All right. Let's continue with these verbs, because I think repetition will help.
But first, the letter of the day:
E e
This letter produces kind of a mixture of an "ay" sound with the sound of the English e in the word "let." You'll be able to hear the sound in the examples below.
And now, the verb of the day. We will continue with a-pattern verbs until we're sure that it's making sense.
Today's a-pattern verb means to shop (emphasis in the word is bolded):
pazaroovam
The root is "pazaroov." Now, we just add the appropriate endings on the root (ending are bolded) :
az pazaroovam
ti pazaroovash
toi, tya, to pazaroova
nie pazaroovame
vie pazaroovate
te pazaroovat
Sounds like this:
PS. Sorry for the delay of nearly a week. I'm trying to keep up with this, but I get home from work late and then have things I have to get done at home...anyway, excuses, excuses. I hope the learning is going well.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Letter Д д and more verbs
Before we get into today's words, let me finish what I started yesterday.
At the end of the post, I asked you if you could figure out what "Imam brat" means. It means, "I have a brother." It may have been difficult to figure that out, though, because I forgot to mention two things about Bulgarian grammar:
1. The Bulgarian language does not have the word "a." It's implied. So, the Bulgarian sentence doesn't need "a," but the English sentence does.
2. Notice that I did not use the word "az" in the sentence "Imam brat." Why? It's not necessary to include the subject "I" in the sentence, because the verb's ending tells you what subject it refers to. I could do the same thing with this sentence: "Imash brat." That means, "You have a brother." "Ima brat" means he or she has a brother. "Imame brat" means we have a brother. No subject is needed.
Anyway, I hope you figured it out. If not, stick with it. Now, let's get to new stuff.
The next letter in the alphabet sounds like a "d." It looks like this:
Д д
Now, back to verbs.
I realized yesterday was probably pretty confusing, so I want to return to a-pattern verbs and give it another shot. Remember, once you learn the endings of a-pattern verbs, you can easily conjugate any a-pattern verb as long as you know the root of the verb.
Today's verb is obicham, which means to love. The root of obicham is "obich." Then, you add the appropriate endings (which are in bold below):
az obicham
ti obichash
toi, tya, to obicha
nie obichame
vie obichate
te obichat
Starting to make more sense now? Here the words below:
At the end of the post, I asked you if you could figure out what "Imam brat" means. It means, "I have a brother." It may have been difficult to figure that out, though, because I forgot to mention two things about Bulgarian grammar:
1. The Bulgarian language does not have the word "a." It's implied. So, the Bulgarian sentence doesn't need "a," but the English sentence does.
2. Notice that I did not use the word "az" in the sentence "Imam brat." Why? It's not necessary to include the subject "I" in the sentence, because the verb's ending tells you what subject it refers to. I could do the same thing with this sentence: "Imash brat." That means, "You have a brother." "Ima brat" means he or she has a brother. "Imame brat" means we have a brother. No subject is needed.
Anyway, I hope you figured it out. If not, stick with it. Now, let's get to new stuff.
The next letter in the alphabet sounds like a "d." It looks like this:
Д д
Now, back to verbs.
I realized yesterday was probably pretty confusing, so I want to return to a-pattern verbs and give it another shot. Remember, once you learn the endings of a-pattern verbs, you can easily conjugate any a-pattern verb as long as you know the root of the verb.
Today's verb is obicham, which means to love. The root of obicham is "obich." Then, you add the appropriate endings (which are in bold below):
az obicham
ti obichash
toi, tya, to obicha
nie obichame
vie obichate
te obichat
Starting to make more sense now? Here the words below:
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Letter Г г and Verbs
I hope that you've been studying your pronouns, because today we're going to introduce verbs.
But first, the letter of the day:
Г г
It's the Bulgarian form of the English "g."
And now...verbs.
Bulgarian verbs have three forms. They are often referred to as a-pattern, e-pattern, and i-pattern. A-pattern are the most typical and the easiest to learn, so we'll start with a-pattern verbs.
The key to understanding Bulgarian verbs is that the ending letters of the verb changes depending on the pronoun being used. These are the a-pattern endings:
When the pronoun is az, the a-pattern ending is -am
When the pronoun is ti, the a-pattern ending is -ash
When the pronoun is toi, tya, or to, the a-pattern ending is -a
When the pronoun is nie, the a-pattern ending is -ame
When the pronoun is vie, the a-pattern ending is -ate
When the pronoun is te, the a-pattern ending is -at
This probably doesn't make sense right now, but stick with me. The good news is that once you have the endings memorized, you're good to go.
Let's introduce our first verb so that we can see how these endings work. The first verb today is "to have." In the Bulgarian language, verbs are taught by the first person version of the verb, so in Bulgarian the verb "to have" is "imam."This is how the verb looks in all of its forms. The endings that I introduced above are in bold.
az imam
ti imash
toi, tya, to ima
nie imame
vie imate
te imat
Let's introduce a second verb to help show this pattern. The second verb is "to not have," which in Bulgarian is the word nyamam. This is how the verb looks in all of its forms.
az nyamam
ti nyamash
toi, tya, to nyama
nie nyamame
vie nyamate
te nyamat
Notice that the root of the word stayed the same in both cases: im and nyam. The only thing that changed here was the endings, which will always be the same for all a-pattern verbs.
I will spend time on a-pattern verbs all week to show how this makes sense.
By the way, you know have enough knowledge of the Bulgarian language to make your first sentence. If I said:
Imam brat.
What does that mean? (Hint: brat was introduced in "A dose of grammar...and some new words."
But first, the letter of the day:
Г г
It's the Bulgarian form of the English "g."
And now...verbs.
Bulgarian verbs have three forms. They are often referred to as a-pattern, e-pattern, and i-pattern. A-pattern are the most typical and the easiest to learn, so we'll start with a-pattern verbs.
The key to understanding Bulgarian verbs is that the ending letters of the verb changes depending on the pronoun being used. These are the a-pattern endings:
When the pronoun is az, the a-pattern ending is -am
When the pronoun is ti, the a-pattern ending is -ash
When the pronoun is toi, tya, or to, the a-pattern ending is -a
When the pronoun is nie, the a-pattern ending is -ame
When the pronoun is vie, the a-pattern ending is -ate
When the pronoun is te, the a-pattern ending is -at
This probably doesn't make sense right now, but stick with me. The good news is that once you have the endings memorized, you're good to go.
Let's introduce our first verb so that we can see how these endings work. The first verb today is "to have." In the Bulgarian language, verbs are taught by the first person version of the verb, so in Bulgarian the verb "to have" is "imam."This is how the verb looks in all of its forms. The endings that I introduced above are in bold.
az imam
ti imash
toi, tya, to ima
nie imame
vie imate
te imat
Let's introduce a second verb to help show this pattern. The second verb is "to not have," which in Bulgarian is the word nyamam. This is how the verb looks in all of its forms.
az nyamam
ti nyamash
toi, tya, to nyama
nie nyamame
vie nyamate
te nyamat
Notice that the root of the word stayed the same in both cases: im and nyam. The only thing that changed here was the endings, which will always be the same for all a-pattern verbs.
I will spend time on a-pattern verbs all week to show how this makes sense.
By the way, you know have enough knowledge of the Bulgarian language to make your first sentence. If I said:
Imam brat.
What does that mean? (Hint: brat was introduced in "A dose of grammar...and some new words."
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Letter В в and snow
The third letter in the Bulgarian alphabet looks like the English B, but it sounds like the English V. It looks like this:
В в
The word for the day is probably not something that you'll really use as a beginning speaker, but I think it's appropriate for the day. The word is:
cnyag
It means snow. Can you guess what gender the noun is? If you can't remember how to determine genders, check out the post on January 18, "A dose of grammar...and some new words." The answer is below the sound byte below.
сняг is a masculine noun.
В в
The word for the day is probably not something that you'll really use as a beginning speaker, but I think it's appropriate for the day. The word is:
cnyag
It means snow. Can you guess what gender the noun is? If you can't remember how to determine genders, check out the post on January 18, "A dose of grammar...and some new words." The answer is below the sound byte below.
сняг is a masculine noun.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Letter Б б and Pronouns
It's the weekend, so it seems like a good time to write about some tougher stuff.
But first, the letter of the day. Just like English, the second letter in the Bulgarian alphabet is a "b" sound. Unlike English, it looks like this:
Б б
Now to the big stuff:
I want to start introducing some basic verbs. Before I can do that though, you have to know the basic pronouns. You'll see why later when I introduce verbs. For right now, just focus on pronouns.
The following are all the pronouns in the subjective case, meaning they can all take the place of the subject of a sentence:
az = I
ti = you (informal or singular you)
toi = he
tya = she
to = it
nie = we
vie = you (formal or group you, such as "you all")
te = they
Before I show you how these sound, I want to quickly go over the Bulgarian idea of the informal and formal you. Let's use this sentence as an example: "Do you want coffee?" If I was at home asking my wife or anybody with whom I was personally familiar, I would use the pronoun "ti." However, if I was asking a superior, a customer at a restaurant, or someone with whom I was unfamiliar, I would want to use the pronoun "vie."
The Bulgarian language is not the only language that does this. I know the German language does this. It's something that didn't transfer over or got lost along the way in the English language.
Now, here's how those subjective pronouns sound. I'll be honest, I don't think I have the pronunciation for "he" correct, but it's the best we can do for the moment.
Dobur den.
But first, the letter of the day. Just like English, the second letter in the Bulgarian alphabet is a "b" sound. Unlike English, it looks like this:
Б б
Now to the big stuff:
I want to start introducing some basic verbs. Before I can do that though, you have to know the basic pronouns. You'll see why later when I introduce verbs. For right now, just focus on pronouns.
The following are all the pronouns in the subjective case, meaning they can all take the place of the subject of a sentence:
az = I
ti = you (informal or singular you)
toi = he
tya = she
to = it
nie = we
vie = you (formal or group you, such as "you all")
te = they
Before I show you how these sound, I want to quickly go over the Bulgarian idea of the informal and formal you. Let's use this sentence as an example: "Do you want coffee?" If I was at home asking my wife or anybody with whom I was personally familiar, I would use the pronoun "ti." However, if I was asking a superior, a customer at a restaurant, or someone with whom I was unfamiliar, I would want to use the pronoun "vie."
The Bulgarian language is not the only language that does this. I know the German language does this. It's something that didn't transfer over or got lost along the way in the English language.
Now, here's how those subjective pronouns sound. I'll be honest, I don't think I have the pronunciation for "he" correct, but it's the best we can do for the moment.
Dobur den.
Bulgaria Fighting Back
Bulgaria isn't letting the fact that Russia and Ukraine essentially stopped their natural gas supplies just slip away. Here's some news from Radio Bulgaria:
Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov has officially handed a letter to the Deputy Chairman of Gazprom Board of Directors Alexander Medvedev, spelling out Bulgaria’s main demands for compensations in the wake of the cut-off of gas supplies. The letter outlines three possible ways for Bulgaria to receive compensations for the losses that it suffered during the gas crisis – direct payments, supply of gas at cut-down prices and access to Russia’s gas transiting system for the delivery of gas that Bulgaria buys by third countries.
Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov has officially handed a letter to the Deputy Chairman of Gazprom Board of Directors Alexander Medvedev, spelling out Bulgaria’s main demands for compensations in the wake of the cut-off of gas supplies. The letter outlines three possible ways for Bulgaria to receive compensations for the losses that it suffered during the gas crisis – direct payments, supply of gas at cut-down prices and access to Russia’s gas transiting system for the delivery of gas that Bulgaria buys by third countries.
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