Serbian alphabet: Cyrillic and Latin with pronunciation

The Serbian alphabet has 30 letters, and each one has a Cyrillic and a Latin form. Serbs use both scripts: Cyrillic is official, while Latin dominates shop signs, ads, messaging apps and the internet. The good news is that Serbian spelling is phonetic — “write as you speak, read as it is written”. Every letter is always pronounced the same way.

Serbian alphabet chart with pronunciation

Cyrillic	Latin	Sounds like	Example
А а	A a	a in “father”	avion
Б б	B b	b	banka
В в	V v	v	voda
Г г	G g	g in “go”	grad
Д д	D d	d	dan
Ђ ђ	Đ đ	soft “j” as in “jeep”	đak
Е е	E e	e in “bed”	evro
Ж ж	Ž ž	s in “pleasure”	žena
З з	Z z	z	zdravo
И и	I i	ee in “see”	ime
Ј ј	J j	y in “yes”	jabuka
К к	K k	k	kafa
Л л	L l	l	leto
Љ љ	Lj lj	lli in “million”	ljubav
М м	M m	m	mleko
Н н	N n	n	noć
Њ њ	Nj nj	ny in “canyon”	konj
О о	O o	o in “or”	oko
П п	P p	p	pivo
Р р	R r	rolled r, can be a vowel: prst, srce	riba
С с	S s	s	sok
Т т	T t	t	torba
Ћ ћ	Ć ć	soft “ch”, like “t” in “tune”	ćevapi
У у	U u	oo in “food”	ulica
Ф ф	F f	f	film
Х х	H h	ch in “loch”	hleb
Ц ц	C c	ts in “cats”	cena
Ч ч	Č č	ch in “church”	čaj
Џ џ	Dž dž	j in “jungle”	džem
Ш ш	Š š	sh	škola

Letters to watch out for

Ć and Č are two different “ch” sounds. Ć is soft (kuća, ćevapi); Č is hard (čaj, čovek).
Đ and Dž are the soft and hard “j”: đak, džem.
Lj and Nj are single letters in Cyrillic (Љ, Њ) written with two Latin letters: ljubav, konj.
J always sounds like the English “y”: jabuka — “yabooka”.
R can act as a vowel: srce (heart), prst (finger), Srbija.
C is always “ts”, never “k” or “s”: cena — “tsena”.

Stress and pitch

In words of more than one syllable, Serbian stress never falls on the last syllable, and vowels keep their full quality. Serbian also has rising and falling pitch accents. Beginners do not need to master them: listening and repeating after native speakers is enough, and every phrase in the phrasebook has audio.

Which alphabet should you learn first?

Start with Latin: it uses familiar letters and is what you will see most often in daily life. Then learn Cyrillic — once you know the Latin letters, it is mostly a matter of matching shapes. A couple of weeks of reading is enough to switch between the two comfortably.