If you think that the Cyrillic alphabet looks like an alien script, then you may be surprised at how easy it is to learn. It is surprisingly close to the English alphabet. In fact you only need to learn the three letters in the following paragraph, and you will be able to read dozens of Bulgarian words.
Learning the Bulgarian language is a different matter however, it is hard work requiring a language course and hours of lessons.
Cyrillic is very close to the English alphabet, each Cyrillic letter has an equivalent English letter.
Many letters look the same, others look similar but deformed or hand written (D = Д). If you learn the following three letters:
* the letter 'r' is written 'Р' in Cyrillic,
* the letter 'n' is written 'Н' in Cyrillic,
* the letter 'i' is written 'И' in Cyrillic,
and if you remember that the Cyrillic letter 'c' is always pronounced like 'c' in “city”, then you will understand dozens of Bulgarian words:
Each letter of the Cyrillic alphabet is only pronunced one way. For example the Cyrillic letter "c" is always pronounced like the English "s".
The English letter "c" however is sometimes pronounced like the letter "k" in "cat", or like the letter "s" in "city".
Once you have learnt it, you will be able to read Bulgarian, and even if you don’t understand what you are saying, a Bulgarian will.
In the following table, note that the letters from "i" to "u" are in the same alphabetical order in both alphabets!
|А||а||a||a in alpha|
|Б||б||b||b in bravo|
|В||в||v||v in victor||In Spanish, “v” is pronounced “b”|
|Г||г||g||g in golf|
|Д||д||d||d in delta||Да means “yes” in Bulgarian (and Russian)|
|Е||Е||e||“e” in echo|
|Ж||ж||zx||s in pleasure||In French, like “J” in Jean|
|З||з||z||z in zulu||Similar to a z in English when written with joined-up writing|
|И||и||i||“i” in india||The next 14 letters are in the same order as the English alphabet|
|Й||й||j||“y” in boy||In German, like “j” in ja|
|К||к||k||“k” in kilo|
|Л||л||l||“L” in Lima||Similar to an L in English when written with joined-up writing (with a flat bit on the top)|
|М||м||m||“m” in Mike|
|Н||н||n||“n” in November||This can be confusing|
|О||о||o||“o” in Oscar|
|П||п||p||“p” in papa||Looks like the Greek PI|
|Р||р||r||“r” in roll||Use Scottish rather than English pronunciation|
|С||с||s||“s” in Sierra||Easy to remember if you think of “c” in city|
|Т||т||t||“t” in tango|
|У||у||u||“u” in put||Also like “oo” in foot - but not like “u” in cut|
|Ф||ф||f||“f” in foxtrot||English: “v” comes after “u”; German: “v” is pronounced “f”; Cyrillic: “f” comes after “u”|
|Х||х||h||“h” in hotel||In Spanish, “x” is also pronounced “h” (think of “Don Quixote”)|
|Ц||ц||ts||“ts” in cats|
|Ч||ч||ch||“ch” in chair|
|Ш||ш||sh||“sh” in ship|
|Щ||Щ||st||“sht” in shtook||In German, like “st” in “stein”|
|Ъ||ъ||“a” in a||Not like “a” in cat. Like “a” in “a book, a pen, a …”. Like “er” in Peter. In French like “e” in le.|
|Ь||ь||q||No sound||Used as a separator. Looks like a normal lower case “b”|
|Ю||ю||ju||“u” in uniform||Combination of Й + У|
|Я||я||ja||ya in yard||Combination of Й + А. In German sounds like the word “ja”|
The six vowels: А Е И О У Ъ
Once you have learnt Cyrillic, you will be able to do the following:
* Read a Bulgarian book or newspaper. (You may not understand what you are saying, but a Bulgarian person listening to you will).
* Use a Bulgarian - English dictionary.
* Read a map and street signs
* Understand about 60% of signs on shops.
* Know which train station you are at.
* Spell out names over the telephone.
* Write your name in Cyrillic.
* Recognise the address of the house you bought.
* Write the address on an envelope.
Here is some practice, many of these words you will see everyday in town, now you can read and understand them. A knowledge of German and French will help with a few of them. It’s even easier when they’re in context:
|Хипербанд стерео тунер||Контраст||фаст Бургер||хот дог|
|Бистро||Министерство на финансите||фитнес центрове||солариум|
|Факс||Тенис Клуб Атлас||базар||етаж|
Here are some common names, written in Cyrillic:
Dyslexia is unknown in Bulgaria, Russia and other countries that use the Cyrillic alphabet.
This is because the spelling is phonetic - the words are written how they are spoken.
In all Bulgarian contracts, your name will be written using the Cyrillic alphabet.
Learn more about Bulgaria, both good and bad. Read more…
The Cyrillic alphabet was invented in Bulgaria, and is used in the following languages:
Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Avar, Azeri, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Dungan, Kazak, Kyrghyz, Komi, Macedonian, Moldovan, Mongolian, Russian, Serbian, Slovio, Tajik, Tatar, Turkmen, Ukranian, Uzbek, Yakut.