Standard Serbian spelling is highly phonemic: its 30 letters map consistently to sounds, so unfamiliar words are easier to pronounce than in English. Ten letters are new to English speakers — c, č, ć, dž, đ, j, lj, nj, š and ž — along with the throaty h and a rolled r. Ordinary spelling does not mark vowel length or pitch accent, and a few spellings preserve letters differently from speech, so listening still matters.
A student asked me last week how she'd ever hear the difference between č and ć. I told her a small secret that took the fear out of it — it's at the end of this guide. First, the good news about the whole system.
Published 14 June 2026
Maja here — I teach this language for a living, and Serbian spelling gives learners a genuine head start. Its 30-letter Latin and Cyrillic alphabets correspond one-to-one, and most letters represent a stable sound, so once you know the unfamiliar letters you can decode most new words without English-style “though/tough/through” guesswork. It is not a perfect phonetic transcription: ordinary text leaves stress, pitch and vowel length unmarked, and a small set of spellings preserves word structure even when neighbouring consonants change in speech. The regular foundation comes from the 19th-century reform associated with Vuk Karadžić and one famous principle:
Piši kao što govoriš, čitaj kako je napisano. Write as you speak, read as it is written.
That principle largely stuck. Your first task is learning the ten unfamiliar letters; careful listening then supplies the stress, pitch and length that ordinary spelling leaves out.
The ten letters worth your attention
c — always "ts" as in cats. Never "k", never "s". Crna Gora starts with "ts".
j — always "y" as in yes. Ja (I) = "ya".
š — "sh". Šta? (what?) = "shta".
ž — the "s" in pleasure. Žao mi je (I'm sorry).
č — a hard "ch" as in church. Čaj (tea).
ć — a softer "ch", tongue up behind your top teeth. Ćao!
dž — the "j" in jam. Džem is, in fact, jam.
đ — its softer twin, roughly the "j" in jeep. Đe si? — the classic Montenegrin hello.
lj — "ly", like the middle of million. Ljubav (love).
nj — "ny", like canyon or Spanish ñ. Konj (horse).
Serbian has five vowel letters — a e i o u — with much steadier qualities than English vowels. Each can be short or long, however, and ordinary spelling does not show that length or the word's pitch accent.
Here are the same consonants in one scannable place, with their Cyrillic partners — Serbian is written in both alphabets — and a Serbian example each. The last two, h and r, use familiar shapes but carry sounds an English eye doesn't expect, so they're worth a line too.
Latin
Cyrillic
Sounds roughly like
Serbian example
c
ц
"ts" in cats (never "k" or "s")
cena — price
č
ч
a firm "ch" as in church
čaj — tea
ć
ћ
a softer, lighter "ch", made behind the teeth
noć — night
dž
џ
the "j" in jam
džem — jam
đ
ђ
its softer twin, roughly the "j" in jeep
đak — pupil
j
ј
"y" in yes
ja — I
lj
љ
"lli" in million
ljubav — love
nj
њ
"ny" in canyon (Spanish ñ)
konj — horse
š
ш
"sh" in ship
šuma — forest
ž
ж
"s" in pleasure
žena — woman
h
х
a raspy "h" from the throat, like the "ch" in Scottish loch (often lighter)
hvala — thank you
r
р
a tapped or rolled "r", as in Spanish or Italian
reka — river
The secret about č and ć
Now, what I told my student. Yes, there's a real difference: č is hard and comes from the middle of your mouth, ć is soft and made just behind your teeth. Practise with čaj versus ćao. But here's the part textbooks won't admit: plenty of native speakers barely separate them in fast speech, and in some cities the two have all but merged. In eleven years of teaching, I have never once seen a č/ć mix-up cause a misunderstanding. Learn the difference, aim for it, and refuse to let it scare you out of speaking. The same goes for dž and đ.
Words with no vowels (they're fine)
At some point you'll meet trg (square), vrt (garden), prst (finger), and panic slightly. The trick: our r can carry a syllable by itself. Roll it lightly — "trrg" — and the word simply works. Even the name Srbija does this. Ask any local to say na vrh brda vrba mrda (on the top of the hill a willow sways) and you'll see the r doing the work of a whole vowel, five times, with a straight face.
And stress?
In the standard pattern, stress does not fall on the final syllable of a word with more than one syllable, but its exact position is not written in ordinary text. Serbian also distinguishes rising and falling pitch and short and long vowels; regional speech does not realise all of those contrasts identically. For a learner, the practical move is to copy a recording or speaker from the start instead of guessing from spelling alone.
Two quick questions I always get
Do Serbian and Montenegrin sound different? A little. Montenegrin says mlijeko where Serbian says mleko, and officially adds two soft letters, ś and ź. Everything above applies to both.
Do I need Cyrillic for good pronunciation? No — both alphabets spell the same sounds one-to-one. When you're ready to read menus and street signs, our 20-minute Cyrillic guide is waiting.
Best next step: put five of these sounds into words you'll actually say this week — the greetings are perfect for it — then say them out loud to a patient listener. If you don't have one handy, the fox in Gora has heard every possible mispronunciation of ćevapi and loves you anyway. So — čaj or ćao: can you hear it yet?
Pronunciation is step one of a longer path — the whole route is mapped in our beginner’s roadmap to Serbian, with a guide linked for every stage.