Welcome to the first step of your Bulgarian language learning journey! This is going to be exciting for you as well as me, your innocent and Bulgarian-ignorant teacher.
Let’s start with the top 3 most frequent words — да, съм, не — of the Bulgarian language plus some more for fun and more meaningful sentences. I’m really trying to keep this and all the following lessons short and sweet. So, don’t be surprised about how little ground is covered in this one. (Actually, I have to make quite an effort not to overload the lesson with content.) It’s the sheer number of lessons and the constant/consistent involvement with the language that counts. Bulgarian Day by Day is about tiny steps towards mastery.
Enough said. Let’s start with greeting and getting to know each other.
Иван: Здрасти! Аз съм Иван!
Мария: Здравей, Иван! Мария съм.
Петър: Ти си Димитър?
Иван: Не. Иван съм.
Мария: Петър си?
Петър: Да.
Иван: Това е Ирина?
Мария: Не, тя е Тамара.
Тамара: Да, Тамара съм. Той е Георги?
Иван: Да, това е Георги.
Тамара: Здрасти, Георги!
Ivan: Hi! I'm Ivan!
Maria: Hi, Ivan! I'm Maria.
Peter: Are you Dimitar?
Ivan: No. I'm Ivan.
Maria: You're Peter?
Peter: Yes.
Ivan: This is Irina?
Maria: No, she's Tamara.
Tamara: Yes, I'm Tamara. He's George?
Ivan: Yes, that's Georgе.
Tamara: Hi, George!
I think this is not only relevant in terms of word frequency as you’ll see in the vocabulary, but also regarding real life. To meet some person, say Hi!, and tell your name (or ask for someone’s name) is very common. Very.
Interestingly, though, the greetings Здрасти and Здравей are not among the 2500 most frequent words of the Bulgarian language. How can that be? Maybe, just maybe they are subsumed under поздравявам (#1033) (“to greet”)? Anyway, I included them here, because in my experience you hear them all the time.
Vocabulary (10 words)
аз - #20/8 prn
"I"
да - #1/1 prt
"yes"
Здравей - i
"Hello" (when greeting a single person you know (informal)
Здрасти - i
"Hi" (colloquial)
не - #3/2 prt
"no, not"
съм - #2/1 v irr.
"to be"
ти - #14/4 prn
"you" (informal, when on a first name basis)
това - #11/3 prn
"this"
той - #35/12 prn
"he"
тя - #53/22 prn
"she"
Pronouns
--------
аз ("I")
ти ("you")
той, тя ("he", "she")
Greetings
---------
Здравей ("Hello!")
Здрасти ("Hi!")
Particles
---------
да ("yes")
не ("no")
Words in the vocabulary are listed in alphabetical order first, and then again in groups which might be more or less formal. The grouping is supposed to let you more easily detect patterns and help you making sense of the language in general.
For each word not only the translation is given, but also:
its category, e.g.
m, f, n: gender of noun (masculine, feminine, neuter)
v: verb; can be irr. (irregular) or be conjugated according to 1st, 2nd, 3rd conjugation
prn: pronoun
prp: preposition
prt: particle
i: interjection
its rank in the list of the 2500 most frequent Bulgarian words and its rank in the category it belongs to, e.g. това - #11/3 means 11st word in frequency dictionary and 3rd pronoun.
Grammar
Grammar? Yes, grammar. Even though kids learn languages without any instructions and knowledge of grammar, that’s not necessarily the best or most easiest way for adults. We can employ our intellects to learn faster. Knowing a couple of grammatical rules can lessen the effort to understand/speak correctly considerably.
But grammar can also be boring. I know. Of course I’m eager to keep it to a minimum. Promised.
Sentence structure
So, what’s to be said about grammar? I’m trying to keep the example sentences short and very simple; so simple even, that maybe they are a little bit off real Bulgarian, but still formally correct. This is to keep them closer to English which you already know.
On the other hand this one may look/sound a bit off, but it isn’t:
Иван съм.
"Ivan [I] am."
In Bulgarian the pronoun can be left out. The above is as correct and even more usual than this:
Аз съм Иван!
"I am Ivan!"
Despite all the simplicity you surely have detected there are the usual elements here:
A subject — who/what is active? Usually its position in the sentence is towards the beginning. The subject can be a name, a pronoun or a noun.
A verb — what’s done by the subject.
Bulgarian is not English, but still you can keep the SPO rule — subject, predicate (verb), object — in mind. In my experience this carries quite a long way, even though Bulgarian is more flexible in its sentence structure, it seems.
Your first verb: “to be”
The first verb you learn is “to be”. I think it’s the most frequent word in every language. That it’s core to a language in my view is signified by it being an irregular verb.
You remember conjugation from school, maybe from learning a foreign language? It’s how verbs change their form depending on who/what’s the subject of a sentence. Examples from English:
“to be”: “I am”, “You are”, “He is”, …
“to go”: “I go”, “You go”, “He goes”, …
You see how with “to be” the whole word changes — that’s what irregular means. Compare that with how only the ending (sometimes) changes with “to go”.
In addition in many languages verbs have a “neutral” form not associated with a pronoun/subject, e.g. “to be”, “to go”. In English this infinitive is expressed by “to” in front of the verb. In German, for example, it’s a different ending attached to a stem, e.g. “gehen” (infinitive, “to go”) with “Ich gehe”, “Du gehst”, “Er geht” for “I go”, “You go”, “He goes”.
Bulgarian is different in this regard, though: verbs don’t have a separate infinitive. Their “basic form” is always the first person singular form, e.g. съм for “to be”.
But more of the intricacies of conjugation in little steps in future lessons. For now let’s be content with the singular pronouns of Bulgarian in conjunction with “to be”:
аз съм ("I am")
ти си ("You are")
той, тя е ("He, she is")
Irregular verbs are, well, irregular. There is no rule to their conjugation. You don’t get around memorizing their individual forms. I recommend you do that in the order of pronouns. For today it’s just the singular person pronouns, though. But you can be sure: there are more to come, 4 to be precise.
For today just repeat in your head аз съм, ти си, той/тя е, аз съм, ти си, той/тя е, аз съм, ти си, той/тя е, …😉
Exercises
Now for the fun part: translation. This is the heart of Bulgarian Day by Day lessons. Translating every day — even just a little bit — goes a long way towards language mastery.
Try to do the exercises without cheating. Sure, you can peek at the solution at any time — it’s just in another posting —, but try not to. Ok?
Bulgarian → English
1. Здрасти! Аз съм Мария!
2. Той е Иван?
3. Това е Димитър?
4. Ти си Тамара.
5. Петър е?
6. Здравей, Мариа!
7. Не. Тамара съм.
8. Да, тя е Тамара.
9. Джон съм.
10. Тя е Андреа.
English → Bulgarian
1. Is he John?
2. No, he is Ivan.
3. Hi, Tamara!
4. This is Maria.
5. Hello, Ivan.
6. I am John.
7. She is Tamara.
8. Are you Peter?
9. No. This is Ivan.
10. I am Peter. Yes.