Gledala sam svuda.

Both are possible, but gledala sam is a very common word order in Serbian.

The past tense is made with:

• the past participle: gledala
• the auxiliary sam = I am / have as part of the past tense

So grammatically, sam belongs to the verb phrase, but Serbian word order is more flexible than English. In natural speech, clitics like sam often come in the second position of the clause, which is why learners see different orders in real sentences.

You may hear:

• Gledala sam svuda.
• Svuda sam gledala.

Both are natural, but the emphasis is slightly different.

Because the speaker is female.

In Serbian past tense, the participle agrees with the gender of the subject:

• gledao sam = I looked / I was looking if the speaker is male
• gledala sam = I looked / I was looking if the speaker is female

So gledala sam svuda tells you that the speaker is a woman or girl.

Sam is the 1st person singular auxiliary used to form the past tense.

The Serbian past tense is often built like this:

• radio sam = I worked
• pisala sam = I wrote / I was writing
• gledala sam = I looked / I was looking

So in this sentence:

• gledala = past participle of gledati
• sam = marks I

Together they mean I looked / I was looking.

Because Serbian often drops subject pronouns when they are already clear from the verb form.

Here, sam already tells you the subject is I, so ja is unnecessary.

You could say:

• Ja sam gledala svuda.

But that usually adds emphasis, such as:

• I was the one looking everywhere.

In neutral speech, ja is usually omitted.

Svuda means everywhere or all around.

In this sentence, it means the person was looking in many places, not just one.

Examples:

• Tražila sam te svuda. = I looked for you everywhere.
• Bio sam svuda po gradu. = I was all over the city.

So Gledala sam svuda means something like I was looking everywhere.

It can mean either, depending on context.

The verb gledati is imperfective, so it often suggests an ongoing, repeated, or uncompleted action. Because of that, in many contexts I was looking everywhere is a very natural translation.

But English and Serbian do not match tense forms exactly, so sometimes I looked everywhere also works.

The exact English choice depends on the situation:

• if you are describing an ongoing search, I was looking everywhere
• if you are summarizing the completed search, I looked everywhere

The base verb is gledati, which usually means to look, to watch, or to see depending on context.

Here are some forms:

• gledati = infinitive
• gledam = I look / I am looking
• gledala sam = I looked / I was looking

In this sentence, gledati is being used in the sense of looking around / searching visually.

There are a few similar words, but they are not exactly the same.

For example:

• svuda = everywhere
• svugde = everywhere
• na sve strane = in all directions / all over the place

Both svuda and svugde are common and often interchangeable:

• Gledala sam svuda.
• Gledala sam svugde.

The difference is mostly regional or stylistic, not a major difference in meaning.

Yes. Serbian word order is flexible, and changing the order can change emphasis.

Possible versions include:

• Gledala sam svuda.
• Svuda sam gledala.
• Ja sam gledala svuda.

These all mean roughly the same thing, but:

• Gledala sam svuda sounds neutral
• Svuda sam gledala emphasizes everywhere
• Ja sam gledala svuda emphasizes I

So word order in Serbian often helps show what the speaker wants to stress.

Not exactly.

• gledati = to look, to watch
• tražiti = to look for, to search for

So:

• Gledala sam svuda = I was looking everywhere
• Tražila sam ga svuda = I was looking for him everywhere

If the object is not stated, gledala sam svuda focuses on the act of looking around. It may imply searching, but it does not explicitly say what was being searched for.

A man would say:

• Gledao sam svuda.

The only change is:

• gledala → gledao

That is because the past participle must match the speaker’s gender:

• female: gledala sam
• male: gledao sam