Asking "Why" in Bulgarian

Learn how to ask "Why?"

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Lesson Transcript

Здрасти, аз съм Ива. Hi everybody! I’m Iva.

Welcome to BulgarianPod101.com’s “Български в три минути”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Bulgarian.

In the last lesson, we learned how to ask "Who" questions in Bulgarian.

This time, we are going to ask questions with the interrogative word "Why?"

Imagine your boss is giving you a call because you are not at work today... He will certainly ask you Защо не сте в офиса днес?

[slowly] Защо не сте в офиса днес? This means “Why aren’t you at the office today?”

So let’s break down this question.

First we had -

Защо, which is the basic translation of "Why" in Bulgarian.

Не сте, which is the 2nd person plural of the verb съм in the negative form,

В офиса, which is "at the office"

And finally днес, which is "today".

Altogether it is Защо не сте в офиса днес? “Why aren’t you at the office today?”

So in Bulgarian, защо is the exact translation of "Why", used to ask the reason for something.

So for example, if your boss is asking you "Why are you late today?" he will say Защо закъсняхте днес?

Here, he uses "Why" in order to get explanations and reasons.

Note that here the sentence is formal again, as we used the 2nd person plural form of the verb закъснявам, which means "to be late".

Another common usage of защо is to ask the objective of something. But in this case, it is split into 2 words, so за and какво.

So here, За какво? is closer to the meaning "What for?" In Bulgarian, we say За какво е направено? which literally means "What is it made for?"

Now it’s time for Iva’s Insights.

A well-known expression in Bulgaria is Защо не? which means, as in English, "Why not?"

You can use it to accept a proposition that was not planned in advance.

For example, if a friend asks you suddenly "Do you want to go to the cinema tonight?"

You can answer Защо не? "Why not?"

Before ending this lesson, Let’s review all the ways to translate "Why" in Bulgarian.

- Защо is the basic translation of "Why," as in Защо закъсняхте? meaning "Why are you late?"

- За какво? which is "What for?" And...

Finally, Защо не? which is "Why not?"

This lesson is the last of this Absolute Beginner video series.

But it’s hopefully not the last you learn about the Bulgarian language! Do you know how many other fun ways there are to use your new Bulgarian skills? To take your language ability to the next level, check out BulgarianPod101.com, the fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Bulgarian.

До скоро!!

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