Želela bih da prijavim gubitak svoje debitne kartice.

Želela bih means I would like, which is a polite, softened way to make a request.

• želim = I want
• želela bih = I would like

In places like a bank, police station, or customer service desk, želela bih sounds more natural and courteous than želim.

Also, želela bih is specifically the female form. A male speaker would say želeo bih.

Yes. In this sentence, želela shows that the speaker is female.

Serbian often marks gender in past-participle-based forms like this one:

• želela bih = a woman saying I would like
• želeo bih = a man saying I would like

So if a man were speaking, the sentence would be:

Želeo bih da prijavim gubitak svoje debitne kartice.

Bih is the auxiliary used to form the conditional, the equivalent of would in English.

So:

• želela = wanted / wished
• bih = would

Together, želela bih means I would like or literally something like I would wish.

In modern usage, learners should think of želela bih as a fixed polite expression meaning I would like.

Because Serbian usually does not need subject pronouns when the verb already shows who is doing the action.

Here, bih and prijavim already make it clear that the subject is I.

So:

• (Ja) želela bih da prijavim...
• Želela bih da prijavim...

Both are correct, but the version without ja is more natural unless you want emphasis.

If you say ja, it can sound like:

• I would like to report...
• as opposed to someone else

This is a very common feature of Serbian. Where English often uses an infinitive, Serbian often uses da + present tense.

So English:

• I would like to report

Serbian:

• Želela bih da prijavim

Here:

• da introduces the clause
• prijavim is the 1st person singular present form of prijaviti

This structure is extremely common and natural in Serbian.

Yes. Grammatically, prijavim is a present-tense form, but after da it often functions where English would use an infinitive.

So although it is formally present tense, in this construction you should understand it as part of the meaning to report.

This is normal in Serbian:

• Želim da idem = I want to go
• Mogu da pomognem = I can help
• Želela bih da prijavim = I would like to report

Here prijaviti means to report.

In this context, it means reporting something officially, for example to:

• a bank
• the police
• customer support
• an office or institution

So prijaviti gubitak means to report a loss.

It is a formal, administrative kind of wording, which fits the context very well.

Because prijaviti gubitak is a more formal and official expression.

Literally, it is to report the loss of ...

That sounds very natural in institutional situations. It is similar to formal English phrases like:

• I would like to report the loss of my debit card.

A more everyday Serbian sentence would be:

• Izgubila sam svoju debitnu karticu. = I lost my debit card.

But the given sentence is better for formal reporting.

Because kartice is the genitive singular form of kartica.

The basic noun is:

• debitna kartica = debit card

After the noun gubitak (loss), Serbian uses the genitive to express loss of something:

• gubitak kartice = loss of the card
• gubitak debitne kartice = loss of the debit card

So kartice is not plural here. It is singular genitive.

Because the adjective must agree with the noun it describes.

The dictionary form is:

• debitna kartica

But after gubitak, the noun goes into the genitive singular, so the adjective changes too:

• debitne kartice

So:

• debitna kartica = nominative singular
• debitne kartice = genitive singular

This agreement is very important in Serbian: adjectives change form to match the noun’s gender, number, and case.

Because Serbian normally uses the reflexive possessive svoj when the possessor is the same as the subject.

Here, the speaker is talking about her own debit card, so svoje is the most natural choice.

Compare:

• prijavim gubitak svoje debitne kartice = report the loss of my own debit card
• prijavim gubitak moje debitne kartice = grammatically possible, but less neutral; it can sound more emphatic or contrastive

A good rule is:

• use svoj when the owner is the subject of the sentence

Because svoje has to agree with kartice, and kartice is in the genitive singular here.

The phrase is:

• gubitak svoje debitne kartice

Since kartice is genitive singular, the possessive adjective must also be in a matching form.

You would use svoju if the noun were in the accusative singular, for example:

• Izgubila sam svoju debitnu karticu.
• I lost my debit card.

So the difference comes from case:

• svoje debitne kartice = genitive
• svoju debitnu karticu = accusative

The sentence is fairly natural as it stands:

Želela bih da prijavim gubitak svoje debitne kartice.

Serbian word order is somewhat flexible, but not completely free. In this sentence:

• Želela bih is the normal polite opening
• da prijavim naturally follows
• gubitak svoje debitne kartice is the object phrase

You might hear small variations for style or emphasis, but this version is standard and very natural in formal speech.

One thing to remember is that clitics like bih tend to appear early in the sentence, so Želela bih... sounds much better than rearrangements that separate it unnaturally.

Yes, it is polite and fairly formal.

It sounds exactly like the kind of sentence someone would say when speaking to:

• a bank employee
• a police officer
• a customer service representative

It is not overly stiff, but it is more formal than casual everyday speech.

For example, in casual conversation someone might simply say:

• Izgubila sam debitnu karticu.
• I lost my debit card.

But if you are making an official report, the original sentence is very appropriate.