>The French get round the difference twixt the two meanings by putting "dernier" before or after the qualified noun.
>
>e.g. L'anne derniere (last year, in the past);
>Le dernier waltz (the last waltz)

Despite being precise otherwise, Serbian has the same problem with the last - poslednji - where you can make the same kind of puns. "Why didn't you attend the last Party meeting?" - "Had I known it was the last, I'd have come" and such.

But there's worse - the word zadnji (rear, adj.) is used instead of poslednji, as is normal in Slovenian, and customary in Croatian, but dead wrong in Serbian. So when someone, knowing we're building the house, asked "did you put the zadnja floorboard on the house" - "yes we did, only one more left now" - "but if it's zadnja there should be no more, how come?" "well the zadnja is on top of the basement, which is in the rear, behind the house, and the last one will be the floor of upstairs, but that can't be zadnja, being in front"... which got the poor moron utterly confused.