да ли / ли

In Serbian, forming direct yes/no questions can be done in three primary ways:

1. Using «да ли» at the beginning:
This is the most common and versatile strategy in both daily conversation and writing. Place да ли at the start of your question, followed by declarative word order:
• Да ли живите у Београду? (Do you live in Belgrade?)
• Да ли волиш кафу? (Do you like coffee?)

2. Using «verb + ли»:
Here, the conjugated verb is placed first, immediately followed by the separate question particle ли:
• Живите ли у Београду? (Do you live in Belgrade?)
• Волиш ли кафу? (Do you like coffee?)

3. Using rising question intonation alone:
Just like in everyday English, you can keep the regular declarative word order without any question particle and simply raise your pitch at the end:
• Живите у Београду? (You live in Belgrade?)
• Волиш кафу? (You like coffee?)

Crucial Rules and Patterns to Keep in Mind:

• Always separate words: The question marker ли is always spelled as an independent word. Never hyphenate it or join it to the preceding verb (write Знаш ли, not *Знаш-ли or *Знашли). Similarly, write да ли as two separate words, never *дали. In casual everyday speech, both are frequently shortened with an apostrophe (је л', да л'), but standard writing requires the full forms.
• Auxiliary verbs and question hosts: The particle ли is an unstressed clitic and cannot start a sentence on its own. When using the verb + ли pattern with compound tenses, you generally use the full, stressed forms of auxiliary verbs—such as јеси, јесте (e.g., Јеси ли чуо?, never *Си ли чуо?) or full forms of хтети (хоћеш, хоћете) for the future tense. Note that while јесте serves as both 3rd singular and 2nd plural in affirmative statements, in questions with ли, the phrase Јесте ли...? is reserved for 2nd person plural or polite address, whereas 3rd singular uses Је ли...?.
• Short auxiliary forms hosting «ли»: Certain auxiliary forms can stand sentence-initially when immediately hosting ли (taking phonological stress): the 3rd-person singular present auxiliary је (e.g., Је ли он твој брат?, Је ли дошао?) and all forms of the conditional auxiliary (бих, би, бисмо, бисте, e.g., Би ли дошао?, Бисте ли пошли?, Бисмо ли могли?).
• Negative polar questions: To ask a negative question, Serbian typically places the negated verb first with ли (e.g., Не знаш ли?) or uses зар не (e.g., Зар не знаш?), whereas starting directly with *Да ли не... is generally avoided in standard usage.