LESSON NOTES

All About S1 #4
Basic Bulgarian Pronunciation

CONTENTS
2 Grammar

# 4
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GRAMMAR

The Focus of This Lesson is Basic Bulgarian Pronunciation

Comparatively speaking, Bulgarian is an easy language to speak. A few sounds might be

difficult, but almost every sound in Bulgarian is used every day in English. That means you
already know how to say it! Bulgarian also follows many of the same intonation patterns as
English.

Let's recap the written system quickly, just as an introduction to the pronunciation. The
Bulgarian alphabet is a Cyrillic alphabet that has thirty-five consonant phonemes, one semi-
vowel, and six vowels, -А, -Ъ, -О, -У, -Е, -И. Their romanization is -A, -Y, -O, -U, -E, -I.

The Five Vowels

-А

The Bulgarian letter -а is pronounced like the [a] in "adorable." The word for "car" is кола
(kola), and the word for "small" is малък (malyk).

-Ъ

The Bulgarian letter -ъ is pronounced like the [u] in "turn." The word for "full" is пълен (pylen),
and the word for "angle" is ъгъл (ygyl).

-Е

The Bulgarian letter -е is pronounced like the [e] in "best." The word for "child" is дете (dete),
and the word for "woman" is жена (jena).

-И

The Bulgarian letter -и is pronounced like the [i] in "igloo." The word for "list" is списък
(spisyk), and the word for "life" is живот (jivot).

-О

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The Bulgarian letter -о is pronounced like [o] in "order." The word for "cat" is котка (kotka),
and the word for "reply" is отговор (otgovor).

-У

The Bulgarian letter -у is pronounced like the [u] in "tool." The word for "raw" is суров (surov),
and the word for "student" is ученик (uchenik). Please do not confuse this with the English -y
and with the romanization letter "y," which we use for the vowel -ъ.

It's important to reproduce these sounds accurately. It doesn't matter how many words you
know or how good you are at the grammar, if you don't pronounce the word correctly, the
Bulgarians won't understand.

Consonants

Some unique aspects of Bulgarian pronunciation:

-Щ

The -щ sound in Bulgarian is similar to the [sht] in the word "shtick." The word for "happiness"
is щастие (shtastie), the word for "future" is бъдеще (bydeshte), and the word for "shield" is
щит (shtit).

-Й or "и-кратко" (i-kratko)

-Й is similar to the English [y] in "yes." The main thing to remember is that it usually combines
with -о as -йо for a pronunciation like [yo] in "yoyo." Йога (yoga) is of course "yoga," and "New
York" is Ню Йорк (Nyu York) in Bulgarian.

-Ь or "ер-малък" (er-malyk)

We pronounce an -ь combined with -о as -ьо, for pronunciation like [yo] in "yoyo." The word
for "driver" is шофьор (shofior), and the word for "magician" is магьосник (magiosnik).

-Ь is different from -й, although it sounds the same. Elementary school kids might find it
difficult to decide when to use -йо and when -ьо, but grown-ups know the rules well.

(Furthermore, in Bulgarian the pronunciation of -л or "l" involves a raising of the back of the
tongue and a lowering of its middle part, but some Bulgarians pronounce it incorrectly as [w]

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and this is known as the phenomenon of the "lazy "l.")

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