Bravo, uštedeli ste novac!

to be

Breakdown of Bravo, uštedeli ste novac!

• novac: money
• uštedeti: to save money
• bravo: well done

Questions & Answers about Bravo, uštedeli ste novac!

Why is ste used here?

Ste is the 2nd person plural present form of biti (to be), but here it works as an auxiliary verb to form the perfect tense.

So uštedeli ste means you saved / you have saved.

In Serbian, the perfect is commonly built like this:

• auxiliary (sam, si, je, smo, ste, su)
• • past participle

Examples:

• uštedio sam = I saved
• uštedela si = you saved
• uštedeli ste = you saved / you have saved

In this sentence, ste can refer to:

• you all saved, or
• you saved (polite/formal singular)

Why is it uštedeli, not uštedio or uštedela?

The form uštedeli agrees with the subject in number and sometimes gender.

Here are the main possibilities:

• uštedio = masculine singular
• uštedela = feminine singular
• uštedelo = neuter singular
• uštedeli = masculine plural or mixed-gender plural
• uštedele = feminine plural

Because the sentence uses ste, the full meaning could be: