Певати presents singing as an activity, habit, profession, or repeated performance. Perfective отпевати packages a song, verse, part, or performance as carried through to its relevant endpoint. English usually leaves that boundary implicit, translating both with sing, so Serbian learners must track the object and the speaker's viewpoint.
Principal forms
| Form | певати (imperfective) | отпевати (perfective) |
|---|---|---|
| present | певам, певаш, пева, певамо, певате, певају | отпевам, отпеваш, отпева, отпевамо, отпевате, отпевају |
| l-participle | певао / певала / певало; певали / певале / певала | отпевао / отпевала / отпевало; отпевали / отпевале / отпевала |
| imperative | певај, певајмо, певајте | отпевај, отпевајмо, отпевајте |
| future I, 1st singular | певаћу / ја ћу певати | отпеваћу / ја ћу отпевати |
| negative present | не певам | не отпевам |
Both verbs use regular a-class endings. The masculine l-participle is певао, not певио, and ordinary spelling does not mark the lexical accent.
Певам у малом хору који вежба четвртком увече.
I sing in a small choir that rehearses on Thursday evenings.
Отпевала је последњу песму без инструменталне пратње.
She sang the final song without instrumental accompaniment.
Song, part, and style as complements
A song, verse, melody, or vocal part is normally a direct accusative object: певати песму, певати рефрен, певати главну деоницу. Without an object, the verb simply names the activity.
Деца певају стару песму коју су научила од баке.
The children are singing an old song they learned from their grandmother.
Можеш ли да отпеваш прву строфу још једном?
Can you sing the first verse once more?
Она пева пратеће вокале, а брат јој свира клавир.
She sings backing vocals, and her brother plays the piano.
The person for whom one sings can be dative. The song remains accusative.
Мајка је детету тихо певала успаванку.
The mother quietly sang the child a lullaby.
English marks the recipient with word order or to/for; Serbian marks детету in the dative.
Topic, language, place, and manner
О + locative marks what a song is about. На + locative commonly identifies the language of performance. Location and performance setting follow the noun's ordinary frame: у хору / у дворани, but на концерту / на сцени.
Певају о граду у ком су одрасли.
They sing about the city in which they grew up.
На концерту је певала на српском и енглеском.
At the concert she sang in Serbian and English.
Као студент сам певао у црквеном хору.
As a student, I sang in a church choir. (male speaker)
Manner appears through adverbs or instrumental phrases: певати тихо, гласно, дубоким гласом. The idiom на сав глас means at the top of one's voice.
У колима смо певали на сав глас, иако нико није знао цео текст.
In the car we sang at the top of our voices, although nobody knew all the lyrics.
Aspect: performance in progress or delivered whole
Use певати when duration, repetition, interruption, or the internal course of singing matters. Use отпевати when the relevant unit is successfully performed or completed.
Певала је скоро два сата и после концерта једва је говорила.
She sang for almost two hours and could barely speak after the concert.
Кад отпевамо бис, поклонићемо се и сићи са бине.
When we have sung the encore, we'll bow and leave the stage.
Није отпевао песму до краја јер му је отказао микрофон.
He didn't finish singing the song because his microphone failed.
The last negated perfective denies the expected endpoint. Певао је песму could still be true: the activity began, but the completed performance did not occur.
Perfective present отпевамо is future-oriented after кад. It does not normally mean “we are singing right now” in an independent clause.
Other prefixed relatives
Запевати marks the onset: start or burst into song. Препевати means adapt or translate a song's lyrics into another language or version. Испевати can mean compose or express in verse/song and is often (literary); it is not the ordinary perfective for performing one song.
Кад је чуо познату мелодију, одмах је запевао.
When he heard the familiar melody, he immediately began to sing.
Песникиња је стару баладу препевала на савремени српски.
The poet adapted the old ballad into contemporary Serbian.
Песник је у том циклусу испевао причу о изгнанству.
In that cycle, the poet rendered a story of exile in verse. (literary)
These verbs have distinct lexical results. A shared root does not make every derivative a substitute for отпевати; compare the broader aspectual-network guide.
Singing is not playing an instrument
English perform and play can blur musical roles. Serbian uses певати for the voice and свирати for an instrument. A complete instrumental performance can be одсвирати; playing a recording is пустити.
Ја певам, Марко свира гитару, а Јелена пушта снимљену пратњу.
I sing, Marko plays guitar, and Jelena plays the recorded backing track.
The three verbs encode different kinds of musical action even though English may repeat play.
Clitics and је / ју
A feminine accusative object such as песму can be replaced by је or ју according to the clitic environment. Before third-person auxiliary је, standard usage prefers ју је to avoid two identical clitics.
Нову песму је први пут отпевала јуче, а вечерас ју је отпевала пред публиком.
She sang the new song for the first time yesterday, and tonight she performed it before an audience.
In a negative perfect there is no affirmative auxiliary је: није је отпевала is natural.
На проби је није отпевала до краја, али вечерас ју је извела без грешке.
At rehearsal she did not sing it through, but tonight she performed it without a mistake.
See the је / ју clitic guide for the full distribution.
Passive-like and impersonal се
In ова песма се пева, the song is a nominative subject and controls agreement. In impersonal на свадби се певало, there is no nominative subject and the past is neuter singular.
Ова песма се пева на крају сваке утакмице.
This song is sung at the end of every match.
После вечере се певало до касно у ноћ.
After dinner, people sang until late at night.
Personal “I sing” is simply певам, without се.
Micro-dialogue
„Шта певаш на концерту?“ — „Две народне песме.“ — „Хоћеш ли отпевати и ону нову?“ — „Хоћу, ако бенд стигне да је увежба.“
‘What are you singing at the concert?’ — ‘Two folk songs.’ — ‘Will you sing the new one too?’ — ‘I will, if the band has time to rehearse it.’
The activity/program question uses певаш, while the question about delivering one particular song uses отпевати.
Common Mistakes
❌ Као дете сам певио у школском хору.
Incorrect — the masculine l-participle is певао, not певио.
✅ Као дете сам певао у школском хору.
As a child, I sang in the school choir. (male speaker)
❌ Ана пева клавир, а брат јој пева гитару.
Incorrect English transfer — instruments use свирати, not певати.
✅ Ана свира клавир, а брат јој свира гитару.
Ana plays the piano, and her brother plays guitar.
❌ Сада отпева исту песму већ десет минута.
Incorrect for an activity unfolding now — perfective отпева cannot carry this ongoing-present reading.
✅ Сада пева исту песму већ десет минута.
He has been singing the same song for ten minutes now.
❌ Милица се пева док спрема вечеру.
Incorrect — personal singing is nonreflexive; се belongs only to a passive-like or impersonal construction here.
✅ Милица пева док спрема вечеру.
Milica sings while she prepares dinner.
Practice Tasks
Task 1: Build the complete entry
Give the first-person singular, third-person plural, feminine l-participle, singular imperative, and first-person future of певати and отпевати. Then use perfective present отпевам after кад.
Task 2: Choose the musical verb
Translate situations involving singing a song, playing guitar, playing a recorded song, starting to sing, and adapting lyrics. Use певати, свирати, пустити, запевати, and препевати.
Key Takeaways
- Певати presents singing as activity or habit; отпевати presents one song, part, or performance as carried through.
- Both follow the a-class: певам — певају, отпевам — отпевају.
- The song is accusative, a recipient may be dative, and a topic follows о + locative.
- Запевати, препевати, and испевати add onset, adaptation, or literary creation; they are not generic synonyms.
- Use свирати for instruments and пустити for recordings; use ју је when a feminine object clitic precedes auxiliary је.
Now practice Serbian
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Start learning Serbian →Related Topics
- Present Tense: -a- VerbsA1 — The largest, most regular present conjugation.
- Aspectual Pairs versus Related VerbsB1 — A focused guide to aspectual pairs versus related verbs in Serbian.
- Accusative: The Direct ObjectA1 — The accusative as the default object of transitive verbs.
- Dative: The Indirect ObjectA2 — The recipient/beneficiary role — 'to/for someone'.
- Clitic Pronoun Forms and the je/ju ProblemB1 — The full clitic inventory and the je vs ju feminine accusative.