn first: they are short, frequent and useful in almost every interaction. Here's the honest starting point for Montenegrin — the everyday words are almost the same ones you'd hear in Belgrade or Sarajevo because Montenegrin, Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian are closely related, highly mutually intelligible standard varieties. So this list travels across the region. What gives it a Montenegrin accent is small but real: the spelling follows the ijekavian pattern the standard uses, and locals lean on one friendly greeting — đe si — that sounds unmistakably like home.
One table to keep on your phone. The middle column gives a plain-English pronunciation approximation — a rough guide to the sound, not a phonetic transcription — to help you start speaking today.
| Montenegrin | Say it | Meaning / when |
|---|---|---|
| Zdravo | ZDRAH-vo | hi / hello — informal or neutral |
| Ćao | chow | casual hi and bye, with friends |
| Dobro jutro | DOH-bro YOO-tro | good morning (until about 10am) |
| Dobar dan | DOH-bar dahn | good day / afternoon — the polite daytime one |
| Dobro veče | DOH-bro VEH-cheh | good evening |
| Laku noć | LAH-koo notch | good night (only when parting for the night) |
| Đe si? | JEH see | colloquial “hey, how's it going?” — with friends |
| Doviđenja | do-vee-JEH-nya | goodbye — works everywhere |
| Prijatno | pree-YAHT-no | “have a nice time” — leaving a shop or café |
A quick note on two sounds you'll meet here: ć is a soft “ch” (so ćao really is the Italian ciao), and đ is a soft “j” — think the j in “jam”, but lighter and more palatal. Those are the ones the “Say it” column is smoothing over — the full sound system, including Montenegrin's two special letters, is in our guide to Montenegrin pronunciation.
Walk around Podgorica or Nikšić and you'll hear it often: Đe si? Literally it's “where are you?”, but as a greeting it is a warm, informal “hey, how are you, good to see you.” Montenegro's official orthography accepts đe and gdje as standard doublets, so đe is not merely a nonstandard shortening. You'll also hear the greeting stretched out with a name or brate: Đe si, brate? (“hey, mate?”), Đe si, Marko?
Because it's a “you” question, it follows the same casual-versus-polite split as everything else. To one friend it's đe si; to a group, or to someone you'd address formally, it becomes đe ste. Keep đe si for people you already know — with a stranger or in a shop, dobar dan is the right first move.
The time-of-day greetings are the polite backbone, and they're easy because they map onto English:
If you already know some Croatian, note one small border difference: Croatian says dobra večer for “good evening”, while Montenegrin — like Serbian — says dobro veče. It's the kind of tiny tell that marks which side of the region you learned in.
Here Montenegrin, like many languages, splits into a casual form and a polite or plural form. Use the casual one with friends and people your own age; the polite one with strangers, elders and in formal settings.
That si-versus-ste switch is the same politeness distinction as French tu / vous or German du / Sie. When in doubt with someone new, ste is the safer default. A natural full reply is Dobro sam, hvala — a ti? (“I'm well, thanks — and you?”), or a vi? in the polite form.
You already have ćao from the table — it does double duty as “bye” — but a few more cover every parting:
Greetings rarely come alone. These are the polite words that ride alongside them:
It's worth being straight about this, because it saves you relearning things later. The words above are, with one or two exceptions, the same across Montenegrin, Serbian and Bosnian. Three things give the set its Montenegrin character:
If you want the fuller picture of where the languages part ways, we lay it out in Montenegrin vs Serbian: what's actually different.
Greetings don't live in a list — they live in tiny exchanges. First, walking into a café (here izvolite? means “what can I get you?” and jednu kafu means “one coffee”):
You: Dobar dan! (Good afternoon!)
Waiter: Dobar dan, izvolite? (Good afternoon, what can I get you?)
You: Jednu kafu, molim. Hvala! (One coffee, please. Thanks!)
Waiter: Prijatno! (Enjoy!)
And then bumping into a friend on the street, where the register drops to đe si:
— Đe si, Marko! (Hey, Marko!)
— Zdravo! Kako si? (Hi! How are you?)
— Dobro sam, hvala — a ti? (I'm good, thanks — and you?)
— Odlično. Vidimo se! (Great. See you!)
— Ćao! (Bye!)
Notice you never needed a single complicated word — a handful of greetings and courtesies carried both interactions. That's exactly why they're worth banking first.
Is đe si proper Montenegrin? Yes. Both đe and gdje are accepted standard Montenegrin spellings. As a greeting, đe si is familiar and informal, so use it with friends; with strangers or in formal settings, dobar dan is the safer first move.
Are Montenegrin greetings different from Serbian ones? Mostly they are the same words. Montenegrin standard is ijekavian, so it uses forms such as živjeli. Serbian can be ekavian (živeli) or ijekavian (živjeli). The familiar greeting đe si is strongly associated with everyday Montenegro, while Croatian often uses dobra večer where Montenegrin and Serbian use dobro veče.
Do I need the Montenegrin letters ś and ź to say hello? No. The two extra Montenegrin letters, ś and ź, do not appear in the everyday greetings on this page. You can say every phrase here with the same letters used across the region, and pick up ś and ź later when you work on pronunciation.
You don't drill greetings into place — you use them until they stop feeling foreign. Practise đe si aloud and answer dobro sam, a ti? until the exchange feels natural. If you're mapping out the order that makes it all click, our honest guide to learning Montenegrin lays it out, and the 30 survival phrases for your first trip take you from hello to ordering, directions and paying. Montenegrin is live today — greetings and all. Start your free seven-day trial — no card →