[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