Learning BG with Cool

[coolasfcuk]

He heeee, well I couldnt say 'no' either and since it is almost end of the week, pheeeeeeeeew, here is the opening of the Learning BG thread (see sunnich, no punishment now)


Lesson One

ok, well, I will follow the Russian thread... and Start with the Alphabet and reading:

Cyrillc Alphabet - BG [Line #1 is Typed Capital letters, Line #2 is Typed Small letters, Line #3 is Cursive Capital letters, and line #4 is Cursive Small letters]

so, most of you already know, Bulgarian alphabet is almost identical to the Russian one, with only 3 exceptions... the Russian one has 3 extra letters: э, ы, ё. So a lot of my work has already been done in the Learning Russian thread.

Lets see - what can I say, Bulgarian is easier that Russian ... one big difference - Bulgarian is almost 100% phonetical, a lot more than Russian. So basically, if you learn the alphabet, you can read . Every letter is pronaunced just as you would say it in the alphabet, for example o is always o, it never could be pronaunced as a.

So let me back up here...I know I gave you a link to the alphabet, but let it be mainly because of the cursive writing, here is the alphabet typed:

Аа
Бб
Вв
Гг
Дд
Ее
Жж
Зз
Ии
Йй
Кк
Лл
Мм
Нн
Оо
Пп
Рр
Сс
Тт
Уу
Фф
Хх
Цц
Чч
Шш
Щщ
ъ ъ
Ьь
Юю
Яя

And here is a sound file of How to pronaunce the BG letters .

Few comments on that: first the letter й - it is called 'и кратко' = 'short i'...that is why it sounds like I say и = i twice, when really one is long и and one is short й. Then ь - this is not a very used letter in Bulgarian. In Russian it is used as soft sign, but since Bulgarian is not as soft as Russian, we do not use it as soft sign. For us it is actually a letter, but - it is never used alone - always in combination with o, so you could see: ьо which is read as yo. A word can never begin with this ьо, another way to write the sound yo is also йо - so if it should be in the begining of a word it would be йо. When is one used and when the other you ask, if it is in the middle or end of word... well, that depends on the letter before it, whether it is a soft or hard consinant - soft get the ьо and hard get йо - will have to get back to you which ones are soft and which ones are hard exactly...
Also ъ for us a vowel for us, and not a 'hard sound' as in Russian.

So, actually, let me back up some more and say:

the vowels is Bulgarian are:
а, е, и, о, у, ъ - ufff, I hope I got those right - will confirm in next posting. Listen to the file above to know how they are pronauned exactly

consonants- ah, sunny poison explained those pretty well in the Russian one, and ours arent that much different, so I will borrow some of your explanations if you dont mind

ж - zh (like in english word decision... may be just a bit firmer)
й - j (like in the 'yard')
х - h (like in 'help, but much firmer)
ц - ts (like in its - or as I like to translit it ts)
ч - ch (China)
ш - sh (sh shop)
щ - sht, hmm, cant think of an English word, but it is basically 'sh' and 't' right after it - yes, this one is different than Russian
ю - 'i' and 'u' together, so 'iu' as in Юля
я - 'i' and 'a', so 'ia' or sounds like 'yard'
well, basically all the other consonants are pretty similar to english corresponding sounds

Ok, last thing for the first and very basic lesson is that when little kids learn BG grammar in school, they are thought how to break down the word into срички = syllables.
so for example the word 'прозорец' = 'window' should be read as: 'п-р-о-з-о-р-е-ц' letter by letter, or broken into: 'про-зо-рец'.
how to read 'прозорец'

Well, since it doesnt really matter which letter is stressed in Bulgarian, no need to worry about that yet - no letter will change because they aren't stressed so basicallly, first step is то learn the alphabet and really you can read Bulgarian for the most part. Of course, next lessons come with a little more complexity - фор ехампле we also do have those 'sound' and 'unsound' consonants - б-п, в-ф, д-т, з-с, ж-ш, г-к, etc.

[Kappa]

coolasfcuk, it's curious that BG and Russian spelling sound almost as latin founded as Spanish.

[bgirlnikki]

After reading and listinig to the example of window many times I think I got it.

[coolasfcuk]

darje, we could start a big debate here...the chicken or the egg...but really, the Cyrillic alphabet was brought up North to Russia (which wasnt even exacly Russia at the time - Kievskaya Russ/Moskovskye Knizhestvo/etc) from the lands of Bulgaria ( which was aready Bulgaria at the time) where Cyril (from whose name Cyrillic come from) and Methodius [two brothers] and their deciples had settled after they were kicked out of Moravia (today's Czech) where they were on a missioin from the Byzantine Empire to educate the common village people (slavic), give them an alphabet, translate the bible for them - so they can be christians ... history in very short

[denial]

oh NO!! ..urr .. nice thread Cools ..I'll catch up with this later .. after my Russian .. then after learning Bulgarian can I date your cousin?

Looks simple without the akan'ye and ikan'ye .. until I read the line

we also do have those 'sound' and 'unsound' consonants

arrgghhhh.... *run and scream*

Okay.. seriously... this is interesting Cools ..I'll check here too ..

[vesica]

Good day and thank you coolasfcuk,
I am wandering around this classroom too, for now at least .
so, ya yoo and yo (ьо) have their own symbols (or two) but not ye? I can't hear the sound file, so don't know how the vowel ъ is pronounced?
PS the history lesson is much appreciated.

[prostrel]

Cool , thanks for the first lesson. I`m going to try this Bulgarian thing, though I have this "great" ability to mix up languages which are very simalar to each other. I just hope that I don`t choose the easier way in Russian, when I have learned here what the easy way is.

[russkayatatu]

ahhh thanks cool for taking the time to open this thread...should be fun

"sht" in English; there are no words Maybe "hushed" has something like the same sound, though.

A main inspiration for the Cyrillic alphabet was the Greek one I'm not sure what that has to do with what darje was saying about the spelling...but the history lesson is right

[russkayatatu]

eeeh heeeee, just for fun I recorded saying a few sentences in BG that I found in a reference book.

my 'homework'

as for what I am saying... ha haaa, all the sentences are that interesting; other examples: 'Her father was a close friend of Christo Botev's and as such put his signature under Ivanka Boteva's birth certificate in Bucharest' and 'the false bank notes are recognized by the poor quality of the paper.'

does it sound sort of OK?

[goku]

Hehe.. I should learn Bulgarian so I'm not always making a fool of myself when I go there.. <can't read menus!>

Maybe I should teach a French class. After Russian it will seem a breeze to you.

[coolasfcuk]

heeeee, hi everybody ... so there are few students here great - this weekend I will go on to lesson 2 ... and have a little exercise for those who are interested in doing it

now few comments:

eeeh heeeee, just for fun I recorded saying a few sentences in BG that I found in a reference book.

Рейч, what reference book are you reading..... ha ha ha... it made me laugh.. in a good way I mean....just because of the content- you know what sentanses to pick, dont ya, ha ha. You did very good.... you know it yourself... you have the Russian accent going , but that's ok, nothing is incorrect just sounds a little soft and some stresses are a bit off - but it is perfectly understandable - great job! Will record myself saying it and post it in a bit.

Hehe.. I should learn Bulgarian so I'm not always making a fool of myself when I go there.. <can't read menus!>

he heeeeee one more Russian that vacationed in BG! Great... where were you that there wasnt Russian on the menu? Usually at touristy places they always have Russian in the menu.
and french... why not... we are very linguistic forum around here.

[russkayatatu]

what reference book are you reading..... ha ha ha...

the reference book: A Short Grammar of Contemporary Bulgarian but I'm glad you liked the sentences; they were cracking me up so I thought I would record them... anyway they are a little better than the ones about fascism, privatization, politics, etc. - there are also a few jokes about people from Gabrovo - he hee, it's a fun book to read

aaaaah, I DO have a Russian accent then I wasn't sure looking forward to hearing how you say it - thanks for all the comments

[coolasfcuk]

A Short Grammar of Contemporary Bulgarian

well, with those sentanses that I have seen so far.... ha ha, I am not sure how 'contemproary' this is LoL

there are also a few jokes about people from Gabrovo

ha ha, yeah Gabrovo is supposedly the 'funny' city of BG ... but you know how I think.... there are people from Sofia...and then there are.... yeah

well, I recorded it

Listen to it

And here it is typed...

Жените на времето бяха идеалистки, правеха любов заради самата нея.
Една рокля е хубава само тогава, когато предизвиква у тебе желание да кажеш на жената, която я носи: "Какви хубави очи имате!"

translated:
The women in the past were idealists, they made love just for the sake of making love.
One dress is nice only when it evokes a desire in you to say to the woman wearing it: "What beautiful eyes you have!".

btw. using тебе is completely slangish ... it is just how people talk now-a-days... if my bulgarian grammar teacher heard you/saw you write it like that, she would get maaaaad. it should only be теб... hmmm... now I am having doubts if you said тебе or теб LoL... will go to check... that's how I recorded it... cause I am used to talking like that.

[russkayatatu]

мерси много it sounds so different when you say it yeah, there are words like that in Russian - like правильно (correct), usually the в isn't pronounced.

тебе is slangish? My 'contemporary' grammar doesn't even give теб as an option...ever...only те and тебе...I don't know what to make of this book; it's best not to take books like this too seriously, I think The example sentences are amusing though

[coolasfcuk]

мерси много

няма проблеми

yeah, there are words like that in Russian - like правильно (correct), usually the в isn't pronounced.

he heeee, we have lots of those words too.... and your example, in Bulgarian: правилно .. which is pronaunced as: праилно ...ha ha, so it is the same

btw. I wanted to do the stress thing bold.... but I am horrible ... I get doubts where it is, LoL .. just because I am so used to not thinking about it... can you get it from the file? Can you try putting the stress where it is, and I will see if I agree?! promise to work on that.. and be able to do it soon ..

[russkayatatu]

става, няма проблеми

Жените на времето бяха идеалистки, правеха любов заради самата нея.
Една рокля е хубава само тогава, когато предизвиква у тебе желание да кажеш на жената, която я носи: "Какви хубави очи имате!"

What do you think? I can definitely hear where I got some of them wrong...

[coolasfcuk]

What do you think

да, изглежда супер!

next time I will do it myself

[shizzo]

:: loves Bulgarian ::

// Loki

[prostrel]

Originally posted by coolasfcuk
няма проблеми

btw. I wanted to do the stress thing bold.... but I am horrible ... I get doubts where it is, LoL .. just because I am so used to not thinking about it... can you get it from the file? Can you try putting the stress where it is, and I will see if I agree?! promise to work on that.. and be able to do it soon ..

Aha! There is this stress thing also in Bulgarian!
Cool, you said in first lesson that "Well, since it doesnt really matter which letter is stressed in Bulgarian, no need to worry about that yet - no letter will change because they aren't stressed...".

So stress don`t affect to letters, it doesn`t change letters but you still have to pay attention to a stress, right?

[coolasfcuk]

So stress don`t affect to letters, it doesn`t change letters but you still have to pay attention to a stress, right?

pfffft, I guess I wasnt good at explaining it....I meant it is not like in Russian, where stress is important because depending on it, the pronaunciatino changes.
If you put the stress in the wrong place it is not a huge deal, usually, there are hew words which change meaning depending on stress (will think of them and let you know). It wont be incorrect if you put the wrong stress... you will just sound like a foreigner ... for example, like russkaya sounded like a Russian speaking BG.