Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Bulgarian Alphabet

The Bulgarian alphabet is featured in some excellent websites which summarise the history of the Cyrillic alphabet, give approximate equivalent sounds for the consonants and vowels in English and in some cases provide excellent sound clips.

Useful websites
Easy Bulgarian

Click on free pages or demo. Click on Bulgarian Alphabet. Follow page numbers at top then at bottom right The alphabet is divided into consonants and vowels. Good, easy to access soundclips.

Comprehensive free Bulgarian learning site

The sound clips are not yet in place. Scroll down to find the actual alphabet section if you do not wish to read the whole article. Clear and well-organised. Good if you do not mind waiting for the sound to be added. Letters in alphabetical order and useful pronunciation guide.

Bulgarian Wonderland site .
In English and Bulgarian. Click the language flag to enter site

Visual illustrations of capital letters. Interesting and an impressive site about Bulgaria

All Bulgaria Virtual Guide

Interesting article on language, the alphabet and a most useful pronunciation guide. After this are more language notes which I found practical and useful. Eighty one per cent of people who read this article voted for it as very useful. See what you think.

Learn Bulgarian

I love this site. It is colourful, lively and really geared to beginning to learn the language. There are 15 free lessons listed which you can download so if you are already confident with reading the alphabet, this is a good way of helping yourself move on.

Your comments on your learning experiences using any or all of these sites would be really welcome. Have fun.

And at the weekend, there will be another lesson.

Goals : First month

I like making lists and having the satisfaction of crossing off items achieved.
So here goes.
1. Revise alphabet. List useful weblinks.
2. Directions. Ask where places and things are
3. Numbers and time. Ask for times of buses, cost of taxis
4. Say what I need and what I would like to do
5. Understand and order from a menu
6. Using verbs to link things I say into sentences which make sense.
This is a very comprehensive list for only one month.
However for me it is revision of prior learning.
If you are just starting to learn the language, learning the alphabet well will speed later learning and help you avoid pronunciation difficulties.
The good thing is that when you learn a sound, it will never change. A relief from English where letter combinations can make different sounds --cough, rough, although and bough for example.

Bulgaria -New Beginnings

An apt title as this marks the sad decease of my last lamented blog, hijacked by a sales spammer but it also gives me the chance to make a new start, untrammeled by past posts.
I'm sorry to have lost Annie in Bulgaria just as it was beginning to climb the google charts but in some aspects it had lost its way.
This is a record of my visits to Bulgaria but primarily a record of learning the language and finding out everything about the place and its culture. Bulgaria is for me a visit to the living past but also a visit to a country bursting with optimism and enthusiasm not only for its proud past but for an exciting future.
For my benefit and the benefit of anyone interested in learning the language, I shall set out my language goals for the next month.
Please comment if you wish to add new goals for yourself or have other language topics you wish to see listed.