Utakmica počinje u sedam.

Utakmica usually means a sports match/game. In English, the best translation depends on the sport and context:

• football match
• basketball game
• tennis match

So both match and game can be right. For non-sports game, Serbian more often uses igra.

Serbian does not have articles like English the and a/an. So utakmica can mean:

• a match
• the match

You understand which one is meant from context.

Utakmica is a feminine noun. Many Serbian nouns ending in -a are feminine.

That matters for things like adjectives and past-tense forms. For example:

• važna utakmica = an important match

In this sentence, though, the verb form počinje does not show gender, so you do not see feminine agreement on the verb.

Počinje is 3rd person singular present tense, meaning starts / begins.

It matches the subject utakmica, which is singular.
A useful dictionary pair is:

• početi = to start, to begin
• počinjati = to be starting / to start habitually or in progress

The form počinje is the natural present-tense form used here.

This is very normal in Serbian. The present tense is often used for scheduled future events, just as English sometimes does:

• The train leaves at six.
• School starts on Monday.

So Utakmica počinje u sedam is a natural way to say that the match is scheduled to start at seven.

With clock times, Serbian uses u where English uses at.

So:

• u sedam = at seven
• u pet = at five
• u deset = at ten

If you already know some cases: this is u + accusative for a specific point in time. With sedam, the form does not visibly change.

Here it means at seven o’clock.

If you want to say in seven hours, Serbian would normally say:

• za sedam sati

So:

• u sedam = at seven
• za sedam sati = in seven hours

Yes. Both are correct:

• Utakmica počinje u sedam.
• Utakmica počinje u sedam sati.

Adding sati makes the time expression a little more explicit, but in everyday speech it is often left out when the meaning is obvious.

No, Serbian word order is fairly flexible.
Utakmica počinje u sedam is a neutral, natural order.

You could also say:

• U sedam počinje utakmica.
• Počinje u sedam.

The basic meaning stays the same, but the emphasis changes slightly. For example, starting with u sedam puts more focus on the time.

A rough pronunciation guide is:

oo-TAK-mee-tsa po-CHEE-nyeh oo SE-dam

A few key sounds:

• c = ts as in cats
• č = ch as in church
• nj = ny as in canyon

One nice thing about Serbian is that spelling is very phonetic, so words are usually pronounced much as they are written.

In Serbian Cyrillic, it is:

Утакмица почиње у седам.

Serbian is commonly written in both:

• Latin: Utakmica počinje u sedam.
• Cyrillic: Утакмица почиње у седам.

Both are standard.