Pacijent kašlje, ali može da diše.

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

So pacijent can mean:

• the patient
• a patient

Which one is meant depends on context. In a medical situation, Pacijent kašlje... will often be understood as The patient is coughing...

Pacijent is in the nominative singular, because it is the subject of the sentence.

The basic dictionary form is also pacijent.

Here it is the person doing the actions:

• kašlje = is coughing / coughs
• može da diše = can breathe

So pacijent stays in the nominative.

Kašlje comes from the verb kašljati, which means to cough.

In this sentence, kašlje is:

• 3rd person singular
• present tense

So it means:

• he/she coughs
• he/she is coughing

Because the subject is pacijent, English usually translates it naturally as The patient is coughing.

A rough pronunciation is KASH-lyeh.

A few helpful points:

• š sounds like sh in shoe
• lj is a single Serbian sound, similar to the lli in some pronunciations of million, or a soft ly
• e is usually pronounced clearly, like e in met, not silent

So:

• kašlje ≈ KASH-lyeh

Because ali means but, and in Serbian it is normally preceded by a comma when it connects two clauses.

So:

• Pacijent kašlje, ali može da diše.
• The patient is coughing, but can breathe.

This is very similar to English punctuation.

Because Serbian often expresses can + verb with:

• moći = can / to be able
• da + present tense verb

So:

• može = can / is able
• da diše = to breathe in this construction

Literally, it looks like:

• can that breathes

But that is just how Serbian grammar works here. The natural English meaning is simply:

• can breathe

Yes, može disati is also possible.

Both mean can breathe:

• može da diše
• može disati

However, in Serbian, da + present tense is very common and often sounds more natural in everyday speech.

So in ordinary usage, može da diše is extremely normal.

The verb here is disati = to breathe.

In the sentence, it becomes diše because it matches:

• 3rd person singular
• present tense

That agrees with the subject pacijent.

Compare:

• ja dišem = I breathe / am breathing
• ti dišeš = you breathe
• on/ona diše = he/she breathes
• pacijent diše = the patient breathes

Because pacijent is singular, we use diše.

Yes, in a way.

Serbian often omits subject pronouns when they are not necessary, because the verb ending already shows the person and number.

So instead of saying:

• On kašlje, ali može da diše. = He is coughing, but he can breathe.

Serbian can simply say:

• Pacijent kašlje, ali može da diše.

Since pacijent is already the subject, there is no need to add on.

It can mean either, depending on context.

Serbian present tense often covers both:

• simple present
• present continuous

So:

• Pacijent kašlje can mean The patient coughs or The patient is coughing
• in this medical context, is coughing is usually the best translation

Likewise:

• može da diše = can breathe
• sometimes also understood as is able to breathe

The sentence presents a contrast:

• Pacijent kašlje = there is a problem
• ali može da diše = but the situation is not as severe as it could be

So ali introduces the important contrast:

• The patient is coughing, but can breathe.

In conversation, the second part often carries the reassuring point:

• coughing is happening,
• but breathing is still possible.

A simple English-friendly approximation is:

PA-tsi-yent KASH-lyeh, AH-lee MO-zhe da DEE-sheh.

A few sound notes:

• c in pacijent sounds like ts
• j sounds like English y
• ž in može sounds like the s in measure
• š sounds like sh

So a smoother approximation is:

PA-tsi-yent KASH-lyeh, AH-lee MO-zhe da DEE-sheh.