Learn how to make a request or order in a formal context
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Becky: Hello and welcome back to BulgarianPod101.com. This is Beginner, season 1, lesson 8 - It’s Time for a Bulgarian Spa Vacation! This is Becky. |
| Iva: Здрасти (zdrasti). And I'm Iva! |
| Becky: In this lesson, you'll learn how to make a request or order in a formal context. |
| Iva: The conversation takes place at a travel agency. |
| Becky: It’s between Milena and Veronika, and a travel agent. They are arranging a trip in Bulgaria. Milena has decided to join Veronika for a trip to a Bulgarian spa hotel. |
| Iva: The speakers are using formal language since they are making an inquiry. |
| CONVERSATION |
| Let's listen to the conversation. |
| Милена: Добър ден! (Dobar den!) |
| Агент: Добър ден. С какво мога да Ви помогна? (Dobar den. S kakvo moga da Vi pomogna?) |
| Вероника: Какви предложения имате за почивка в спа хотел? (Kakvi predlozheniya imate za pochivka v spa hotel?) |
| Агент: Зависи от периода на престоя и през кой сезон ще почивате. (Zavisi ot perioda na prestoya i prez koy sezon shte pochivate.) |
| Милена: Бихме искали да изкараме един уикенд през зимната ваканция. (Bihme iskali da izkarame edin uikend prez zimnata vakantsiya.) |
| Агент: Разбирам. Един момент. (Razbiram. Edin moment.) |
| Вероника: И ако може спа хотелът да е пет звезди! (I ako mozhe, spa hotelat da e pet zvezdi!) |
| Let's hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Милена: Добър ден! |
| Агент: Добър ден. С какво мога да Ви помогна? |
| Вероника: Какви предложения имате за почивка в спа хотел? |
| Агент: Зависи от периода на престоя и през кой сезон ще почивате. |
| Милена: Бихме искали да изкараме един уикенд през зимната ваканция. |
| Агент: Разбирам. Един момент. |
| Вероника: И ако може спа хотелът да е пет звезди! |
| Now let's hear it with the English translation. |
| Милена: Добър ден! |
| Milena: Good day! |
| Агент: Добър ден. С какво мога да Ви помогна? |
| Agent: Hello. How can I help you? |
| Вероника: Какви предложения имате за почивка в спа хотел? |
| Veronika: What can you offer us for a vacation at a spa hotel? |
| Агент: Зависи от периода на престоя и през кой сезон ще почивате. |
| Agent: It depends on the (duration of the) stay and in which season you would like to travel. |
| Милена: Бихме искали да изкараме един уикенд през зимната ваканция. |
| Milena: We'd like to spend one weekend in the winter break. |
| Агент: Разбирам. Един момент. |
| Agent: I see. Just a moment. |
| Вероника: И ако може спа хотелът да е пет звезди! |
| Veronika: And the hotel should be a five star hotel if possible! |
| VOCAB |
| Becky: Now let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. The first word we shall see is |
| Iva: период (period) |
| Becky: period |
| Iva: (SLOW) период, период |
| Next: |
| Iva: завися (zavisya) |
| Becky: to depend |
| Iva: (SLOW) завися, завися |
| Next: |
| Iva: почивам (pochivam) |
| Becky: to rest |
| Iva: (SLOW) почивам, почивам |
| Next: |
| Iva: изкарвам (izkarvam) |
| Becky: to spend (time) |
| Iva: (SLOW) изкарвам, изкарвам |
| Next: |
| Iva: уикенд (uikend) |
| Becky: weekend |
| Iva: (SLOW) уикенд, уикенд |
| Next: |
| Iva: разбирам (razbiram) |
| Becky: to understand |
| Iva: (SLOW) разбирам, разбирам |
| Next: |
| Iva: момент (moment) |
| Becky: moment |
| Iva: (SLOW) момент, момент |
| Next: |
| Iva: звезда (zvezda) |
| Becky: star |
| Iva: (SLOW) звезда, звезда |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Becky: Since Milena and Veronika were trying to arrange a spa weekend in the dialogue... |
| Iva: ...Let's talk about spa hotels in Bulgaria! |
| Becky: Spa hotels are very popular in Bulgaria, because there are many natural hot springs in the country. |
| Iva: They are popular any time of year, and many Bulgarians use their winter or summer break to visit spa hotels. |
| Becky: Spas are also often used for balneotherapy - which is where ailments are treated with spa therapy – so elderly people as well as young people visit springs, spa resorts, and hotels. |
| Iva: Some of the most famous spa hotels in Bulgaria are... |
| Becky: the Augusta Spa Hotel Hissar, |
| Iva: Olymp Spa Hotel Velingrad, |
| Becky: Strimon Spa Club Kyustendil, |
| Iva: Interhotel Sandanski Spa hotel, |
| Becky: ...and many others. There are five star hotels among them, just like our main character Veronika wanted in this lesson. So make sure you check one out, listeners! |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Becky: Let’s take a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Iva: We’ll start with “Спа хотел”. |
| Becky: This means “spa hotel”. |
| Iva: And... “Спа” by itself means “spa”. |
| Becky: Are we learning Bulgarian here? (laughs). |
| Iva: (laughs) Well, since “hotel” in Bulgarian is in masculine, the whole word “спа хотел” is also in masculine. |
| Becky: OK. So this is important to remember. |
| Iva: Also, there are other types of hotels in Bulgaria like “park-hotels” or “business hotels”, which in Bulgarian is “парк-хотел” and “бизнес хотел” respectively. |
| Becky: Great. What's next? |
| Iva: “Почивка”. |
| Becky: Ooh yeah, I’d like one of those! |
| Iva: Me too! “Почивка” is a noun, originally meaning “rest” but is quite often used as “break”, in the sense of “vacation”. |
| Becky: That's why “go on vacation” as a phrase is quite often said in Bulgarian like... |
| Iva: “отивам на почивка” and usually means going to a resort or a foreign country.... and so on. |
| Becky: Ok, and what’s next? |
| Iva: “Сезон” |
| Becky: I can guess that one too. |
| Iva: Yes, it’s another easy one! “Сезон” is a noun meaning “season”. |
| Becky: And I suppose it's used in the same way as in English. |
| Iva: Yep, but note that the noun is in masculine. |
| Becky: Can we have an example, Iva? |
| Iva: Sure thing! “The four seasons” in Bulgarian is “четирите сезона”. |
| Becky: And we know that there are indeed four seasons in Bulgaria! Okay, now onto the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Becky: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to make a formal request or order. Namely, how to order or request certain things in a formal situation, like when you make a reservation or inquiry about something. Now Iva, I know that in this case, usually we use formal language in Bulgarian. |
| Iva: That’s right. We use one specific word form “бих,” which is actually the Bulgarian auxiliary verb “съм” in its conditional form. |
| Becky: And since it's a verb, we need to conjugate it for the different persons. |
| Iva: Right. Here are the forms - “бих” or “I would”, “би” or “you would”, “би” or “he/she/it would”, “бихме” or “we would”, “бихте” or “you would (plural)”, and “биха” or “they would”. |
| Becky: After this conjugation, it's quite simple to make the connection with English. |
| Iva: Maybe we can give an example, Becky... |
| Becky: For example, when we want to order something we'll say, “I'd like a cup of coffee”. |
| Iva: In Bulgarian we will say “Бих искал чаша кафе”. |
| Becky: Can you repeat that one for our listeners, please? |
| Iva: “Бих искал чаша кафе” but I am supposed to say “Бих искала чаша кафе” if I am talking about myself. The gender changes to feminine. |
| Becky: OK. Can we break it down? |
| Iva: Yes, “бих” is “I would” as we already mentioned, “искал” is a past participle of the verb “to want” or “искам” in Bulgarian, then “чаша кафе” means “a cup of coffee”. |
| Becky: OK. We need to know one thing - the past participle in Bulgarian is generally formed by adding |
| Iva: “-л (L)” |
| Becky: instead of the consonant |
| Iva: “-х (-kh)” |
| Becky: , with which verbs typically end in their simple past tense form. |
| Iva: So the past tense of “искам” is “исках,” and the past participle is “искал”. |
| Becky: Note that participles in Bulgarian change depending on the gender... |
| Iva: So “искал” is for the masculine,“искала” is for the feminine, “искало” is for the neuter, and “искали” is for the plural. |
| Becky: Altogether, the form for requests or orders is... |
| Iva: “бих искал” for the masculine, “бих искала” for the feminine, “бих искало” for the neuter, and “бихме искали” for the plural. |
| Becky: Then we just need to add the word or phrase denoting our request. It's simple isn't it? |
| Iva: Well it can become simpler... |
| Becky: If you check and learn more from the lesson notes! |
| Iva: Yes. Because they have a lot of examples and additional info. |
| MARKETING PIECE |
| Iva: Do you know the number 1 reason people don't study a second language? |
| Becky: Not enough time. |
| Iva: You’re very busy. |
| Becky: We know. And that’s why we have one click lesson downloads on iTunes! |
| Iva: Subscribe on iTunes. |
| Becky: All Free materials will be automatically downloaded for each new lesson as they become available. |
| Iva: Basic and premium members, get all access to bonus lesson materials too! |
| Becky: Save time. Spend more time studying. |
| Iva: Never worry about missing another lesson again! |
| Becky: Go to iTunes, search with the phrase BulgarianPod101.com and click Subscribe. |
Outro |
|---|
| Becky: Ok listeners, that's all for this lesson! Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time. Bye! |
| Iva: See you, “Чао-чао!” |
Comments
Hide