Learn the basic facts concerning grammatical cases in Bulgarian
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Intro |
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| Michael: How many grammatical cases are there in Bulgarian? |
| Yana: And how do they work? |
| Michael: At BulgarianPod101.com, we hear these questions often and we will answer them for you. Imagine the following situation: Sasha Lee, a high-school student, is babysitting a 2-year-old child for a Bulgarian family. The child starts crying and Sasha calls her Bulgarian friend for advice. Her friend suggests "Sing him a song!" |
| Nikola Kamenov: Изпей му песен! (Izpey mu pesen!) |
| Dialogue |
| Nikola Kamenov: Изпей му песен! (Izpey mu pesen!) |
| Sasha Lee: O, не ме карай да пея. (O, ne me karay da peya.) |
| Nikola Kamenov: Защо? Ние българите казваме, че който пее - зло не мисли. (Zashto? Nie balgarite kazvame, che koyto pee - zlo ne misli.) |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Nikola Kamenov: Изпей му песен! (Izpey mu pesen!) |
| Michael: "Sing him a song!" |
| Sasha Lee: O, не ме карай да пея. (O, ne me karay da peya.) |
| Michael: "Oh, don't make me sing." |
| Nikola Kamenov: Защо? Ние българите казваме, че който пее - зло не мисли. (Zashto? Nie balgarite kazvame, che koyto pee - zlo ne misli.) |
| Michael: "Why not? We, Bulgarians, say that he who sings - means no harm." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In the process of its evolution, Bulgarian switched from being a synthetic language to an analytical language, and thus dropped most of its grammatical cases. Actually, Bulgarian is the only analytical language in the Slavic group and hence the Bulgarian language has gradually lost four of its seven original grammatical cases. These were the genitive, instrumental, locative, and vocative cases, with the last one still being occasionally used today, but you'll learn more about that later. |
| Nowadays, unlike Russian with six cases, Bulgarian only has three cases left, mainly in its pronouns. You can simply identify them by answering three questions: "who?" "what?" or "whom?" and "to whom?" Let's start with the first case |
| Yana: Именителен падеж (Imenitelen padezh) |
| Michael: or "nominative case." This case is the basic form of the noun or pronoun without any suffixes and indicates the subject in a sentence. It is the easiest to point out as it responds to the question "who?" and to the personal pronouns |
| Yana: аз, ти, той, ние, вие, те (az, ti, toy, nie, vie, te) |
| Michael: "I, you, he, we, you, they," It is also used with relative pronouns like |
| Yana: който, която (koyto, koyato) |
| Michael: meaning "who." You will see this explained in detail later. The second case is |
| Yana: Винителен падеж (Vinitelen padezh) |
| Michael: or "accusative case." This case indicates a direct and definite object and its relation to the verb in a sentence. You can recognise it by locating the verb and asking "what?" or "whom?," And, finally, the third one is |
| Yana: Дателен падеж (Datelen padezh) |
| Michael: or "dative case," which points the indirect object to a verb as the recipient of the direct object. You can spot it by asking the question "to whom?" Now, let's see how each of these cases work. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: Let's take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Nikola says "Sing him a song?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Yana as Nikola Kamenov: Изпей му песен! |
| Michael: In this sentence, we see an example of a dative case in the form of the personal pronoun |
| Yana: му (mu). |
| Michael: It is translated in English as "him," but it literally means "to him." The dative case often refers to the indirect object in a sentence. |
| [Recall 2] |
| Michael: Now, let's take a look at our second sentence. |
| Do you remember how Sasha says "Oh, don't make me sing?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Yana as Sasha Lee: O, не ме карай да пея. |
| Michael: Here, we have an example of an accusative case, which indicates a direct and definite object as the pronoun |
| Yana: ме (me) |
| Michael: meaning "me." It is the accusative form of the nominative pronoun |
| Yana: аз (az) |
| Michael: meaning "I." |
| [Recall 3] |
| Michael: Now, let's take a look at our third sentence. |
| Do you remember how Nikola replies "Why not? We, Bulgarians, say that he who sings - means no harm." |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Yana as Nikola Kamenov: "Защо? Ние българите казваме, че който пее - зло не мисли." |
| Michael: This is a good example of using two nominative cases in a complex sentence. The first one is the personal pronoun |
| Yana: ние (nie) |
| Michael: which means "we." The second nominative case is the relative pronoun |
| Yana: който (koyto) |
| Michael: meaning "who." Both play the role of the subject in each of the simple sentences composing the complex sentence. As you should already know by now, the nominative is the basic form of the noun without any suffixes. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, you learned about the three main Bulgarian grammatical cases - nominative, accusative, and dative. Be careful, however, because many native speakers often tend to use the nominative form as universal. Let's look at the following example. |
| Yana: На кой се обади? (Na koy se obadi?) |
| Michael: This literally translates as: "To who did you call?" This grammatical construction is incorrect because it suggests two subjects in the same sentence. The correct form should be |
| Yana: На кого се обади? (Na kogo se obadi?) |
| Michael: which means "Whom did you call?" and has the dative form of the relative pronoun |
| Yana: кого (kogo) |
| Michael: that is an indirect object in the sentence. |
| Expansion |
| Michael: Let's now go back to the fourth case. This case hasn't completely disappeared yet, but it's not so commonly used nowadays. This "endangered" case is called |
| Yana: Звателен падеж (Zvatelen padezh) |
| Michael: or "vocative case," Unlike the other three cases which apply to personal pronouns, the vocative only refers to nouns and names. For example, if you'd like to say "Hey, Petar! " you can use the vocative form and say instead |
| Yana: Петре! (Petre!) |
| Michael: However, be careful not to use the vocative with feminine names because it may sound rude. For example, |
| Yana: Лидийо! (Lidiyo!) |
| Michael: This will result in a very impolite way to call someone named Lidiya. On the bright side, a vocative case is safe for you to use with foreign names from Classical antiquity, such as Zeus and Electra. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Yana: До скоро! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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