Good news: the Serbian future tense is one of the friendliest things you will meet in this language. You take the infinitive, trim the ending a little, and clip on a small personal suffix. That is genuinely all there is to it at the start. A cheerful New Year song is going to seal the whole pattern in your memory before you even realise it.

Think of the suffixes as a tiny family: -ću, -ćeš, -će, -ćemo, -ćete, -će. Learn those six shapes once and you can build a future sentence for almost any verb. Let the song do the rest of the heavy lifting.

The Rule - Infinitive Stem Plus Future Suffix

Take the infinitive, drop the final -ti (and sometimes a little more), and attach the suffix for the person you need. Here is the full set laid out clearly:

Person Suffix Example: pevati (to sing)
ja (I) -ću pevacu
ti (you) -ćeš pevaces
on/ona (he/she) -će pevace
mi (we) -ćemo pevacemo
vi (you pl.) -ćete pevacete
oni (they) -će pevace

Notice that on/ona and oni share the same -će ending - context tells you which is which. And the stem is simply the infinitive minus its -ti tail, which is very tidy once you get the feel for it.

Do It Yourself - First and Second Person Singular

Try building the ja and ti forms for these four verbs before you scroll down to the song. Write them out by hand if you can - that tiny effort makes a real difference.

Hint: biti is a little irregular - its future forms are bicu and bices. All the others follow the clean rule above.

The Song - Check Your Answers

Here is the New Year gap-fill. The English hints in brackets show you which form to use. The answers to the drill above are hiding inside these very lines - a satisfying moment when they click into place.

_____ [you'll have] ih mnogo, _____ [you'll play] se njima
_____ [you'll kiss] ih mnogo, ali ne daj se bas svima
U ponoć _____ [I'll be] tu i _____ [I'll kiss] te tad
U ponoć poželi tvoj deda-mraz sam _____ [I].

Nove godine zato _____ [are coming]
Nove godine u pravi cas za _____ [us].
Nove _____ [years] zato dolaze
Nove _____ [years] u pravi cas za nas.

Did imaces, igraces, ljubices, and bicu / bices land in the right spots? If so, the future tense is already yours. If one slipped, just re-read the rule table above and try once more - it will stick on the second pass.

Hear It - the Song in Full

Now listen to the original recording. Hearing the future forms sung at natural speed is worth ten grammar tables - your ear will start to recognise the suffixes without any conscious effort.

Why the Future Is a Friendly Place to Start

The same six suffixes work across the vast majority of Serbian verbs, so every new infinitive you learn immediately gives you six future sentences for free. There are a handful of irregular forms (biti being the main one), but they are the exception rather than the rule, and you will absorb them naturally through songs and conversation long before you need to memorise them consciously.

Think of it this way: you have just bought a master key that opens hundreds of doors. The song is your first door - step through it, and the next ones will open more and more easily.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there more than one future form in Serbian?
Yes - Serbian has a short (clitic) future form as well, built with ću, ćeš, ce... placed before the infinitive (e.g. ću pevati). The suffixed form you practised here is the long form. Both are correct and common; learners usually start with the suffixed version because it is very visible and easy to spot in songs.
Do I need to perfect the future tense before moving on?
Not at all. You just need to recognise the pattern and be able to build a couple of forms yourself. Real fluency comes from hearing and reading lots of Serbian, not from drilling tables in isolation. The song has already done most of the work for you.
What do the bracketed hints in the gap-fill mean?
They give you the English meaning of the missing form so you know which person and tense to aim for. Cover the hints if you want a greater challenge, or keep them visible if you are just starting out - either approach is perfectly fine.

I hope the New Year song has made the future feel like familiar ground. I am Marina Petrovic, and I put these exercises together because I believe real language - music, jokes, poems - teaches better than any textbook. Keep at it, be patient with yourself, and the suffixes will become second nature sooner than you think. For a wider look at how Serbian verbs work across all tenses, visit the Serbian conjugations hub - there is plenty more to explore there.