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FROM THE OMEGA BLOG

How does the Bulgarian language of foreigners sound?

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How does the Bulgarian language of foreigners sound?
We Bulgarians are used to having to learn foreign languages in order to fit into the rest of the world. Do we, however, realize how difficult the native language is and what difficulties all foreigners who want to learn it face? Today we will not go into the details, but we will try to answer the question - how does the Bulgarian sound to others and are we wrong, considering that they do not find it beautiful? 

What do we think?

We can now communicate with many people of all nationalities, and this helps us to sense the melody in different languages and compare ourselves. And perhaps each of us has at least one foreign friend who told him that in his first encounter with our speech, he felt like someone was scolding him. Therefore, we are convinced that the Bulgarian sounds hard and rough in all other languages.  However, the truth is that we cannot really judge this because we are mostly communicating with people who speak one of the European languages. Most of them really sound softer and smoother than the Bulgarian one, but others are much closer to us. But there are many different languages around the world, so let's not rush into findings. 

What do professionals say?

According to experts linguists who prepare American diplomats, languages can be divided into 4 groups according to their difficulty - the first group includes the easiest ones, the last one - the most complex. The Bulgarian is in third group, along with Greek, Slovenian, Turkish, Latvian, Mongolian, Polish, Russian and others. In fact, this is the largest group of about 70 languages studied. The last 4th group includes Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.  So, despite the specifics of our language, it is not at all the most difficult to learn, and it is definitely not the only one who has a particular hard sound. Moreover, it is logical that Serbo-Croatian, Hungarian, Ukrainian and Czech are also in the same group with us.  But if you talk to a Frenchman, for example, the chance of him stepping on his feet at first is huge. It will probably also be quite difficult if you try to teach him a few Bulgarian words. But it's gonna be hard for you to speak French at once. Both languages simply have sounds and sound combinations that are quite different and require a little more effort.   That is, the main difficulty and feeling of sound depend entirely on which language is the native language of the one who wants to learn Bulgarian. 

Why Bulgarian Pronunciation Is Difficult for Foreigners

In our language there are several letters that are difficult to interpret and pronounce by the people for whom he was not born. 
  • Letter S.T.
In essence, this is a combination of two sounds that are pronounced always together in the same sequence - SHT. For most foreigners, however, the combination is difficult and quite firm. 
  • Letter Yu
When it is at the beginning of the word or in front of a voice, it is pronounced as a combination of two sounds JU. When he stands after consent, however, he pronounces himself more as a Y, but the agreement before him is pronounced softer. For example: Cabin - Love or light - love. 
  • Letter
Here, the situation is quite similar to the previous case. When it's at the beginning of the word or after the vowel, Z sounds like JA, but after the consent, sounds more like A, but the previous sound is softened. For example: Apple - Summer.  Several articles such as J and DZ are difficult, as well as the specifics of our language YO and JO. It turns out, however, that quite ordinary for us and for the other Europeans, letters P and L, are causing a lot of problems to Chinese people who have decided to learn Bulgarian. In their language, P does not exist and they most often replace it with L in any word. Spanish speakers are hardly able to distinguish between C and Z and B and C, experts say.  Of course, outside the pronunciation, Bulgarian language has many more challenges for those who have decided to tackle it - a variety of times, matriculation and type of verbs, a full and short term. Well, with a wink, some of them are difficult even for those he was born to, so we should not demand too much from the people he is foreign to. But maybe to make it easier for them when we communicate, it's also good to realize that sometimes we step on them even before we talk by shaking our head about not turning our heads on yes.  If you want to learn Bulgarian and easily overcome all difficulties in grammar and pronunciation, trust our trained specialists and enroll in a course at the Language School .  More about our courses can be found here https://omegals.bg/kursove/za-vyzrastni/balgarski-ezik/ Or by calling us at: +359 878 566 537 or 02/423 21 21. 
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