Čitaonica ima zbirku.

Not exactly.

Čitaonica usually means reading room or study room: a place where people sit and read. In some contexts it can be part of a library, but the usual Serbian word for library is biblioteka.

So Čitaonica ima zbirku. most literally means something like The reading room has a collection.

Because zbirku is in the accusative case.

The verb imati = to have normally takes a direct object, and direct objects are often in the accusative in Serbian.

• zbirka = nominative singular
• zbirku = accusative singular

So:

• Čitaonica = the subject, in nominative
• ima zbirku = has a collection, where zbirku is the object

This is very common with feminine nouns ending in -a:

• knjiga → knjigu
• škola → školu
• zbirka → zbirku

Ima is the 3rd person singular present tense of imati = to have.

The present-tense forms are:

• ja imam = I have
• ti imaš = you have
• on/ona/ono ima = he/she/it has
• mi imamo = we have
• vi imate = you plural / you formal have
• oni/one/ona imaju = they have

Since čitaonica is singular, the sentence uses ima.

Čitaonica is feminine. You can usually tell because it ends in -a.

Yes, gender matters in Serbian because it affects:

• adjective endings
• pronouns
• some past-tense forms
• case endings

In this sentence, čitaonica is the subject and stays in the nominative singular. The verb ima does not change for gender in the present tense, so you do not see a gender difference on the verb here.

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

So Čitaonica ima zbirku. could mean:

• The reading room has a collection
• A reading room has a collection

Which one sounds best depends on context.

Serbian usually shows definiteness through context, word order, or additional words if needed.

Yes, Serbian word order is more flexible than English, because case endings help show the roles of words.

The neutral order here is:

• Čitaonica ima zbirku.

But other orders may be possible for emphasis, such as:

• Zbirku ima čitaonica.

That might sound marked or contrastive, like It is the reading room that has the collection.

For learners, it is best to start with the neutral subject-verb-object order:

• Čitaonica ima zbirku.

A simple approximate pronunciation is:

• čitaonica ≈ chee-tah-OH-nee-tsah
• zbirku ≈ ZBEER-koo

A few useful notes:

• č sounds roughly like ch in chocolate, but harder
• c in Serbian usually sounds like ts, though there is no plain c in this sentence
• zb at the start of zbirku is pronounced together; Serbian allows consonant clusters that may feel unusual to English speakers

Also, Serbian spelling is very regular: words are usually pronounced much the way they are written.

No. In Serbian, subject pronouns are often omitted because the verb form already gives enough information.

So:

• Čitaonica ima zbirku.

is complete and natural.

You would only add a pronoun like ona if you wanted emphasis or contrast:

• Ona ima zbirku. = It/she has a collection.

But when the noun čitaonica is already there, adding ona would usually be unnecessary.

Grammatically, yes.

It is a correct sentence meaning that a reading room has some kind of collection. Whether it sounds fully natural depends on the situation.

If you mean a library has a collection, Serbian speakers would more often say:

• Biblioteka ima zbirku.

If you really mean a reading room that owns or contains a collection, then Čitaonica ima zbirku. is fine.

The dictionary forms are:

• čitaonica = reading room
• imati = to have
• zbirka = collection

In the sentence, only zbirka changes form:

• dictionary form: zbirka
• in the sentence: zbirku

That change happens because it is the direct object after ima.