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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Yuri: Hello everyone! Welcome back. In this All About lesson, Iva and I are going to explain a little bit more about the Bulgarian writing system.
Iva: That's right. We are going to cover lots of things in this lesson.
Yuri: Let's start with the alphabet.
Iva: Sure. The Bulgarian alphabet is very easy to learn if you use Romanization to match it with English.
Yuri: Knowing the basics of the Bulgarian is a huge step in learning Bulgarian, because most letters in the Bulgarian stand for just one specific sound.
Iva: That means the letters and the sounds they make are always the same, so if you know the letters and the sounds, then not only can you speak it but also read it.
Yuri: In fact, the writing system is so exact that when you ask someone to spell a word, they usually just say it slower.
Iva: I wish English were that simple.
Yuri: So do I. It's irritating to remember rules like "I before E except after C," et cetera.
Iva: Bulgarian is much easier than that, but we'll go over the pronunciation of each letter and the rules for spelling it in our pronunciation series.
Yuri: That's right. For now, we'll just give you the big picture.

Lesson focus
Iva: Sounds great! So the Bulgarian alphabet consists of six vowels, two semi-vowels, twenty consonants, and two compound sounds. You form words the same way you do in English, by putting letters together in certain orders.
Yuri: Bulgarian is a Slavic-based language using Cyrillic alphabet but it shares many words with English. Similar-looking words with similar meanings are called cognates.
Iva: For example, electricity/”електричество”, and traditional/”традиционен” are English/Bulgarian cognates.
Yuri: Also, Bulgarian word stress is dynamic.
Iva: Stressed syllables are louder and longer than unstressed ones. Stress, like Russian and other East Slavic languages, is also lexical rather than fixed, as in French, Latin, or the West Slavic ones.
Yuri: Bulgarian stress can be distinctive, right?
Iva: Yes, there are words differentiated only by stress. For example “въ̀лна”.
Yuri: Wool.
Iva: And “вълна̀”.
Yuri: Wave.
Iva: And “па̀ра”.
Yuri: Steam.
Iva: And “пара̀”
Yuri: Coin.
Iva: You have to be careful not to misunderstand them.
Yuri: That's for sure!
Iva: Stress usually isn't signified in written text, except for the case of the vowel “й”, meaning "to her," which is different from the unstressed “и”, meaning "and."
Yuri: So the stress changes the meaning of the word?
Iva: Yes, that's right.
Yuri: And as we mentioned in the last lesson, a great benefit in learning the Bulgarian writing system is that if you know Bulgarian, then Macedonian, Serbian, and Russian will be easier to read and listen to, because they share common roots.
Iva: That's right. Macedonian is very easy to understand because to Bulgarians, Macedonian sounds like specific dialect of Bulgarian.
Yuri: If you are a fluent speaker of Bulgarian, very little, if any, training is needed to listen to and understand Macedonian.
Iva: Be careful though. Macedonian speakers also understand Bulgarian very well, as Macedonian is a distinctive language that has originated from Bulgarian.
Yuri: Yeah, but despite the common roots, Bulgarian pronunciation is different from Macedonian pronunciation. To Bulgarians, Macedonian might sound like old-style dialect from a specific region.
Iva: Serbian is also easy to read and understand after you learn Bulgarian.
Yuri: Bulgarian also helps with learning Russian. It's probably the most distinct of the Slavic languages.

Outro
Yuri: Well, there you have it. The big picture of the Bulgarian writing system.
Iva: Bulgarian is in a very unique position in relation to other Slavic-based languages and is an excellent launch pad to learn Macedonian, Serbian or Russian.

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