Learn the rules governing Bulgarian pronunciation
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Yura: Pronunciation Series Lesson 1. Basic Bulgarian Consonant Sounds. Welcome to operation series at BulgarianPod101.com! |
| Iva: Как сте?. |
| Yura: In this lesson we are going to start with the basics and slowly work our way up. |
| Iva: That’s right. First we’ll talk about what Bulgarian sounds are made off. |
Lesson focus |
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| Yura: Now, Bulgarian has many sounds compared to other languages. |
| Iva: There are 20 consonants, 6 vowels, 2 semivowels and 2 compound sounds. |
| Yura: Right. And Bulgarian is made up of syllables. There are many types of syllables and they each require at least 1 vowel. Most of the types of syllables consist of 2 or more consonants and a vowel. Can we hear an example word of this type of syllable? |
| Iva: For example, дом. It means “home”. |
| Yura: So, there are 2 consonants and 1 vowel between them in this word. We also have types that consist of many consonants and a vowel. Can we hear an example with this type of syllable? |
| Iva: Sure! сфинкс. It means “sphinx”. |
| Yura: So, this one is made up of 2 syllables, but this time we have a consonant-consonant-vowel syllable “сфи” followed by a consonant-consonant-consonant syllable “нкс”. There is another example of such type which only contains a vowel. Can we have an example with it? |
| Iva: Here is a good one! Страх. It means “fear”. |
| Yura: Now we have the first syllable: consonant-consonant-consonant-vowel syllable “стра”. It is followed by the syllable with only one consonant “х”. Finally, we have 1 vowel plus 3 consonants syllables. Can we hear an example of that? |
| Iva: Certainly! We have бряг which means “shore”. |
| Yura: See, the first syllable, “бря” has consonant-consonant-vowel structure. The second syllable is yet another consonant only syllable with a consonant “г”. OK. Now, let’s start to look at the individual consonants and how to produce them. |
| Iva: Sounds like a good idea! And, remember, we are only going over the consonants right now plus the semivowel. |
| Yura: That’s right! First we have б which is pronounced much like “b” in English. “b” as in “bus”. |
| Iva: Next, we have в which is pronounced much like “v” in English. В. |
| Yura: That’s right! As in “very”. |
| Iva: Next, we have г which is much like the English “g”. |
| Yura: After that we have д which is the equivalent to the English “d” in “dog”. |
| Iva: Then we have ж which is pronounced a little different from the “j” in English. More as the “s” in the word “leisure”. |
| Yura: Yes, and you pronounce it when it appears at the end of the words, too. Like in the word кураж which ends in ж and means the same as the English “courage”. Next, we have з which is pretty much the same as “z” in English. |
| Iva: Then we have к which is much like the English “k”. |
| Yura: Then we have л, м and н are in the same group much like their counterparts in English. So, I won’t comment the further. What’s the next sound? |
| Iva: п. Again, is the same as the English “p” although the next sound looks like it. |
| Yura: All right, that is complicated! We have р which is like the “r” in English. You have to be careful! |
| Iva: Following that, we have с which is much like the English “s” although it looks like a “c”, after which we have т which is much like the English “t”. |
| Yura: And then we have ф and х which are exactly like the English “f” and “h”. Do not mistake the second one for an English sound “x”. It is pronounced as х as in “heart”. |
| Iva: Next come ц and ч which are like the English combination of sounds “ts” and “ch”. |
| Yura: Yes, as in “fits” and “check”. |
| Iva: Well, are there more of these combinations? |
| Yura: Yes, we also have ш and щ which are like the English sounds “sh” and “sht” in words like “shut” and “shtick”. |
| Iva: However, there is one more combination of sounds in Bulgarian that is not a separate letter in the half of it what is very exactly equivalent of the English sound “j”. |
| Yura: That’s right! It is composed of two consonants дж as in “job” or “John”. |
| Iva: Is that all? |
| Yura: We have left the semivowels. |
| Iva: Yes. й (и-кратко) and ь (ер-малък). |
| Yura: Exactly! They’re a little bit difficult because usually both are combined with о. It depends on the word which uses them. |
| Iva: Yes, it depends on the word which uses them. й or ь. |
| Yura: But, we use them with other vowels like о to make this vowels sound softer. |
| Iva: For example, they form a sound like йе or йо, respectively as in “yes” or “yoyo”. |
| Yura: Yes. And, finally we have? |
| Iva: The compound sound ю and я. They’re made by the combination of two sounds “y” plus “u” and “y” plus “a”. |
| Yura: So, these sounds as in the English “menu” and “yarn”. |
| Iva: You can hear the ю in “menu” and я in “yarn”. These are the letters made by compound sounds in Bulgarian. |
| Yura: Wow! So, Iva, can you pronounce the word for “sure” again? |
| Iva: бряг |
| Yura: Notice how Eva does not pronounce the г at the end as a “g”, but more like a “k”. That is how the pronunciation in Bulgarian changes according to the place of the consonant in the word. |
| Iva: Also, the stress in the words can change its position according to the form of the word. |
| Yura: Yes. These words which change their meaning depending on the stress. |
| Iva: Yes, but don’t worry. |
| Yura: With these pronunciation lessons we’re going to give you tips how to learn and master the Bulgarian pronunciation. |
| Iva: Right! |
Outro |
| Yura: Make sure to practice this over and over until you really to get to hang them. The best way to improve pronunciation is to practice. |
| Iva: So, keep practicing! |
| Yura: And see you next time at Bulgarianpod101.com. |
| Iva: Ciao! |
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