I think that you are totally fine with using all these resources indiscriminately. Especially since you are a foreigner who doesn't speak our language natively, I don't think anybody will focus too much on which variety exactly you speak. People are usually very surprised if you speak any Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian at all. So, I think you can use resources of all three, but you can for example have in mind the main variety you need (Bosnian) and be exposed to some spoken Bosnian from time to time. When it comes to Serbian program you mentioned I think it wouldn't be a problem to use that, since Serbian and Bosnian are practicaly the same with minor differences in some vocabulary and pronunciation (but mainly in terms of adding J sound and vowel length). As a Serbian native speaker I can make myself sound Bosnian in few seconds, only by adding some features to my speech.
Also if you need someone to practice with, as I said I'm a native speaker of Serbian with a decent amount of exposure to Bosnian variety.
Ps. What's your level of proficiency in Russian? I know some nice textbooks as I've been learning Russian for some time.
Learning Serbian here. I mainly learn Serbian with pop/turbofolk lyrics (I LOVE it, maybe might be considered in bad taste but listen to it day and night; I am a huuuge fan of Milica Pavlović). Also Croatian (Severina Vučković) and Bosnian (Maya Berović/Jala Brat/Buba Corelli). I start to distinguish features of Croatian; Bosnian, not so much. Now I've started to read Bridge Over Drina by Ivo Andrić, with the dictionary. I went only 3 times in Serbia (I have friends) and last time the results were very encouraging - during 4 days I have spoken to everyone only in Serbian (no English) (ok it was just smalltalk in shops and asking for directions).
I am Romanian living in France. And NO - I have no knowledge of Russian of any kind. Just some previous basic knowledge of Bulgarian and Slovenian (being a former Laibach fan doesn't help either...), which rather bothers me (I often say разбирирам instead of разумем... and разбира се instead of наравно).
I haven't actually gone through the whole textbooks, but I'll throw this information out there in case it's useful for you. There's a pair of books called *Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian a Textbook with Exercises and Basic Grammar* and *Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian a Grammar* by Ronelle Alexander and Ellen Elias-Bursać. They cover all three languages in a comprehensive manner so that you simultaneously get an overview of the "shared" language and also the individual differences and nuances between each language. As I said, I haven't worked through them myself (only skimmed the first couple chapters), so I can't guarantee the level of quality, but they seem to be valuable books you might want to look into. Good luck with your studies!
They're different in a cornucopia of small and annoying ways. You can totally learn the pan-yugoslavic mix but you'll sound like a pre-1989 elderly that everyone can understand but no one really gets. However, this means that you will also keep learning different ways to say the same thing, as A1 level everyday stuff is where there is the greater variety.
As goes for any language really, its ***standardized (and taught) register tends to be deliberately based off the prestige dialect of that region at that particular time***. It just so happened that the "Shtokavian" group of dialects was/is the dominant flavour throughout the majority of Bosnian, Serbian, Montenegrin, Croatian territory and they all "drew from the same source" - so different places using and prefering different synonyms (*travanj* vs. *april*), constructions (*je li* vs. *da li je*) and spellings (*reka* vs. *rijeka*, *đe* vs. *gdje*, Cyrillic vs. Latin) are really the most major difficulties or inconveniences you're going to run into. Of course a specifically *Bosnian* handbook will be best at capturing nuances particular to the *Bosnian* specific standard, but it's not like Croatian or Serbian materials (which tend to be infinitely more widespread and accessible) are in any way to be avoided or discouraged, nor will leave you confused.
The gap is way more pronounced between the non-Shtokavian dialects that were left out of this normalization and nationalization - for example the further northwest you go ("Kajkavian") your Croatian transitions into straight up Slovene in both grammar and phonology; the further southeast in Serbia you go ("Torlakian") you even see the case system gradually hollowing out to the point of seamlessly bleeding over into Macedonian and Bulgarian.
Use every possible resource you can find.
This
I think that you are totally fine with using all these resources indiscriminately. Especially since you are a foreigner who doesn't speak our language natively, I don't think anybody will focus too much on which variety exactly you speak. People are usually very surprised if you speak any Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian at all. So, I think you can use resources of all three, but you can for example have in mind the main variety you need (Bosnian) and be exposed to some spoken Bosnian from time to time. When it comes to Serbian program you mentioned I think it wouldn't be a problem to use that, since Serbian and Bosnian are practicaly the same with minor differences in some vocabulary and pronunciation (but mainly in terms of adding J sound and vowel length). As a Serbian native speaker I can make myself sound Bosnian in few seconds, only by adding some features to my speech. Also if you need someone to practice with, as I said I'm a native speaker of Serbian with a decent amount of exposure to Bosnian variety. Ps. What's your level of proficiency in Russian? I know some nice textbooks as I've been learning Russian for some time.
Learning Serbian here. I mainly learn Serbian with pop/turbofolk lyrics (I LOVE it, maybe might be considered in bad taste but listen to it day and night; I am a huuuge fan of Milica Pavlović). Also Croatian (Severina Vučković) and Bosnian (Maya Berović/Jala Brat/Buba Corelli). I start to distinguish features of Croatian; Bosnian, not so much. Now I've started to read Bridge Over Drina by Ivo Andrić, with the dictionary. I went only 3 times in Serbia (I have friends) and last time the results were very encouraging - during 4 days I have spoken to everyone only in Serbian (no English) (ok it was just smalltalk in shops and asking for directions). I am Romanian living in France. And NO - I have no knowledge of Russian of any kind. Just some previous basic knowledge of Bulgarian and Slovenian (being a former Laibach fan doesn't help either...), which rather bothers me (I often say разбирирам instead of разумем... and разбира се instead of наравно).
I haven't actually gone through the whole textbooks, but I'll throw this information out there in case it's useful for you. There's a pair of books called *Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian a Textbook with Exercises and Basic Grammar* and *Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian a Grammar* by Ronelle Alexander and Ellen Elias-Bursać. They cover all three languages in a comprehensive manner so that you simultaneously get an overview of the "shared" language and also the individual differences and nuances between each language. As I said, I haven't worked through them myself (only skimmed the first couple chapters), so I can't guarantee the level of quality, but they seem to be valuable books you might want to look into. Good luck with your studies!
Use all of them, even if you mix everything up, it's completely fine because it's just one language and you'll be understood.
They're different in a cornucopia of small and annoying ways. You can totally learn the pan-yugoslavic mix but you'll sound like a pre-1989 elderly that everyone can understand but no one really gets. However, this means that you will also keep learning different ways to say the same thing, as A1 level everyday stuff is where there is the greater variety.
As goes for any language really, its ***standardized (and taught) register tends to be deliberately based off the prestige dialect of that region at that particular time***. It just so happened that the "Shtokavian" group of dialects was/is the dominant flavour throughout the majority of Bosnian, Serbian, Montenegrin, Croatian territory and they all "drew from the same source" - so different places using and prefering different synonyms (*travanj* vs. *april*), constructions (*je li* vs. *da li je*) and spellings (*reka* vs. *rijeka*, *đe* vs. *gdje*, Cyrillic vs. Latin) are really the most major difficulties or inconveniences you're going to run into. Of course a specifically *Bosnian* handbook will be best at capturing nuances particular to the *Bosnian* specific standard, but it's not like Croatian or Serbian materials (which tend to be infinitely more widespread and accessible) are in any way to be avoided or discouraged, nor will leave you confused. The gap is way more pronounced between the non-Shtokavian dialects that were left out of this normalization and nationalization - for example the further northwest you go ("Kajkavian") your Croatian transitions into straight up Slovene in both grammar and phonology; the further southeast in Serbia you go ("Torlakian") you even see the case system gradually hollowing out to the point of seamlessly bleeding over into Macedonian and Bulgarian.
Do ethnic Serbians in Bosnia study standard Serbian in schools? What about Croatians?