Home / Best apps to learn a language / Serbian
Prices and language coverage checked in September 2026.
Serbian has 8.2 million native speakers by Ethnologue’s count, as Wikipedia cites it, and it is the official language of Serbia and co-official in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Kosovo. It is one of four standards, with Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin, built on the same dialect base, and it is written in two alphabets, Cyrillic and Latin, that match letter for letter. What Serbian asks of an app is grammar: seven cases, three genders and verb aspect, with a pitch accent the spelling does not show.
The big apps are missing. Duolingo, Babbel, Busuu and Rosetta Stone have no Serbian and no Croatian, and Pimsleur and Mondly teach Croatian only. What is left is small vendors, two Serbian schools with online courses and tutors. So the apps below are compared on what a learner cannot do without: a course that explains the cases, native Serbian voices, both scripts, a person who corrects you, and what is still free on day 30.
The US Foreign Service Institute puts Serbian in category III (of I to IV), about 1,100 class hours for an English speaker to reach professional working proficiency.
Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin are four national standards on one Neo-Shtokavian base, per Wikipedia, and the 2017 Declaration on the Common Language, with over 10,000 signatures, calls them one polycentric language; Croatia’s government opposed it. Serbia mostly speaks Ekavian (mleko, lepo), while Bosnia, Montenegro and Croatia speak Ijekavian (mlijeko, lijepo), and Croatian is written in Latin only. Pimsleur and Mondly sell Croatian, not Serbian. Learn the standard of the place you are heading to, and learn to understand the others.
Serbia’s constitution makes Cyrillic the official script, yet in a 2014 poll cited on Wikipedia 47% of Serbians used Latin more often, 36% mostly Cyrillic and 16% both equally. The two alphabets have 30 letters each and match one to one, with lj, nj and dž counted as single Latin letters. Ling shows both side by side, Serbonika teaches Latin first and adds Cyrillic modules, and the free classics on Serbian Wikisource are in Cyrillic. Start with the script of your course, and read Cyrillic within your first weeks.
Serbian nouns, adjectives and pronouns change their endings across seven cases, a vocative for calling someone among them, nouns have three genders, and verbs have aspect, the difference between a finished and an unfinished action. Serbonika explains this in a Grammar Hub and a Verb Aspect module, Azbukum in grammar notes with its lessons and Mango in grammar notes beside its conversations; Ling is thin on cases and aspect, per a June 2026 review. Clozemaster drills the endings in real sentences. Pick one app that explains, and drill beside it.
Serbian spelling follows Vuk Karadžić’s rule “write as you speak, read as it is written”: one letter for each sound, 30 phonemes in all, per Wikipedia. What the page leaves out is the pitch accent, four types of it, and vowel length, which normal writing never marks. A word read correctly letter by letter can still sound foreign. Pick apps with native audio beside every text, and copy the melody of the sentence, not only its letters.
The University of Belgrade’s Faculty of Philology examines Serbian as a foreign language from A1 to C2, written and oral, for about US$171 (€150); a Belgrade school that prepares for it lists 30 January, 13 June and 1 September as the 2026 dates, all three now past, so ask the Faculty for the 2027 dates. Azbukum in Novi Sad runs its own Official Test from A1 to C2, usually monthly, and says it is required to enrol at a university in Serbia. Serbia’s citizenship law asks for no language test. Book the exam your university or employer names.
Best structured course
Ling is the one phone course we found that states its Serbian levels: 200 lessons from A1 to B1 by Ling’s own label, with Latin and Cyrillic side by side and dialogue practice. A June 2026 review found it thin on the cases and verb aspect, so pair it with Serbonika or a tutor for the grammar.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A0 to B1 learners who want a phone course in both scripts and will pay for it.
Best for the cases and verb aspect
A Serbian-only web course by a Belgrade teacher, Magdalena Petrović Jelić: A1.1 to A2.2 by its own labels, about 30 hours a level and 120 in all, with a Grammar Hub, a Verb Aspect module and Cyrillic lessons. The introductory course is free. It explains more grammar than Ling and stops at A2, where its live classes take over.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A0 to A2 learners who want the cases and aspect explained by a Serbian teacher, with live classes to add later.
Best free course with a library card
Mango has a Serbian course built on conversations, with grammar and culture notes, spaced review and a tool that sets your voice against a native speaker’s. Many US public libraries give it free with a library card, which makes it a second free course next to Serbonika’s introduction.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A0 to A2 learners with a US library card who want a guided start at no cost.
Best live tutors
Preply lists 203 Serbian tutors, and its Serbian page prints averages of US$20 an hour for tutors from Serbia, US$21 from Montenegro and US$19 from Bosnia and Herzegovina. With few apps for Serbian, a tutor matters sooner: below B1, pick a trained teacher who can explain the cases in your language; from B1 on, a weekly lesson corrects your Serbian.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Anyone from A1 who needs a person to talk to and to explain the cases, in the Serbian of the place they are heading to.
Best self-study course to B1
Azbukum, a Novi Sad school of Serbian for foreigners since 1995, sells 6 self-paced online courses, A1.1 to B1.2 by its labels, each 10 lessons and 5 review tests over 12 weeks, and its own textbooks, Učimo srpski and Super srpski, to C1 by its labels. It is the paid road to B1 with a certificate at each step.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A1 to B1 learners who want a school’s syllabus at their own pace, with textbooks and a certificate.
Best free listening
Two native teachers, Nevena and Jelena, record each topic twice, a beginner version (A1 to B1.1 by their label) and an advanced one (B1.2 to C1), with 103 episodes so far and the latest on 21 September 2026. It is the free Serbian listening we would pair with any course from the first month.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Learners from A1 who want free Serbian listening that grows with them.
Best for cases in sentences
Clozemaster has Serbian from English: fill the missing word in a real sentence, in collections from Fast Track Level 1 to Level 10, and the case endings come up in every sentence. Its main source, Tatoeba, holds 52,110 Serbian sentences; Clozemaster publishes no Serbian count of its own.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Ten minutes a day on the case endings from A2 upward, beside a course or a book.
Best for reading real books
Lingo7 puts a translation in your own language under every sentence of a Serbian book (49 languages), reads it aloud and drills saved words in 12 kinds of exercise. Its Serbian shelf holds 2 books, at A2 and B1 by our estimate, so start with the Stories and your own EPUBs. It is our app, and it has no course.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A2 and B1 learners starting with the Stories and the 2 books on the shelf, and readers at any level with their own Serbian EPUBs.
Best for reading with audio
LingQ lists Serbian as fully supported (Croatian is still in beta) and turns any article, ebook or YouTube video into a lesson with a dictionary on each word. We could not see how much Serbian its own library holds without an account, so plan on importing your texts; the free tier is a demo.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: B1 and up readers who import Serbian news and books, with the budget for it.
Best for video input
Serbian subtitles and a translation into your language side by side on YouTube, with a dictionary on click; the subtitles and lookups cost nothing. Serbian YouTube has the news channels N1 (669,000 subscribers) and RTS (231,000). The Netflix side broke in June 2026 and in September works with known bugs.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: B1 and up with a laptop, turning Serbian YouTube into listening practice.
Best for shadowing sentences
Glossika lists Serbian (Ekavian) apart from Croatian, with 5,000+ words and sentences labelled A1 to C1 by Glossika: you hear native sentences and repeat them aloud. It is the dearest app here for sentence drills, and its new app is poorly rated.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A2 to B2 learners who want native sentences in their ears and mouth every day, and can pay for it.
Best vocabulary trainer
Free spaced repetition with shared Serbian decks on AnkiWeb: 2000 Most Common Serbian Words, a Serbian Frequency Word List, a Serbian A1 Vocabulary deck and one that drills Cyrillic against Latin. It is the cheapest way to keep the words you meet in lessons and books, and it teaches nothing on its own.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Keeping the words you met in videos, books and lessons, at any level.
Ling + Serbonika + Mango Languages
Pick one course and do it every day: Ling if you want a phone course in both scripts, Serbonika’s free Introductory course if you want the grammar explained by a Serbian teacher, Mango if your US library card covers it. Learn the Cyrillic letters in your first weeks, with Serbonika’s Cyrillic module or an Anki deck. Put Unlock your Serbian’s beginner episodes in your ears.
Azbukum + Clozemaster + Preply
Keep your course going to B1: Ling runs to B1 by its own label, Serbonika’s self-study stops at A2.2 and Azbukum’s courses go on to B1.2 with its Učimo srpski textbooks. Drill the case endings with Clozemaster, 30 sentences a day for free, and book a Preply tutor once a week. Start reading with Lingo7’s Stories at A2 and the 2 books on its shelf, at A2 and B1 by our estimate.
Lingo7 + Language Reactor + Preply
Courses thin out here. Read your own Serbian books in Lingo7, such as the classics on Serbian Wikisource, watch N1 and RTS on YouTube with Language Reactor, move to Unlock your Serbian’s advanced episodes, and talk about all of it with your tutor. With a date for the Belgrade exam or Azbukum’s test, book a tutor who has taught that exam.
| App | Role | Levels | Coverage for Serbian | Free | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ling | Best structured course | A0 to B1 | Standard Serbian in both scripts side by side; 200 lessons in 5 levels, A1 to B1 by Ling’s label | First 2 units (8 lessons) | US$17 a month, US$8 a month yearly |
| Serbonika | Best for the cases and verb aspect | A0 to A2 | Standard Serbian, Latin first with Cyrillic modules and a Cyrillic reader; A1.1 to A2.2, about 120 hours, by Serbonika’s labels | Introductory course | About US$33 to 44 a month (€29 to 39) |
| Mango Languages | Best free course with a library card | A0 to A2 | Standard Serbian; grammar and culture notes; no lesson count or level stated; sample phrases in Latin letters | Free through many US libraries | Free via many libraries; US$10 a month yearly |
| Preply | Best live tutors | A1 to C2 | 203 Serbian tutors; averages of US$19 to US$21 an hour by country, per the Serbian page | None | US$3 to 40+ a lesson, subscription only |
| Azbukum | Best self-study course to B1 | A1 to B1 | A1.1 to B1.2 in 6 self-study courses, by Azbukum’s labels; textbooks to C1; Official Test from A1 to C2 | Diagnostic test only | About US$131 a course |
| Unlock your Serbian | Best free listening | A1 to C1 | 103 episodes, each topic in a beginner (A1 to B1.1) and an advanced (B1.2 to C1) version, by the hosts’ labels | All of it | Free |
| Clozemaster | Best for cases in sentences | A2 to B2 | Serbian from English; Fast Track Levels 1 to 10; sentences drawn from Tatoeba, which holds 52,110 in Serbian | 30 sentences a day | US$13 a month, US$7 a month yearly |
| Lingo7 | Best for reading real books | A2 to C1 | 2 public domain books, by our estimate 1 at A2 and 1 at B1; Stories in two versions, adapted for A1 to A2 and original for B1 to B2; your own books in 7 formats (EPUB, PDF, FB2, DOCX, TXT, Markdown, HTML); native audio in a Serbia accent; an Alphabet setting that shows Serbian in Cyrillic or Latin letters; translation into 49 languages | First page of each book | US$5 a month, US$2.50 a month yearly |
| LingQ | Best for reading with audio | B1 to C1 | Serbian fully supported (Croatian in beta); own library size not published; imports in either script | 20 saved words | US$15 a month, US$10 a month yearly |
| Language Reactor | Best for video input | B1 to C2 | Any Serbian YouTube video with subtitles; Netflix working with known bugs in September 2026 | Most of it | US$6 a month, US$3.33 a month yearly |
| Glossika | Best for shadowing sentences | A2 to B2 | Serbian (Ekavian); 5,000+ words and sentences, A1 to C1 by Glossika’s label; sample sentence in Latin letters with IPA | 7 day trial | US$20 a month, US$11 a month yearly |
| Anki | Best vocabulary trainer | A1 to C1 | Shared Serbian decks by frequency, an A1 deck and a Cyrillic against Latin deck | All of it (iOS US$24.99) | Free; iOS US$25 once |
Prices are US store or vendor prices as of September 2026, yearly plans shown as the monthly equivalent. The same app often costs less on its own site than in the App Store, and more in Europe than in the US.
Free on this site: public domain Serbian books you can open in the app, and short Serbian texts at A1, A2 and B1 with a translation.
We have no affiliate deals with any app named here, and none of the links pay us. Prices and coverage come from the vendor’s own help or pricing pages or its US store listing, checked in September 2026, and every other figure names its source in the text; the judgement calls lean on independent reviews, and on the one star reviews for the parts a landing page never shows, like what happens on renewal. Where a vendor’s pages contradict each other, the card says so.
Refund rules, the traps to avoid and the same apps compared by level for every language are on the best apps to learn a language page.
No: Duolingo has no Serbian course and no Croatian one among its 39 courses from English, per its own course list in September 2026. Babbel, Busuu and Rosetta Stone have none either, and Pimsleur and Mondly sell Croatian only. The free start is Serbonika’s Introductory course, with Mango Languages free through many US libraries and Clozemaster’s 30 free sentences a day beside it; the paid course that runs to B1 by its own label is Ling, at US$16.99 a month or US$89.99 a year. Add a tutor once you can put a few sentences together.
Either works for understanding: the four standards share one Neo-Shtokavian base, per Wikipedia, and speakers of one follow the others. Learn the standard of the place you are heading to. Serbia mostly speaks Ekavian (mleko, milk) and writes in Cyrillic and Latin; Bosnia, Montenegro and Croatia speak Ijekavian (mlijeko), and Croatian uses Latin only. The cases are the same, so a Croatian grammar helps, but take your words and sound from Serbian sources: Pimsleur’s and Mondly’s Croatian courses teach Croatian forms. Preply’s Serbian page lists tutors from Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Yes. The University of Belgrade’s Faculty of Philology, through its Center for Serbian as a Foreign Language, examines from A1 to C2, written and oral, for about US$171 (€150), and about US$80 (€70) for young learners aged 7 to 16; a Belgrade school that prepares for it lists 30 January, 13 June and 1 September as the 2026 dates, all three now past, so ask the Faculty for the 2027 dates. Azbukum in Novi Sad runs an Official Test from A1 to C2, usually on the last Friday of the month. No app here is an exam course, so book a tutor who has taught the exam. Serbia’s citizenship law asks for no language test.
Reading helps once you know the cases, and Serbian spelling tells you how each word sounds, but the page does not show the pitch accent, and graded readers are scarce: Olly Richards and Lingo Mastery publish none in Serbian. Read with audio. Lingo7, our app, puts a translation under each sentence of a Serbian book, reads it aloud and drills the words you save in 12 kinds of exercise, for US$5 a month or US$30 a year. Its Serbian shelf holds 2 books, Nušić’s Свет (Svet) at A2 and Žujović’s Камено доба (Kameno doba) at B1, both by our estimate, so begin with its Stories and import your own EPUBs, such as the free classics on Serbian Wikisource.
No big app teaches Serbian for free. For a course, Serbonika’s free account gives the whole Introductory Serbian course and a Reading and Writing module, and Mango Languages is free with many US library cards. For the case endings, Clozemaster’s free plan gives 30 sentences a day; for audio, 50LANGUAGES’ 100 free lessons and the Unlock your Serbian podcast; for reading, Serbian Wikisource. Ling’s free plan stops after 2 units (8 lessons). For a tutor you pay: Preply from US$3 a lesson on a subscription, or italki pay as you go.
Both, and soon. Serbia’s constitution makes Cyrillic the official script, while in a 2014 poll cited on Wikipedia 47% of Serbians used Latin more often, 36% mostly Cyrillic and 16% both. The two have 30 letters each and match one to one, with lj, nj and dž counted as single Latin letters. Ling teaches both side by side, Serbonika teaches Latin first with a Cyrillic module and a Cyrillic reader, and Anki has a shared deck that drills one alphabet against the other. Learn Cyrillic in your first weeks: the free classics on Serbian Wikisource are in Cyrillic.
Serbonika explains the grammar in writing, with a Grammar Hub for A1 to A2 and a Verb Aspect module, and its self-study runs to A2.2. Azbukum’s courses go to B1.2 with grammar notes for each lesson, and it sells a Serbian Language Grammar for Foreigners (A1 to B1 by Azbukum). Mango adds grammar notes to its conversations. Ling teaches the cases more thinly, per a June 2026 review that names case and aspect depth as its weakness. For drills, Clozemaster puts the endings in real sentences. A tutor who can explain the seven cases in your language saves the most time.
Read your first page free, in Serbian.