Čast nema cenu.

Literally, it is:

• Čast = honor
• nema = does not have
• cenu = price

So the structure is basically Honor does not have a price.

In natural English, this is usually understood as Honor is priceless or Honor cannot be bought.

Because the verb here is imati (to have), not biti (to be).

• ima = has
• nema = does not have

So:

• Čast nema cenu = Honor does not have a price
• not Honor is not a price

In Serbian, ne + ima becomes the single form nema.

Because cenu is the accusative singular form of cena (price).

The noun cena changes like this:

• cena = nominative singular
• cenu = accusative singular

Here, cenu is the direct object of nema (does not have), so accusative is used.

Compare:

• Ovo je cena. = This is the price.
• Ovo nema cenu. = This has no price.

For a learner coming from English, this is very common in Serbian: the noun changes form depending on its role in the sentence.

Good question. In modern standard Serbian, with imati / nemati, the object is normally in the accusative:

• Ima cenu.
• Nema cenu.

So Čast nema cenu is completely normal.

You may sometimes run into genitive after negation in older, regional, or stylistically marked language, but that is not what is happening here. For this sentence, cenu is the expected form.

Yes, čast is feminine.

In Serbian, not all feminine nouns end in -a. A number of feminine nouns, especially abstract ones, end in a consonant. Čast is one of them.

Some other examples are:

• ljubav = love
• radost = joy
• mladost = youth

So even though čast ends in a consonant, it is still feminine.

Here, čast means honor, dignity, or personal integrity.

It refers to moral worth, not something material. That is why the sentence says it has no price: the idea is that honor is too valuable to be measured in money.

A useful thing to know is that čast can also mean other things in different contexts, for example:

• Bila mi je čast. = It was an honor for me.
• Ja častim. = It’s my treat.

But in Čast nema cenu, it clearly means honor.

Yes, very much so.

Although it is literally does not have a price, the phrase nema cenu is commonly used in the sense of:

• is priceless
• is invaluable
• cannot be measured in money

So this sentence sounds natural and idiomatic, not strange or overly literal.

You can use nema cenu for both serious and everyday situations:

• Pravo prijateljstvo nema cenu. = True friendship is priceless.
• Ovakav pogled nema cenu. = A view like this is priceless.

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

So:

• čast can mean honor, the honor, or honour in a general sense
• cenu can mean a price or the price, depending on context

In this sentence, English usually expresses the idea as Honor has no price or Honor is priceless, but Serbian does not need articles to say that.

The normal, neutral word order here is:

• Čast nema cenu.

That is the most natural version for most situations.

Serbian word order is more flexible than English word order, so other orders are sometimes possible for emphasis or style, but they would not be the default. For a learner, Čast nema cenu is the form to remember.

A beginner-friendly pronunciation guide would be:

• Čast ≈ chast (with č like ch in church)
• nema ≈ NEH-ma
• cenu ≈ TSEH-noo (with c like ts in cats)

So roughly:

CHAST NEH-ma TSEH-noo

A few sound notes:

• č = English ch
• c = ts
• e is a clear eh sound, not like the English name of the letter E

Yes. Some natural alternatives are:

• Čast je neprocenjiva. = Honor is invaluable.
• Čast se ne može kupiti. = Honor cannot be bought.

But Čast nema cenu is short, strong, and idiomatic, so it works especially well as a proverb-like statement.

It is mainly figurative.

Nobody is saying that honor is an object sitting in a shop without a price tag. The sentence means that honor is so important that it cannot be assigned a monetary value.

So the point is moral, not commercial: some things should not be measured in money.