Witje: From Curiosity to Her Family’s Language
How a weekly lesson became a constant — and a bedtime story in two languages.
Meet Witje
Witje is a young woman from Germany. More than six years ago, she met a wonderful Serbian woman in Berlin. She was simply curious at first. She wanted to understand her better, her language and her culture, so she decided to start learning Serbian.
And that’s how we have been meeting once a week for several years now.
Where she started
Witje began from absolute zero. The one thing she brought with her was a little rudimentary Russian, and it turned out to be a useful head start: it helped her get a feel for Serbian grammar and sentence structure, and it made the first steps with the Cyrillic alphabet easier.
But as she says herself, Serbian quickly won her over.
“Milica and Teach Me Srpski have become a constant in my life.”
How we worked together
We use a textbook, but only as a guiding thread. Around it, I bring in other materials to teach grammar, vocabulary and Serbian culture. Every lesson has a different theme and a mix of exercises covering all four language skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing.
Witje’s favorites, and her biggest challenges, are the creative writing exercises and dictations. Last year our focus was on free speech, on getting her talking more freely and fluently — and that is exactly where she feels the biggest change.
The result
Along the way, life moved on. Witje married her love from Berlin, and they had a son who is growing up bilingual. Her original motivation — to understand her wife — grew into something bigger: understanding her wife’s whole family, and her own child, in their language.
Today she can talk with much more ease. And the moments that matter most to her are at home:
“I’m happy when I hear and understand what my wife says to our son, and it looks like he understands it too.”
Every evening they read together. Witje and her wife now take turns reading their son’s favorite stories, some in German and some in Serbian.
In Witje’s words
Witje has this to say to anyone thinking about starting:
“I can recommend Milica to everyone who seriously wants to learn Serbian. Her lessons are always full of information, jokes and good mood. She can explain complex topics and structures in a simple way, with a good dose of humor and patience.”
“My journey through Serbian goes on, and I’m excited about the next stop.”
