Learning BG with Cool

[russkayatatu]

I think cool meant only that there is no reduction of vowels...like in English: if you say computer instead of computer - stress the first or last syllable instead of the middle, for example, not changing any of the vowel sounds - it's not the end of the world. The vowels are pronounced the same and unless it's a word where the stress changes the meaning, everyone will understand...but still, the right way is computer and otherwise it sounds wrong. Or sometimes people might not get it: I was talking to my mom about Menuhin the other day, and she was like, "who?" Apparently it's Menuhin - anyway, it makes a difference, and a big difference, just not the same problem as Russian has with reducing unstressed vowels.

[prostrel]

Originally posted by russkayatatu
[b]I think cool meant only that there is no reduction of vowels...like in English: if you say computer instead of computer - stress the first or last syllable instead of the middle, for example, not changing any of the vowel sounds - it's not the end of the world. The vowels are pronounced the same and unless it's a word where the stress changes the meaning, everyone will understand...but still, the right way is computer and otherwise it sounds wrong.

...not the same problem as Russian has with reducing unstressed vowels.

Yes! I meant to say all of that above, but I didn`t know how to explain it! Stress is important cos otherwise it sounds wrong.
Thank you both, C and R !

[coolasfcuk]

Yes! I meant to say all of that above, but I didn`t know how to explain it! Stress is important cos otherwise it sounds wrong.

that is what I wanted to say also ... but obviouslly I am not that great at explanations ... I am sorry for not being the greatest teacher (and confusing the students), but I am trying

glad we cleared that out ... attention should be paied to stress - from now on I will be marking the words.

[la aurora]

hehe... i missed so much! but I'm back... ufff... it took me quite long, I must say! next time I decide to reset my Windows, somebody stop me !!!

[russkayatatu]

coolasfcuk, don't worry, you are a great teacher - and you're not confusing me; so far I know exactly what you're talking about

btw I'm interested to see what sunny poison and goku think about Bulgarian...no Russian person I know thinks it is easy; they look at me like I'm crazy when I say it's just like Russian and start giving examples but maybe you guys will have a different idea.

[la aurora]

coolie, I'm back and I learned ur first lesson by heart... uff... but that exercise Rach did... I'm gonna try to repeat. But looks awful, I must say. I'm not sure if I'll be able to repeat this... EVER!!!
yeah, Rach. BG doesn't sound that easy...

[coolasfcuk]

but that exercise Rach did... I'm gonna try to repeat. But looks awful, I must say. I'm not sure if I'll be able to repeat this... EVER!!

you wont? c'mon now..I have bigger trust in you than that.

yeah, Rach. BG doesn't sound that easy...

those Russians, you're spoiled, he heeeeeeee...and Russian is so much harder than BG...but it is true.. my Russian friend Pavel would have hard time with BG as well, single words no problem.. but sentanses....ha ha....

quoted from the other thread:

and I'm also ready to read that saying from BG thread (although for me it looks like japanese written in Cyrillic and the stresses seem so wrong! uf... but I'm really trying)

japanese??? hahhahaha ... I think we have the case of another 'Pavel' here... well, I hope you get your mic fixed soon... 'cause now I really wanna hear how you would read it.

little more explanation coming...soon... and more exercises...

[la aurora]

oh coolie, ur sound file is the last thing I listen to before going to bad. I'm trying... but those stresses... they should be def put on other letters. Coz just the whole rythme of the sentence is so broken... dayum...
ok. I'm waiting for ur updates here... and will see what I can do with the mic. I REALLY want it to work. Sure not today, as I'm too drunk to try and repair anything

[russkayatatu]

ahhh, sunnich, you are killing me here Japanese??? Here is what Japanese in Cyrillic would really look like:

Жя, тайхен дес не! Зензен лакаримас ё!

(if л was a "w" sound ) Trans: Ahh, it's strange, isn't it! I don't understand anything!

But BG, no no no BG is just like Russian ...stresses?? At least half of the time they're the same as in Russian...ahh, let me go through these sentences - like this first one:

Жените на времето бяха идеалистки, правеха любов заради самата нея.

First word - the root is жен - like in Russian: жена (wife), женщина (woman), here it looks more like жена, it even has the same end stress and the same plural ending (the ы or и). На is a preposition like in Russian. Времето (I will give you a hint: the те, то, та at the end of words is an article so you can disregard it when figuring out meaning), but in any case it looks just like время, and it even has the stress in the same place. Идеалистки is almost the same in Russian and it even has the same stress любов = любовь Заради - OK, the stress is different, but otherwise it looks like Russian ради, and the за doesn't mess things up too much because it's a preposition like Russian too. And самата нея: сама, you have the same stress and everything...нея, like ней - the same stress, and even a similar dative-looking word.

And this leaves just бяха and правеха, which have different endings from Russian but otherwise don't look too strange, and even sound kind of Slavic to me So if you're just looking at the sentence there seems to be something about women and time and idealists and love for itself, and that's almost the whole thing

I could do the same for the other sentence too, because aside from a couple words like хубаво and рокля, which don't sound Russian, it's the same story...една has the same stress as одна, тогато and когато - like тогда and когда, and the sentence is even constructed the same as you'd have in Russian: только то, что - (только тогда, когда - ). Желание, same stress and meaning; у тебе - different stress but it's obvious what it means, and not everything can be the same after all . Кажеш = скажешь ... and even the stresses that are different from the exact equivalent in Russian are usually found in different forms of the word: очи ('eyes', old Russian) ... other form: очей (end stress).

Does it really look so strange? Even the genders are the same, and the endings like хубаво and хубави ... the pronunciation is different, and the л changing to "w" in желание is definitely something new, but other than that...surely not quite like Japanese...maybe it's just because you're drunk, eh? Or maybe it's really not that easy for Russians after all ... I'm sure you can do it though

[coolasfcuk]

*clapping...clapping...clapping....*
Рейч, from now on, I officially announce you .. not only assistant..but second teacher in the BG class! Wow, that last post was...pheeew ... great!

[coolasfcuk]

so... since I was having a need to 'refresh' my BG grammar if I wanted to do this... I came upon this great site and what can I say... wow... hope I didnt confuse people too much.... but I am gonna use this woman's explanations in a way.... obviouslly she is doing great job and she knows what she is talking about... reminding me few things as well ..obviouslly I dont think of it, but apparently maybe it is not as easy for a foreigner as I thought it would be...and you know obviouslly when I studied grammar, I studied it as Bulgarian and it is quite a bit different than studying it as foreigner... anyway... I will quote the site at the end..dont want you guys going through all the lessons at once...step by step...plus I will try to explain more in depth and record myself..so... here we go...pheeeeew:

There are 38 (some linguists claim that there are 39) consonants in Bulgarian. Apart from the nasals м, н, the liquids л, р and the glide й, that do not participate in the opposition voiced consonants : voiceless (mute) consonants, and the "hushes" дж, ж, ч, ш and the glide й, that do not participate in the opposition hard (non-palatalized) consonants: soft (palatalized) consonants, all the other consonants participate in those two main oppositions.

Thirty four consonants come in hard - soft pairs. The soft consonants are pronounced as though you were pronouncing the hard consonant and an 'y' simultaneously. As there are severe restrictions on the distribution of the soft consonants - they can occur only before the non-front vowels а, ъ, о, у but never in front of another consonant, or in word-final position (i.e. at the end of the word), or before the front vowels е, и - there are no separate letters assigned for them in the alphabet. The letters for the hard consonants are used instead followed by the special letters for the 4 vowels that can come after them: for а, ъ - Я, for о - ЬО, for у - Ю. Here are the hard - soft pairs in alphabetical order followed by some examples (the accented vowel is underlined):


б - б' - бал - бял [бал - б'ал] (a ball (social event) - white)
в - в' - вал - вял [вал - в'ал] (a shaft - inert)
г -г' - гол - гьол [гол - г'ол] (naked - a puddle)
д -д' - дал - дял [дал - д'ал] (given - a share/a part)
дз - дз'
з - з' - коза - козя [козъ - коз'ъ]1 (the trump - to trump)
к - к' - куп - кюп [куп - к'уп] (a heap - a pot)
л - л' - лук - люк [лук - л'ук] (an onion - an aperture)
м - м' - дима - димя [димъ - дим'ъ]1 (the smoke - to smoke)
н - н' - звъна - звъня [звънъ - звън'ъ]1 (the ringing - to ring)
п - п' - сипа - сипя [сипа - сип'ъ]1,2 ( he poured - I pour)
р - р' - спора - споря [споръ - спор'ъ]1 (the argument - to argue)
с - с' - Сара - сяра [сара - с'ара] (Sarah - sulfur)
т - т' - та - тя [та - т'а] (and, so - she)
ф - ф' - фон - фьон [фон - ф'он] (a background - a warm wind)
х - х' Хус - Хюс [хус - х'ус]
ц - ц' цар - цяр [цар - ц'ар] (a king, tzar - a cure, a remedy)

Listen to the Examples 1


As you can see there is no example for the pair дз - дз'. You can hardly find one in the standard language, that is why some linguists question the existence of the sound дз' [dz'] at all, and assume that there are 38 consonants in Bulgarian. The existence of х' and ф' is also questionable as they only appear in words of foreign origin but we'll leave this matter open.

The consonants дж [dzh], ж, ч, ш are always hard, and they do not have soft counterparts. Consequently, ьо, ю, я never appear after them.

As it was mentioned before the soft consonants are pronounced as if the hard consonant and an 'y' (й) were pronounced simultaneously. So it is natural that the й itself also is not a member of a pair - as a matter of fact it does not participate in this opposition at all.

Now we can go back to the phonetic value of the letters Ь, Ю, Я. As it was explained above, they are used to mark the softness of the consonant preceding the vowels о, у, а/ъ. The letters Ю, Я have yet another phonetic value - if they are used at the beginning of the word or after a vowel they stand for the following combinations of sounds:


ю=йу - юноша [йуноша](a teenager), каюта [кайута] (a cabin)
я=йа - ябълка [йабълка](an apple), Мая [майа] (a female name)
я=йъ - героят [геройът](the hero)

Examples 2

There are two other particularities of the Bulgarian orthography:


There are no special letters for the affricates [dzh], [dz](dzh sounds like the g in 'change', and dz sounds like the z in the name of the Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli). A combination of letters is used instead: дж, дз:

джудже (a dwarf), джоб (a pocket), дзън (ting, ring)

Examples 3

The letter ъ can not stay at the end of the word. The letter a appears in stead of it , even though when pronauncing the word it sounds like ъ at the end:

чета [четъ](I read 3rd p. sg, pres.t.), града [градъ] (the town)

Examples 4

[russkayatatu]

Wow, a lot of work coolasfcuk - thanks

Interesting stuff ... linguists explain things so strangely sometimes; they are speaking their own language, LoL - especially when they start saying that there are consonants that never have a 'phonetic representation' like this дз' But thanks for posting - especially the чета, града example and the sound files; they are great благодаря ... tack så mycket.

What was that you said: 2nd teacher?! I only know what I can read and what I can guess, you know ... but will be happy to help any way I can

[coolasfcuk]

linguists explain things so strangely sometimes; they are speaking their own language, LoL - especially when they start saying that there are consonants that never have a 'phonetic representation' like this дз'

yeah I know...lol... but does it make sense otherwise? I thought it was way better job than what I was doing...

sound files added

ummm...still thinking of exercise

and soon more Basic rules of pronaunciation to come...

[russkayatatu]

yeah I know...lol... but does it make sense otherwise? I thought it was way better job than what I was doing...

it makes sense. It might be easier to think of these consonant pairs as the same consonant made either hard or soft by what follows it (and then you don't have to say: "'when я is at the beginning of a word it gives a 'ya' sound, as opposed to these other times when it's the consonant that gives you the 'y' before the 'a'" - ehh, when я comes after a consonant, the consonant is a little softer and the я is basically the same as any other я; that's about right, isn't it?), although it works the way she has it too - whatever makes the most sense to people and gives OK pronunciation.

And thanks again for posting the sound files - it helps me to hear it.

[coolasfcuk]

And thanks again for posting the sound files - it helps me to hear it.

no probs.. but ..ahhhh.. I listened to them again... and found 2 mistakes I made...I am sorry.. it is just so weird to read single words like that... and i think of them too much... it's not like 'flowing' in the sentanse... so here are the corrections:

л - л' - лук - люк [лук - л'ук] (an onion - an aperture)

н - н' - звъна - звъня [звънъ - звън'я]1 (the ringing - to ring)

Corrections

so, the first one is that л - sometimes it sounds like 'w' and sometimes like 'l' ...and now that I have lived in USA for a while, sometimes I say it as 'l' in BG, when it really should be 'w'..so I did this... but I corrected it.. in 'лук' - 'onion' it should be 'w'.

with 'звъна' we have that 'a' at the end of the word, that I pronaunced as 'a' first', when it really should be 'ъ'. I also corrected her transcription - 'звън'я' - that's how it should be...

well, it is not obvious why I am not a linguist... lol.. and I am glad you are here Rach... to explain things in more understandable language after me

I will think about your question....about the я

[russkayatatu]

and I am glad you are here Rach... to explain things in more understandable language after me

I will think about your question....about the я

да, аз съм тук Няма проблеми ... I'll try, although you don't need it

okie, thanks for the corrections - sentences are even better to listen to than words cause they are more 'real', like you said, plus you hear not just pronunciation but intonation...like you said about Pavel, people don't talk in words but in sentences, so that is important

Maybe the thing about the consonants makes sense to everyone else, or maybe it is a little different in Russian - but about the я, that's the way I thought of it and it helped me, at least in the beginning, esp. since soft consonants are almost always associated with diff. vowels than hard consonants ... or it's that way in Russian, at least, and usually they explain it sort of like this website you found ...but I'll stop talking now since I don't know anything about Bulgarian pronunciation, just a little bit about linguists, and Slavic linguists in particular but I don't want to mislead anybody

[la aurora]

uufff... ok. I fixed all the problems with my comp and finally was able to do some recording... And I kinda regret it... in recording it sounds even worse than when I just read aloud
But as a student, I have to post it to let my teacher laugh her ass off here U are.

Rach, I don't know any japanese. I just wanted to say that I don't feel any difference between japanese and bulgarian at the moment. They both sound strange for my ears I hoped it'll be a bit... just a lil bit closer to russian

As for the stress-thing... I got used already. But at the first moment it looked just wrong. Not any word in particular but the whole sentence Anyway, I'm trying... I'm really trying

Thanks for Lesson 3... coolie and russkaya... huh... I'll need some time to sort things out as bulgarian grammar taught to russian in english... well, not that easy... i still suck in english. Uh...
~Starts making notes~

[coolasfcuk]

wooooo hoooooooooo sunnich!!

awsome!!! another person to record in BG. listened to the file... I have to leave work right now..gotta be somewhere... but I will coment in more detail soon.

just wanted to say... he heeeeeeee, sounds so russian! in a very cute way for first time it was great..I have a feeling soon you will have the BG language mastared! first sentanse was great and better than the second ...second...that is where the real russian in you shows ..those o's should not be a's ...but still really good!

superb ...more comments to come...

[goku]

Originally posted by russkayatatu
btw I'm interested to see what sunny poison and goku think about Bulgarian...no Russian person I know thinks it is easy; they look at me like I'm crazy when I say it's just like Russian and start giving examples

You are right, haha. Bulgarian is kind of a mix (to a Russian) between learning a new language and one you already know. You've already got the basics down, but if you just storm into Bulgaria without studying any you will find yourself in a whirl of confusion. Trust me, I know from experience.

[prostrel]

OMG! I haven`t been here for a long time, there`s so much work to do! Coolasfcuk , you have been very productive. I`m stressed now. How can I catch the others....
I want to print these lessons, lay down on my sofa and read all this stuff there, but my printer doesn`t want to do his work. Maybe he`s stressed too. But thanks for these lessons and files, Cool !