Learn how to use the past tense to make a complaint
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Eric: Hi everyone, and welcome back to BulgarianPod101.com. This is Intermediate Season 1 Lesson 8 - Making a Complaint in Bulgarian. Eric here. |
| Tina: Здравейте. I'm Tina. |
| Eric: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the past tense when making a complaint. The conversation takes place at a restaurant. |
| Tina: It's between Raya and a waiter. |
| Eric: The speakers are strangers, so they’ll use formal Bulgarian. Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Рая: Извинете, какво става с моите задушени картофи? Всички вече приключват с вечерята... |
| Служител в ресторант: О, извинявам се. Не са ли пристигнали с останалата поръчка? Момент да проверя. |
| Служител в ресторант: Много съжалявам за забавянето. Ето и Вашите картофки. И плодовата салата... |
| Рая: Момент, моля. Картофите изглежда са приготвени с масло. |
| Служител в ресторант: Да, разбира се. |
| Рая: Но аз изрично помолих да са с олио. Искам да ги върна, това не е каквото поръчах. |
| Рая: И плодовата салата - защо има сметана? |
| Служител в ресторант: Винаги я поднасяме със сметана. |
| Рая: Това не е споменато в менюто. Казах ви, че не мога да ям нищо с животински произход. |
| Служител в ресторант: Но това е само сметана... |
| Рая: Първо ми забавихте поръчката. След това ми носите неща, които не мога да ям. И дори нямате доблестта да се извините. Крайно разочарована съм от обслужването тук. |
| Eric: Listen to the conversation with the English translation. |
| Raya: Excuse me, what is happening with my steamed potatoes? Everybody has almost finished with their dinner. |
| Restaurant staff: Oh, I am sorry. Have they not arrived with the rest of the order? Let me check. |
| Restaurant staff: I am very sorry for the delay. Here are your potatoes. And the fruit salad... |
| Raya: Just a moment, please. It seems that the potatoes have been cooked in butter. |
| Restaurant staff: Yes, of course... |
| Raya: But I explicitly asked that they be cooked in oil. I would like to return them, this is not what I ordered. |
| Raya: And the fruit salad, why is there cream on it? |
| Restaurant staff: We always serve it with cream. |
| Raya: That isn’t mentioned on the menu. I told you I can’t eat anything of animal origin. |
| Restaurant staff: But this is just cream... |
| Raya: First, you forgot about my order. Then you bring out dishes that I can’t eat. And you don’t even have the courage to apologize. I am extremely disappointed with the service here. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Eric: Tina, let’s talk a little more about the Eastern Orthodox Church. In the last lesson we mentioned the preparations a good believer makes before a holiday. This is also a preparation of the spirit. |
| Tina: Right, in other words the admission of one’s sins or wrongdoings from a religious perspective. |
| Eric: Now would you tell us more about the preparation of the body? |
| Tina: Well, the physical body needs to be involved as well, and this is done by fasting. |
| Eric: Do all Bulgarians fast regularly? |
| Tina: Over 80% of the people living in Bulgaria declare that they are Orthodox Christians, but there are no official statistics about how many of them regularly attend the liturgy or actually fast. |
| Eric: When should you fast? |
| Tina: Orthodox Christians are supposed to fast every Wednesday and Friday, all year long and always before a big religious celebration. On the other hand, Sunday is the day of celebration; so even within a fasting period, the fasting rules are more relaxed than on other days. |
| Eric: How do people fast in Bulgaria? |
| Tina: In general, people do not eat any products of animal origin, including meat, milk, eggs, cheese, butter, and so on. |
| Eric: Is there a sentence related to this topic we should know? |
| Tina: You could hear Постя понякога и само преди големи празници. |
| Eric: Which means "I fast occasionally, and only before big holidays." Okay, now onto the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Eric: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Tina: забавяне [natural native speed] |
| Eric: delay, detention |
| Tina: забавяне[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Tina: забавяне [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Tina: изрично [natural native speed] |
| Eric: explicitly, expressly |
| Tina: изрично[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Tina: изрично [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Tina: помолвам [natural native speed] |
| Eric: to ask, to beg once |
| Tina: помолвам[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Tina: помолвам [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Tina: сметана [natural native speed] |
| Eric: cream |
| Tina: сметана[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Tina: сметана [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Tina: поднасям [natural native speed] |
| Eric: to serve, to offer |
| Tina: поднасям[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Tina: поднасям [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Tina: споменавам [natural native speed] |
| Eric: to mention |
| Tina: споменавам[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Tina: споменавам [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Tina: доблест [natural native speed] |
| Eric: valor, courage |
| Tina: доблест[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Tina: доблест [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Tina: краен [natural native speed] |
| Eric: extreme, last |
| Tina: краен[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Tina: краен [natural native speed] |
| Eric: And lastly.. |
| Tina: разочарован [natural native speed] |
| Eric: disappointed |
| Tina: разочарован[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Tina: разочарован [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Eric: Let's have a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first phrase is.. |
| Tina: извинявам се |
| Eric: meaning "to apologize for oneself, to be sorry." |
| Tina: Извинявам се is the imperfective verb you can use when you want to say that you are sorry and briefly apologize. It’s used in formal and informal situations. But in very formal situations, it’s better to use Познасям своите извинения |
| Eric: which means "to offer one's apologies." |
| Tina: Своите is a possessive reflexive pronoun and it agrees with “apologies,” so only the verb in the expression will change according to number, gender and tense. |
| Eric: Can you give us an example using this phrase? |
| Tina: Sure. For example, you can say.. Той се обади, за да поднесе своите извинения за отложената среща. |
| Eric: ..which means "He called to offer his apologies for the postponed meeting." Okay, what's the next word? |
| Tina: поднасям |
| Eric: meaning "to serve, to offer, to give" |
| Tina: поднасям is a transitive verb. |
| Eric: Which means that it always requires a direct object of the action to be specified. |
| Tina: Yes, for example подарък, "a present," or изненада, "a surprise." |
| Eric: Let’s consider “to give a present” |
| Tina: Altogether, it would be Поднасям подарък. Keep in mind that when you want to specify what the present was explicitly, we would use the verb подарявам meaning "to present," instead. |
| Eric: Can you give us an example using the first word? |
| Tina: Sure. For example, you can say.. Те бяха толкова любезни - въпреки че аз бях гостът, те ми поднесоха малък подарък за спомен. |
| Eric: .. which means "They were so nice - although I was the guest, they gave me a small gift as a souvenir." Okay, now onto the lesson focus. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Eric: In this lesson, you'll learn how to use the past tense when making a complaint. It’s necessary to be able to use the past tense if, for example, you are complaining about a service you received or the quality of the products you got. |
| Tina: In this lesson, you will learn how to form the respective forms of the verb in past aorist tense. |
| Eric: Bulgarian verbs change according to person and number in all tenses - present, past, and future. |
| Tina: Formally, there are nine tenses in the Bulgarian language. |
| Eric: Four of these are past tenses, Past Aorist, which is similar in meaning to the English simple past tense; the Past Imperfect, similar to the English past continuous tense; the Past Indefinite, similar to the English present perfect tense; and the Past Preliminary, similar to the English past perfect tense. |
| Tina: Let’s take a look at the past aorist. |
| Eric: Keep in mind that a conjugated verb in Bulgarian is made of a verb stem, followed by a thematic vowel and a personal ending. |
| Tina: Right, the verb stem is basically the dictionary verb form without its last vowel. For example, the stem of пия meaning “to drink” is пи. The stem of пристигам meaning “to arrive” is пристиг and so on. The stem usually doesn’t change, but in some cases it can change too. |
| Eric: The stem is followed by the thematic vowel, which might change according to person and number in the conjugated form of the verb. |
| Tina: For the verbs in the Conjugation 3 group, the vowel is actually considered part of the stem, but let’s consider it as a thematic vowel. |
| Eric: Last comes the personal ending, which also changes according to person and conjugation. |
| Tina: Sometimes everything after the stem is considered a suffix without making a distinction between thematic vowel and personal ending. |
| Eric: Now let’s look closely at the past aorist. |
| Tina: The past aorist tense indicates that the action was performed and completed in the past. |
| Eric: All verbs, perfective and imperfective, have a past aorist form. The differing conjugation with these is not based on the aspect, but on which conjugation group they belong to. Because there are more specifics in the conjugation of verbs in Group 1, we’ll introduce them in another lesson For now, we’ll look at Conjugation 2 and 3. |
| Tina: The thematic vowel for Conjugation 2 can be и, а or я and the thematic vowel for Conjugation 3 can be а or я, while the personal endings are the same for both Conjugation 2 and 3. |
| Eric: Let’s see a complete conjugation for each group. Let’s choose “to check” for Conjugation 2. Tina will give the Bulgarian and I will give the translation. |
| Tina: аз провер-и-х |
| Eric: “I checked” |
| Tina: ти провер-и |
| Eric:”you checked” |
| Tina: той, тя, то провер-и |
| Eric:”he/she/it checked” |
| Tina: ние провер-и-хме |
| Eric: “we checked” |
| Tina: вие провер-и-хте |
| Eric:”you checked” in the plural |
| Tina: те провер-и-ха |
| Eric:”they checked” |
| Tina: For the third conjugation, let’s take a look at донася-м, which means “to bring” and which has a thematic vowel that can be considered part of the stem. Here is the first person singular - аз донася-х |
| Eric: “I brought” |
| Tina: ти донася |
| Eric:”you brought” |
| Tina: той, тя, то донася |
| Eric:”he/she/it brought” |
| Tina: ние донася-хме |
| Eric: “we brought” |
| Tina: вие донася-хте |
| Eric:”you brought” in the plural |
| Tina: те донася-ха |
| Eric:”they brought” |
| Tina: Most of the verbs in this lesson’s conversation are in the Conjugation 3 group. |
| Eric: Let’s wrap up with some sample sentences. |
| Tina: Защо забавихте разядките, бирата вече се стопли? |
| Eric: "Why are you bringing the appetizers so late, the beer has already warmed up!" |
| Tina: Поръчах кафето със сметана, не с мляко. |
| Eric: "I ordered the coffee with cream, not with milk." |
| Tina: Той не спомена, че няма да идва, чакаме го вече половин час. |
| Eric: "He didn’t mention that he wouldn’t be coming, we’ve been waiting for him half an hour already." |
Outro |
| Eric: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! Bye! |
| Tina: До скоро! |
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