THE BULGARIAN ALPHABET

The Bulgarian language uses the Cyrillic alphabet, similar but not identical to Russian. For anyone wishing to learn Bulgarian, an essential starting point is to learn the alphabet and to start practicing to write in Bulgarian. Reliance only on “phonetic” Bulgarian written in the Latin (ie, English) alphabet will severely limit the ability to correctly sound out Bulgarian words, quite apart from inability to read road-signs, menus and the like!

While Bulgarian is a difficult language in many ways (eg, the three classes of verbs with their different endings, the heavy reliance on gender for nouns, pronouns and adjectives), in one respect Bulgarian is much easier than English. For the most part, words in Bulgarian are spelt as they are sounded. So if you know the sounds of the letters making up a word, you’ll be able to make a fair stab at correct pronunciation, even without knowing where the emphasis (accent) might lie in a given word. That comes from a growing use of and “feel” for the language.

So, here is the Bulgarian alphabet in upper and lower case, with the equivalent letters – or sound approximations – in English.

Upper Case Lower Case English Equivalent А а a Б б b В в v Г г g Д д d Е е e Ж ж zh З з z И и i Й й y К к k Л л l М м m Н н n О о o

Upper Case Lower Case English Equivalent П п p Р р r С с s Т т t У у u Ф ф f Х х h Ц ц ts Ч ч ch Ш ш sh Щ щ sht Ъ ъ u - ь yo Ю ю yu Я я ya

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