Reading in Bulgarian...

[khiemtran]

The Cyrillic Alphabet was actually invented in Bulgaria, by the followers of Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius, and, luckily enough, if you already know the Roman alphabet, it's quite easy to learn...


And even if you don't know much Bulgarian, as long as you can read the script, you can glean quite a lot.

Say you're in the supermarket. Can you guess what натурална минерална вода ("naturalna mineralna voda") might be?



Some of the letters look like the Roman ones, but have different sounds. н is "n". у is "u". р is "r". в is "v". с is "s". A good word to help you remember some of the most common ones is ресторант ("restorant") meaning, well, "restaurant"... In this case, it's a китайски ресторант, a "kitaĭski" or Chinese restaurant called the "Devette Drakona" (Nine Dragons). Incidentally, "Nine Dragons" (九龍) is also the meaning of the Chinese name for Kowloon, and, less well-known, the meaning of Cửu Long, the Vietnamese name for the Mekong.



Still on a watery theme, can you guess what a "mineralna banya" might be?



If you can't, maybe it's time for some of this...



"Alkohol".

As you may have noticed, some letters are based on the Greek alphabet. For example lambda for "l" and phi for "f".



This grafitti reads "Ultra Levski Sophia!" meaning "Ultra" (hardcore and most likely hooligan) fans of the Levski Sophia football club.

Delta (д) is, of course, a "d". и is an "i" and й is a "y"...



"Retina displey".

Other letters are quite different, for example the ч in "sandvichi". (The red font reads "Super Max" in English and the word риба means "fish".)



And you can probably guess by now what this supermarket is...



"Fantastico"!

б (capitalized as Б) is a "b" and a з is a "z". That small ъ on the second line, not to be confused with Б, gives an "uh" sound.



"Biznes crediti".

Why is that handy to know? Well it does tell you that the "Bul" in Bulgaria actually rhymes with "hull" and the "gar" rhymes with car.



One more sign... Can you guess what this tv show is called?



So there you have it! Before long, reading the signs will be just like reading the words on the window below...

Comments

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Only you would take photographs of billboards just to teach your blog readers to read Cyrillic!

Actually, I can half read Cyrillic already—in 1991, I went on my year off in Israel, and, in order to help assimilate the vast number of Soviet immigrants that had recently come to the country, the milk I used to get would have a different Hebrew-Russian dictionary entry on the side of the carton each day; and I taught myself Cyrillic through that. As a result, I found your captions distracting, as often I would see your explanation before I'd scrolled down to test myself on the photo beneath. ;^b

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

That's easy enough to fix! Just read the article from the bottom up! I actually had a lot of fun on my first day there walking around and trying to read the signs. By the end of the walk, I knew most of the alphabet, although there were some letters I had to ask about (like ш).

Edited: Okay, I've moved the pronunciations under the photos now, so as not to spoil the game for the next reader to come along.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough, ш was one of the easier ones for me, as it was borrowed from Hebrew ש, which has the same sound.

[julesjones]

I did a term of Russian at high school in the "two hours a fortnight to have fun with something different" hobby slot. Alas, lack of use means that I can no longer read Cyrillic; but as the teacher pointed out at the time, it's a useful skill to have given how many French and English loan words there are in Russian.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I originally learnt it years ago for a trip to St Petersburg that never came about. I was pretty rusty when I first arrived in Sofia, but after a few hours of walking around, it had mostly all come back. It helps to also have an engineering background and hence to know the Greek letters commonly used in maths.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Is learning languages something you do for your work/profession or just a cool hobby?

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

The main reason is fun, because I love the feeling of walking between worlds. But it's also a handy survival skill and it does help with my work too, if nothing else than as an icebreaker.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I am keeping my cyrillic reading skills honed by following several fantastic photographers on livejournal - it's excellent practice because I am exceedingly motivated!