We decided to present this article in the form of a short language specifics’ review for all foreign people who have decided to learn the Bulgarian language, so that they can prepare psychologically for their first steps in language classes.
Disclaimer: The below listed facts do not exhaust the topic of the Bulgarian language. They are only examples of some typical aspects and how interesting this language could be.
Just how hard is it?
According to the difficulty of how natives speak, languages are divided into four groups, the first of which includes those that are the easiest to learn, and the last - the most complex. Bulgarian belongs to the second group together with German, Greek, Hindi, Dari, Malaysian, Indonesian and Urdu. They are more difficult than French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Norwegian and others. But to look on the bright side – Bulgarian is not in the last group neither! But the fact is that the difficulty of a language tends to be subjective to the learner, and if you are truly interested in a Bulgarian, there is no reason why not to endeavor on this whimsical journey!
Upsides and downsides
Bulgarian has many grammatical rules and many exceptions to these rules…as any other language. The most difficult aspect is the fact that it is highly unlikely to hear Bulgarian in places other than Bulgaria and you will need some time to get used to the sound and the manners of the speakers. As with any language, if you are immersed in the language (i.e. living in Bulgaria) then you will be able to pick it up much quicker.
Phonology
Phonetics:
As more of the languages that I have heard of, Bulgarian has consonants and vowels.
The vowels are: А, Ъ, О, У, Е, И
In stressed syllables,the six vowels are very well pronounced and you can hear them clearly. Unstressed vowels tend to be shorter and weaker compared to their stressed counterparts.
The vowels are often distinguished in emphatic or deliberately distinct pronunciation, and reduction is strongest in colloquial speech.
The Bulgarian language possesses only one semivowel: /j/. Orthographically it is represented by the Cyrillic letter Й, except when it precedes A or У, in which case each of the two phonemes is represented by a single letter, respectively Я or Ю.
As for the consonants - Bulgarian has a total of 35 consonant phonemes. You can hear how they sound here.
Stress:
Bulgarian word stress is dynamic says Wikipedia. Stressed syllables are louder and longer than unstressed ones. Sometimes we differentiate words only by their stress but still we don’t mark it in written text. A grave accent may be written if confusion is likely. Some dialects may put the stress of the words in different places. It makes the speech pretty confusing even for natives who don’t speak this dialect.
Key Grammatical Points
Gender
Distant ancestors believed that everything in nature has a "soul". This is the basis of the grammatical category “gender”. According to them, everything in nature was alive and could be either male or female. They attributed sex to plants, to geographical objects, as well as to all objects and abstract concepts. From there came the grammatical category “gender”. The ancients imagined the Earth as a mother giving birth in her bowels. That is why the noun land became feminine in European languages.
There are three genders in the Bulgarian language - male, female and middle (lol :D ), called neuter. The grammatical category gender is manifested in some parts of speech. Adjectives, pronouns and numerals do not have their own gender. They will change it depending on the gender of the noun they work together with or replace. They have separate forms for masculine, feminine and neuter in the singular and one for the plural. (хубав;хубава;хубаво;хубави) The king (or queen) of the gender is the Noun. Everything in the sentence needs to be combined with it and needs to be in the same gender and number as it is. The situation is similar to the Roman languages.
Verbs
The verb in Bulgarian is very…flexible. It changes every time when the doer of the action changes. (аз гледам, ти гледаш, той гледа) But don’t worry – there is a logic behind all of this!
The verbs in Present tense are separated into 3 main groups according to the thematic vowel they use, we usually look at the way the verb ends in order to know which group it is in.
1st conjugation: verbs using the vowel е (/ɛ/).
The verb in 1st person (аз) ends in a vowel+я
2nd conjugation: verbs using the vowel и (/i/).
The verb in 1st person (аз) ends in consonant+я
3rd conjugation: athematic verbs, stems end in а or я.
The verb in 1st person (аз) ends in -ам or - ям
In a dictionary, Bulgarian verbs are listed with their first-person-singular-present-tense form, due to the lack of an infinitive. Bulgarian features a system of nine tenses in total.
Because the subject of the verb can be inferred from the verb ending, it is often omitted.
Ние искаме една бира. - Искаме една бира.
As this is just a short review of the language we would like to share with you the logic of the verb conjugation and some examples of verbs in Present tense:
One interesting feature of Bulgarian verbs is the ASPECT. Bulgarian verbs express lexical aspect (вид). The verbs are either of imperfective (несвършен вид) or perfective (свършен вид) aspect. The imperfective verbs describe actions in progress (uncompleted actions) and these are the forms that you usually learn first when you start learning Bulgarian because the Present in Bulgarian is considered a big never-ending process. The perfective aspect describes whole completed actions (actions which have a beginning and an end) and people start learning this aspect once they start learning Future or Past Simple tense. Physicly the aspect of the verb looks like you have taken the verb you have previously learned and made an almost perfect copy, but not exactly, so you can still tell what the verb means but you will need to learn both forms eventually.
отивам/отида; заминавам/замина; ставам/стана ...
Articles
In Bulgarian, definiteness is expressed by a definite article that is suffixed to the noun - женаТА. In case you add an adjective then the definite article sticks to it instead of the noun – красиваТА жена. The long form of the possessive pronouns is also taking the definite article in case used – мояТА жена. The form of the definite article depends on the gender and the number of the noun.
For neutral words + то
For masculine words + ът/а or ят/я if it is a masculine adjective.
For female words + та
For plural words and adjectives + те
Even though, there are other interesting facts and questions about the Bulgarian language, the answer of the question “How hard is to learn Bulgarian?” does not stand in there. The answer will be different depending on your native language, your background in learning languages, your learning strategies and most importantly your motivation. Any language is hard to learn if you start in the wrong moment or you do not find the right tools that suit your personal needs.
We believe that learning Bulgarian can and should be fun. It should be something that you look forward to all the time – in the public transport when you hear the Bulgarians speaking around you, in the car while listening to the radio in Bulgarian, with your Bulgarian colleagues who will be happy to help you. If you still do not live in Bulgaria it might be motivating to find information about Bulgarian nature, culture or other topics that usually appeal to you. Bulgarian language courses in held in a friendly atmosphere might help you feel more comfortable as well. Anything that breaks your language barriers could make the learning easier.
We are here to assist you with your process of learning the language easily. Don’t hesitate to contact us.