1. The Bulgarian Alphabet
Хх h hat
Аа a (as in) far
Цц tz pizza
Бб b bag
Чч ch chin
Вв v van
Шш sh she
Гг g good
Щщ sht washed
Дд d dog
Ъъ ir girl
Ee e elephant
Ьь only combined with O – ьо –
Жж zh usual yo yo- yo
Зз z zip Юю yu you
Ии i inch Яя ya yard
Йй y chay Bulgarian is a phonetic language.
The sounds of the letters are at the
Кк k key same time the names of the letters.
Л л, л l long Do not try to remember letters as
“the backward R”, or “the weird P”
Мм m man that will confuse you even more.
Нн n not Notice that the small м is spelled
like the capital M; while the small т
Оо o lot is spelled in cursive like a small
English M : т.
Пп p pen
Unlike English, the sounds “yu” and
Рр r rain “ya” are represented by a single
letter each. The same applies for
Сс s sit “sh” and “sht”.
Т т, т t ten The Bulgarian E is always E as in
Elephant, even if you tempted to
Уу u foot read it as an English “e” (as in
“eel”).
Фф f coffee

2. The R sound is rolling and is
distinctly pronounced.
The accent is not fixed and the
words tend to be a bit longer that the
English ones.
Do not be intimidated by the strange
looking alphabet. Once you get over
the barrier, you’ll discover you can
read signs and understand some
words.
The letter combination ДЖ, дж is
read as “G” in the English name
George.
At the end of a word voiced
consonants as: б, в, г, д, ж, з ( b, v,
g, d, zh, z) are devoiced, i.e. they are
pronounced as: п, ф, к, т, ш, с (p, f,
k, t, sh, s).
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