Learn how to explain people's habits
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Becky: Hello and welcome back to BulgarianPod101.com. This is Lower Beginner, season 1, lesson 21 Learning About the Habits of Bulgarians. This is Becky. |
| Iva: Zdravei And I am Iva! |
| Becky: In this lesson you'll learn how to talk about habitual actions in Bulgarian. |
| Iva: The conversation takes place in a bar. |
| Becky: It’s between Maria and James; they are talking about going to a dance club. |
| Iva: They are friends so their speech is informal. |
| Becky: Let’s listen to the conversation! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Becky: Let’s talk about night life in Bulgaria! |
| Iva: Ok, first up let’s look at the nightclubs in Sofia. |
| Becky: I hear Sofia is one of the best places in Europe for a wild party! |
| Iva: It certainly is! The night clubs don’t close until the morning comes. |
| Becky: The dance parties are usually very crowded and people have a lot of fun. |
| Iva: Some of the popular spots in the city are Chervilo, Yalta club, Sin city, Night flight, and Tequila club to mention a few. |
| Becky: But there is variety in the clubs; there are piano bars and rock bars with live bands; and also DJs who play house and techno to an audience of young people; and then finally the expensive nightclubs for the so-called Pop Folk, a blend of Balkan folk style with contemporary rhythms. |
| Iva: And finally, the nightclubs at the Black Sea resorts can offer even more variety because they try to cater for an international audience. |
| Becky: OK. That’s some handy information for those listeners who want to experience the nightlife in Bulgaria. Now let’s move onto the vocab. |
| 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: The first one is “Имам предвид”. |
| Becky: It’s a phrase meaning “I mean”. |
| Iva: Yes. Since it’s composed of the verb “to have”, “имам” plus the word “предвид”, meaning “account”, we can conjugate it as a verb. |
| Becky: OK, listen carefully everyone! |
| Iva: “имам предвид”; “I mean” - - “имаш предвид”; “you mean” “има предвид” “he/she/it means” - “имаме предвид”, “we mean” “имате предвид”“you mean” имат предвид”- “they mean” |
| Becky: Okay, what’s next? |
| Iva: “Точно така” |
| Becky: This is an adverb meaning “exactly”, “precisely” and so on. |
| Iva: It’s sometimes a single answer to a question or a statement. |
| Becky: Can you tell us more about it? |
| Iva: Yes. It’s composed of the adverb “точно”, which on its own means “exactly”, plus the adverb “so”, “така”. |
| Becky: OK, and what’s the last word? |
| Iva: “Цял” |
| Becky: This is an adjective meaning “whole”. |
| Iva: Its forms in the different genders are as follows: “цял” for masculine, “цяла” for feminine, “цяло” for neuter, and “цели” for the plural. |
| Becky: Is there anything important to note here? |
| Iva: Note how the plural form changes “я” to “е”. |
| Becky: Sometimes even Bulgarians make a mistake and pronounce it “цяли”, which is not correct. |
| Iva: Yes. So again, the forms are “цял”, “цяла”, “цяло” and “цели” for the plural. |
| Becky: OK, good to know. Now let’s move on to the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Becky: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to talk about habitual actions. Usually, you’d use the present simple tense to talk about this in English. |
| Iva: And Bulgarian is no different from English. |
| Becky: When you talk about what people usually do in Bulgarian, you use this type of construction: “[Someone] usually does [something]”. |
| Iva: For example “Хората обикновено купуват билети преди да се качат на автобуса”. |
| Becky: It may seem a little difficult, so let’s break it down. |
| Iva: Ok, we have a subject, then the adverb “обикновено” meaning “usually”, then the verb in the present simple tense form, and finally some action, in this case the action is a whole new sentence. |
| Becky: But not to keep our listeners waiting, we must say that the sentence means “People usually buy tickets before getting on the bus”. There are a variety of sentences of this type, so what’s important to remember here, is that you have a subject, plus the adverb, plus the verb form in the present simple tense. What was the similar sentence in our dialogue, Iva? |
| Iva: Maria said “Българите обикновено ходят на клубове”. |
| Becky: Which means “Bulgarians usually go to clubs”. |
| Becky: What if we want to talk about something someone doesn’t do? |
| Iva: You can make the same type of sentence in negative form. |
| Becky: So you can say that someone usually does not do something. For example, we can say that “Bulgarians usually don’t forget to take off their shoes when they enter the home”. Again, this sentence has an additional part, which is a bit long, but the main format stays the same. |
| Iva: Yes. In Bulgarian, this sentence will sound like this: “Българите обикновено не забравят да си свалят обувките, когато влизат вкъщи”. |
| Becky: These kinds of statements about habitual actions can be very useful when you’re learning about new culture. |
| Iva: Definitely. You can build on the base of “What do Bulgarians usually do?” by adding things like “on Saturday night”, “at Christmas”, “when they get married”, and so on. |
| Becky: OK. How do we say this base question in Bulgarian? |
| Iva: It’s “Какво обикновено правят българите ~ (…)” |
| Becky: ...and you add the things you are interested in at the end. It’s all about learning what people usually do in their everyday lives. |
| Iva: Yes, exactly. |
| Becky: Now, for more examples, check the lesson notes. |
| Iva: Yes! Listeners, make sure that you check them and practice with them! |
| Iva: Okay, everyone. That’s it for this lesson. |
Outro |
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| Becky: And we’ll see you in our next lesson! |
| Iva: Bye-bye! |
| Becky: Thanks for listening, bye! |
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