Svi su ovde sem kralja.

Svi means everyone or all here.

More literally, it is the plural form of sav meaning all / whole, but in a sentence like this it works as a pronoun: everyone.

So:

• Svi su ovde = Everyone is here

Not necessarily.

In Serbian, svi is the masculine plural form, but masculine plural is also the normal form for a mixed group or for a group whose gender is not being specified.

So svi can mean:

• all the men
• everyone in a mixed group
• people in general

If you were clearly talking only about a group of women, you would normally use sve instead:

• Sve su ovde = They are all here / All the women are here

Su is the 3rd person plural present tense of the verb biti meaning to be.

So:

• su = are

In this sentence:

• Svi su ovde = Everyone is here

Even though English uses is with everyone, Serbian uses plural here because svi is grammatically plural.

Because su is a clitic in Serbian. Clitics usually go in the second position of the sentence or clause.

So:

• Svi su ovde is natural
• Su svi ovde is not normal

This second-position rule is very common with short forms such as:

• sam, si, je, smo, ste, su
• short object pronouns like ga, je, ih
• se

So the word order here is following a basic Serbian clitic pattern.

Because after sem, Serbian uses the genitive case.

The dictionary form is:

• kralj = king

But after sem, it becomes:

• kralja = of the king / the king in the genitive

So:

• sem kralja = except the king

This is one of the most important things to notice in the sentence.

Sem takes the genitive.

That is why you get:

• sem kralja
• not sem kralj

Other examples:

• sem mene = except me
• sem tebe = except you
• sem dece = except the children

So when you learn sem, it is best to learn it together with the rule:

• sem + genitive

Yes, in this sentence they mean basically the same thing: except.

So you could also say:

• Svi su ovde osim kralja.

That version is often more common in everyday speech. Sem is perfectly correct, but it can sound a bit more literary, compact, or stylistically marked depending on context and speaker.

Both sem and osim take the genitive.

Because Serbian does not have articles like English the and a/an.

So Serbian simply says:

• kralj = king or the king, depending on context
• kralja = king or the king in the genitive, depending on context

English must choose between a king and the king, but Serbian usually leaves that to context.

In this sentence, the meaning is clearly the king.

Yes.

• ovde is the Ekavian form
• ovdje is the Ijekavian form

Both mean here.

So depending on the variety of Serbian, you may see:

• Svi su ovde sem kralja.
• Svi su ovdje sem kralja.

Both are correct in their respective standards/usage.

Yes, often you can.

• ovde = here
• tu = there / here, depending on context

In many real conversations, tu can sound very natural:

• Svi su tu sem kralja.

That still means Everyone is here except the king.

Very roughly:

• ovde points more directly to this place here
• tu can be a bit less exact and often means there, but in many everyday situations it overlaps with ovde

So ovde is the clearest direct equivalent of English here, but tu is also common in speech.