Introduction to Twin Verbs

The easiest way to learn Bulgarian or any language is to use it to practise what you can really imagine yourself saying or needing to say. That way you will remember a patterned sentence that makes sense to you, one you can adapt to suit your needs.

With my Teach Yourself Bulgarian text book, I found it easier to skip through to find out the things I really wanted to say at the time when I needed them, rather than wait till I had diligently learned everything page by page.

Early on in my Bulgarian experience, I needed to say:
“I want to pay the bill”

I knew “I want” was искам (eeskam) but how would I say, “to pay” if there was no such thing as an infinitive in Bulgarian? Under the word “pay” my dictionary listed two verbs: плащам (plashtam) and (да) платя (da platya). This was my first introduction to twin verbs, two verbs meaning the same but used in different ways when constructing sentences.

Плащам is a third conjugation verb like искам and means “I pay” or “I am paying” so Плащам сметка (smetka) means “I am paying a bill.”

I need the second of the two verbs, the one introduced by да, if I want to add a second verb in the sentence. So, “I want to pay the bill” becomes искам да платя сметката. (whoops, now I need to show you how to say “the.”)

Платя is a second conjugation и-pattern verb. Both verbs in the sentence need to change to reflect who is doing the wanting and who is doing the paying.

In искам да платя сметката, both verbs are in the I form. But if I change this to искам да платиш сметката then I want you to pay the bill as I have used the you (singular) ending on the verb to pay.

иска да платим сметката means He or she wants us to pay the bill.

Try changing the verbs around for yourself and see how many different meanings you can make. To help, I have listed the two conjugations with the different verb endings for each person below.

Main verb+ да + Second verb


3rd (a-pattern)
искам I want
искаш you want
иска he wants
искамe we want
искатe you want
искат they want


2nd (и-pattern)

платя I pay
платиш you pay
плати he pays
платим we pay
платитe you pay
платят they pay

Post any corrections, questions or some of your sentences in the comments below.
Have fun. До скоро. (daw skawraw) See you soon.

Learn Bulgarian-- Verb Twins

Without verbs, it is impossible to speak a language fluently or even comprehensibly. The problem with Bulgarian verbs is that you  have two verbs for the price of one--and they're rarely identical twins in form or usage.

If you find grammar a real turn off, don't read this paragraph. Your dictionary may only show you one of the twins--the imperfective one.

This is the one you use mostly when talking in the present tense. When you talk about now, you are usually referring to an action which is not yet complete or finished.'I live in Sofia.' I live there now, I am living there--the action is still continuing.

The second problem is that there is no infinitive, no word to give you the name of the verb as such. When you look up a verb in a Bulgarian dictionary, you find the "I" form  of one of the twin verbs. Look up the verb 'live' and you find: живея, which translates as I live, I am living.
Look up the verb 'eat' and you find ям, which translates as I eat, I am eating.  

In learning Bulgarian, most students tackle what is known as the third conjugation first. It is the most common conjugation with over 3000 verbs. However the 'twin' verb can be a completely different conjugation so it is necessary to learn the endings for all the conjugations together.

Have a look at these:


Let's choose one of these pairs to see how the verbs are used. Here both verbs of the pair belong to the same conjugation or verb pattern.

продавам / продам

Both mean sell. The first is used when the action is not completed or finished. The second is complete--perfective.

So: продавам яйца днес. I am selling eggs today. (action not finished)
искам да продам яйца. I want to sell eggs. This time the wanting is the ongoing action. To sell--and you must use да in front of the verb--needs the second or perfective form of the twin.

Normally a student learns verbs in a new language by putting them into patterned sets or conjugations. All verbs with a certain ending will (mostly) work in the same way.

But the more common the verb, the less likely it is to follow a set pattern. The more it is used, the more corrupted it becomes.

So  the verb 'to be' is never an easy one to guess.

Verbs are very difficult to master and twin verbs are very difficult indeed. Any questions, grammatical comments on and corrections of this article will be gratefully received.

Learn Bulgarian in a month

To learn to speak Bulgarian perfectly in one month is a tall order. To learn to understand when people talk to you is an even more improbable task.

However, I'm back on track and will be posting daily (if possible) with my learning tasks. Promises, promises. It will be difficult to achieve, I know, as my workload this month is high --an emergency travel guide to finish, newspaper articles to write and a busy teaching schedule. But I love deadlines --if you do too, keep on track with my monthly goal. If not, learn more securely by tackling one topic per week or per month.

For a start, practise your Bulgarian alphabet understanding by reading the cyrillic captions on the Bulgaria vs Europe cartoon. Click on the last video link at the bottom of the page and the video will load and play at the top of the page -- took me a while to master that one :-)

The dustbin scenes are great and ironic over here in UK where rows over poor dustbin collections (once a fortnight) have caused many upsets in this week's local council elections. (hooray).

The other video links (l to r) show the setting up of the SAP labs in Sofia (English commentary), Bulgaria's Eurovision entry for 2007 and a video of Bulgaria produced by the Bulgarian Tourist Board in English spoken by what sounds like a Dutch presenter.

Enjoy.