I lived off pointing and hoping for my first month in Serbia. It works until it doesn't — until you get home with sour cream instead of yoghurt, or discover the "juice" was concentrated squash you were meant to dilute nine to one. None of it's hard once you've been burned, and the good news is that a supermarket is the gentlest place to practise reading: nobody's rushing you, the words repeat aisle after aisle, and you can stand there mouthing brašno until it sticks. Here's the vocabulary that did the most for me, in the order you'll bump into it.
The shelf edge: what the labels actually say
Serbian and Montenegrin are near-identical here — the main split is the vowel (ekavica mleko vs ijekavica mlijeko), and I've flagged that where it bites. Print the table, or better, photograph a real shelf edge and match the words.
| Serbian / Montenegrin | English | Say it |
|---|
| mleko / mlijeko | milk | MLEH-ko / MLYEH-ko |
| hleb / hljeb | bread | hleb / hlyeb |
| jaja | eggs | YA-ya |
| sir | cheese | seer |
| puter / maslac | butter | POO-ter / MAS-lats |
| meso | meat | MEH-so |
| piletina | chicken | pee-LEH-tee-na |
| voće / povrće | fruit / vegetables | VO-cheh / POV-r-cheh |
| brašno | flour | BRASH-no |
| šećer / so | sugar / salt | SHEH-cher / soh |
| voda (gazirana / negazirana) | water (sparkling / still) | VO-da |
The small print that saves you money (and your stomach)
These are the words on the price stickers and the back of the pack — the ones nobody teaches you but you read every single visit.
- akcija — on offer. A red tag with akcija or sniženo (reduced) is the one to look for. popust is a discount, often written like −20%.
- rok trajanja — shelf life / use-by. Paired with upotrebiti do (use by) or the softer najbolje upotrebiti do (best before). Dates run day-month-year, so 05.11.26. is the 5th of November.
- cena / cijena — price. na kilo means priced per kilo, which matters at the loose fruit and veg you weigh yourself.
- posno — the sleeper hit. It marks food fit for an Orthodox fast: no meat, dairy or eggs. It's the nearest thing to a "vegan" label you'll see, and it's everywhere in the weeks before Christmas and Easter. bez glutena is gluten-free.
Weigh-it-yourself trap. At most Serbian supermarkets you bag your own fruit and veg, then put it on a scale in the produce section and press the picture of the thing you've got. The scale prints a barcode. Forget it and the checkout sends you back — I once held up a whole queue over a single peach. Look for the word vaga (scale) and the numbered buttons.
Surviving the checkout (kasa)
The kasa (checkout) is where beginners freeze, because it's fast and it's a script. Learn the three or four questions you'll be asked and you can run on autopilot:
- Kesa? / Treba li vam kesa? — "Bag?" / "Do you need a bag?" Answer da or ne. Bags cost a few dinars, so this is a real question, not a courtesy.
- Sitno? — "Any small change?" They're asking if you have coins so they can give you rounder change. Nemam (I don't have) is a fine answer.
- Račun? — "Receipt?" Da, hvala or ne treba (no need).
Your side of it is tiny: Dobar dan walking up, hvala when you pay, prijatan dan (have a nice day) as you leave. If you want to pay by card, karticom ("by card"); cash is keš or gotovina. That's the whole transaction.
Where you'll shop
Two words worth knowing before you go: the big chains — Maxi, Idea, Univerexport in Serbia, Voli and Aroma in Montenegro — are the supermarket or samoposluga (self-service shop). The little corner shop open till midnight is a prodavnica or, colloquially, a radnja. And the real joy, the open-air pijaca (market), is where your fruit-and-veg words earn their keep — but that's cash only and a different kind of haggle.
FAQ
What does posno mean on Serbian food labels? It marks food suitable for an Orthodox fast — no meat, dairy, eggs or animal fat. It's effectively a "vegan" flag, most common before Christmas and Easter.
How do I read the use-by date? Find rok trajanja or upotrebiti do and read the date as day-month-year. Najbolje upotrebiti do is "best before".
Is the vocabulary the same in Montenegro? Almost entirely. You'll see the ijekavica spellings (mlijeko, hljeb) and hear a few different brand names, but the shopping words are shared. More on that in Montenegrin vs Serbian.
None of this needs a classroom — it needs one shop. Read the shelf edges out loud, get one thing wrong, laugh, remember it forever. When you want the words to arrive in the order you'll actually meet them, Gora drills exactly this kind of everyday vocabulary, and you can rehearse the checkout script with the fox before a real cashier is staring at you. If you fancy the tastier half of this — what's in the trolley rather than on the label — I wrote up the food words next door, and the full path is in the learn-Serbian roadmap. What did you buy by accident on your first shop?
Learn the everyday words — free →