Crno Jezero

Hello all,

Today I lent a book at the library, 'Crno Jezero'. ('The Black Lake') It's actually a Dutch novel translated to Serbian. It's written by Hella Haasse (In Serbian: Hela Hase) and the Dutch title is 'Oeroeg'. (In Serbian: Uruh)

The first line is:

"Uruh mi je bio prijatelj."

I translated it as 'Uruh has been my friend', but my dictionary says that 'mi' only means 'me', and not 'my'. Can anyone help me out? Is my translation correct or does the sentence mean something else?

Thanks!
Marco

Quote:

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"Uruh mi je bio prijatelj."
I translated it as 'Uruh has been my friend', but my dictionary says that 'mi' only means 'me', and not 'my'. Can anyone help me out? Is my translation correct or does the sentence mean something else?

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There is absolutely nothing wrong with your translation.
It is true that ''mi'' (ми) means ''me'' but the sentence itself has been correctly translated in its essence.
Let me put it this way:
Literally ''Uruh mi je bio prijatelj''( Урух ми је био пријатељ) would have been translated as ''Uruh has been a friend to me" which is not often used in english but you can see that it has exactly the same meaning.


''Uruh je bio moj prijatelj"(Урух је био мој пријатељ)= ''Uruh has been my friend''
''moj''=''my''

"Uruh mi je bio prijatelj''= ''Uruh has been a friend to me''

Thanks!

It's so much fun when you actually understand something! :)