LESSON 1PRONUNCIATION - 1

BASIC BULGARIAN CONSONANT SOUNDS

HEY, LETS

LEARN!

INTRODUCTIONThe Focus of This Lesson is Syllables and Native Consonant

Sounds That Make Up the Bulgarian Language

Let's first take a look at how Bulgarian sounds work. In Bulgarian, we use the Cyrillic alphabet. The Bulgarian alphabet consists of twenty consonant sounds ([б], [в], [г], [д], [ж], [з], [к], [л], [м], [н], [п], [р], [с], [т], [ф], [х], [ц], [ч], [ш], [щ], and there are also

composed sounds like [дж], which are not part of the alphabet, formed by two consonants in some words like "join" or "edge"), and six vowels ([а], [е], [и], [о], [у], [ъ]). There are

also two semivowels, [й] and [ь], which are usually combined with vowels.

INTRODUCTION Bulgarian has two compound sounds that are also included in the letters of the alphabet.

They are [ю] and [я]. Altogether, we have thirty letters of the alphabet. In Bulgarian, there are words like the English word "strength," which have clusters of three or more consonants. But in Bulgarian the maximum phonological structure of the syllable can be summarized as CCCVCCC. There are various syllable types; the more complex ones are, for example, CCVC, CCCVC, and CCVCCC. The simple ones are of the CVC type, for example.

Examples of Bulgarian Words C=consonant V=vowel

Bulgarian Romanization "English" Syllable Combination

бряг bryag "shore" CCVC

страх strah "fear" CCCVC

сфинкс sfinks "sphinx" CCVCCC

дом dom "home" CVC

CONSONANTS 1. [б] (b) as in "bus“

2. [в] (v) as in "very"

3. [г] (g) as in "good"

4. [д] (d) as in "dog"

5. [ж] (j) as s in "leisure"

6. [з] (z) as in "zoo"

7. [к] (k) as in "kick"

8. [л] (l) as in "love"

9. [м] (m) as in "many"

10. [н] (n) as in "no"

11. [п] (p) as in "pot"

12. [р] (r) as in "red"

13. [с] (s) as in "sit"

14. [т] (t) as in "tea"

15. [ф] (f) as in "foot"

16. [х] (h) as in "heart"

17. [ц] (ts) as in "fits"

18. [ч] (ch) as in "check"

19. [ш] (sh) as in "shut"

20. [щ] (sht) as in "shtick" or the "-shed" in "pushed"

21. [дж] (dj) as in "job" or "John"

22. [й] (i) as in "instant" or "yes," shorter than the vowel [и]

23. [ь] (i) consonant softening sound, combined with [о] to make "yo" as in "yoyo"

24. [ю] (yu) as in "you"

25. [я] (ya) as in "yarn"

PRONUNCIATION

Every Bulgarian letter has an English equivalent close enough to give you a clue as to its pronunciation. If you use the phonetic transcription of the pronunciation as given above,

you can memorize how to pronounce every letter. The stress is very important not only for the pronunciation, but for the meaning as well.

PRONUNCIATION

The bad news is that there is no rule for the position of the stress in Bulgarian. Every word should be memorized separately. In some words the stress can change its position when changing the form from singular to plural or when adding a definite article. Also there are

words that change their meaning depending on the stress. But don't worry! In these pronunciation lessons we are going to give you tips on how to learn and master Bulgarian

pronunciation.