Lesson Notes

Unlock In-Depth Explanations & Exclusive Takeaways with Printable Lesson Notes

Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.

Or sign up using Facebook
By clicking Join Now, you agree to our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and to receive our email communications, which you may opt out at any time.
Already a Member?

Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Yura: Pronunciation Series Lesson 2 - Basic Vowels. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the pronunciation series.
Iva: Did you practice the sounds in Part I?
Yura: We have a few more sounds for you this time. Six vowels only.
Iva: And these are very easy.
Yura: Yes, they’re not that different from English sounds actually. Ok, shall we get started?
Iva: Sounds good.

Lesson focus
Yura: Now, if you’ve got the lessons notes, it’s probably a good idea to read them as you listen so that you can see what sounds we are talking about.
Iva: The first thing to remember is that there’re only six different vowels in Bulgarian. Only six.
Yura: And, unlike the 11 different vowel sounds in English, the six vowels in Bulgarian have one pronunciation each.
Iva: It makes them really easy to remember.
Yura: What we’ll do is to compare them to sounds in English. Ok. The first one is the letter а.
Iva: а.
Yura: а is pronounced like the „a” in „father”. Next, is the letter е.
Iva: е.
Yura: It’s pronounced like the „e” in „best”. Next, is the letter и.
Iva: и.
Yura: It’s pronounced like the „i” in „igloo”. It’s different from the й (и-кратко) we mentioned in our previous pronunciation lesson. й is called in Bulgarian „short и” and indeed is shorter than „и”.
Iva: That is why we pronounce „и” a bit longer.
Yura: Ok, great. The next letter is о.
Iva: о.
Yura: This is pronounced like the „wa” in „water”. It cannot be pronounced like „o” as in English.
Iva: How about the letter у?
Yura: Oh, yes, the letter у. Well, the truth is that the letter у in Bulgarian is like „oo” in the word „tool”. Can we hear a word with this sound?
Iva: Sure. Ухо. This means „ear”. There is one vowel we skipped, isn’t there?
Yura: Yes. It is the letter ъ. It’s pronounced „rn” like in „turn”. Can we hear a word with this sound?
Iva: Certainly. Пръст. This means finger.
Yura: I see.

Outro
Iva: Well, that’s all the time we had for this lesson. Thanks for joining us, everyone.
Yura: Keep practicing that pronunciation and we’ll see you next time.
Iva: Ciao, ciao.

Comments

Hide