# Common errors made by Bulgarian learners of English



## SmilingInPrague

Hello. I am applying to a program that would bring me to Bulgaria to teach English. I am currently in a master's program in TESOL, so I'm interested in what problems Bulgarians typically have with respect to learning English. For example, are some phonemes especially difficult? Are some syntactic errors very common?

Any information you can provide in this regard would be tremendously helpful.

Thanks ahead of time,
MF


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## Kartof

The 'th' phoneme doesn't exist in Bulgarian and is difficult for many Bulgarians to pronounce.

Bulgarian vowels are short and concise.  Many Bulgarians would have trouble with English diphthongs, as well as the slight 'w' sound that follows most vowels in English.  

Spelling would be especially difficult as Bulgarian spelling is typically one-to-one, phoneme to sound.

Other than that, general word order in Bulgarian is similar to that in English and Bulgarians are familiar with the English use of prepositions and complex verbs.

Bulgarian has definite articles (like the) but they're used more often than in English.  Also, Bulgarian lacks a (true) indefinite article (a/an) which might be tricky for some to understand as a concept since, in Bulgarian, a noun without a definite article implies an unwritten indefinite article.


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## Arath

I will elaborate on what Kartof said.

Bulgarian does not distinguish vowel length. So pairs like *hit/heat*, *pull*/*pool*, *cot*/*caught* are usually pronounced the same. *Hit* and *heat* can be pronounced differently by Bulgarian speakers because we have a similar opposition in Bulgarian *би*/*бий*, *пи*/*пий*, but instead of /hɪt/ and /hiːt/, they are pronounced more like /hit/ and /hijt/, so *hit* sounds like *heat* to native speakers.

The vowel of *trap* is pronounced either as /ɛ/ or /a/ or even /ja/ so *cat* becomes *кят* /kjat/.
The vowel of *strut* is pronounced either as /ɤ/ or /a/.
The vowel of *father* does not exist in Bulgarian and is substituted with /a/.
Bulgarians usually don't have problems with the schwa /ə/ and the vowel of *dress*.
Reduction of unstressed /ɛ/ to /i/ or /ɪ/, although present in the Eastern dialects is stigmatized so people avoid it in English, too. This leads to realizations like /sɛ'kjurəti/ and /rɛ'spekt/, instead of /sɪˈkjʊrəti/ or /səˈkjʊrəti/ and /rɪˈspɛkt/.
In Bulgarian, all voiced consonants at the end of words are devoiced. So *cut*/*cud*, *dick*/*dig*, *thing*/*think* and so on are homophones. The most famous example of this is the ending *-ing*, which is universally pronounced as -*ink*: *workink*, *doink*.
Even the diphthongs are pronounced distinctly shorter: /aj/, /ej/, /ɔj/ instead of /aɪ/, /eɪ/ /ɔɪ/.
The vowel /oʊ/ (AmE) or /əʊ/ (BrE) is pronounced as a diphthong only in open syllables, so *go* and *no* are /goʊ/ and /noʊ/, but *don't* and *won't* are /dɔnt/ and /wɔnt/.
Bulgarian lacks aspiration, so *t*, *p* and *k* are never aspirated.
The consonant /h/ is substituted with /x/.
Bulgarians have difficulty distinguishing between *cold*/*called*, *bold*/*bald* and so on.
If a verb ends in -*y*, when adding -*ing* one syllable is lost, so* bullying */ˈbʊlijɪŋ/ becomes *bulling* /'buliŋk/.
The vowel of *strut,* when spelled with and *o* (as in l*o*ve and d*o*ne), is very often pronounced with and /ɔ/, so *won*, *among *and *encourage* become /wɔn/, /ə'mɔŋk/ and /en'kɔritʃ/.
Longer words like *demonstration* and *information* are not pronounced with a secondary stress.

In English one uses the *zero article* with uncountable and plural nouns when one talks generally about people or things.

*Love will save the world.*
*Milk is good for your health.*
*Life is unfair.*
*People are selfish.*
*Teachers like having long holidays.*

In Bulgarian, in these cases the *definite article* is required so Bulgarians (zero article again) very often put it there when they speak English.
In indirect questions the word order remains the same as in direct questions (*I don't know what is this.*)
Improper use of* many* and *much*.

I might think of something else, meanwhile you can listen to native Bulgarians speak English on YouTube, search for Meglena Kuneva, Kristalina Georgieva, Ivailo Kalfin.


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## osemnais

From my experience I can tell we usually pronounce ɤ instead of ə and ʌ
Also its difficult for us not to pronounce b d g as p t k in the end of the word


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## sound shift

osemnais said:


> Also its difficult for us not to pronounce b d g as p t k in the end of the word


Do you also tend to pronounce word-final v and z as f and s?


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## Kartof

sound shift said:


> Do you also tend to pronounce word-final v and z as f and s?



Yes, in fact, names that end with a 'v' in Bulgarian such as Атанасов(Atanasov) would be pronounced Atanasoff, hence the spelling of John Atanasoff's name in English.  This was an older tradition in Bulgarians who immigrated to English speaking countries and now the ending -ov/-ev is typically used instead of -off/-eff.  Note that feminine names aren't affected by this since they typically end in -ova/-eva which allows the 'v' to remain voiced since it doesn't end a word.

An example of devoicing from 'z' to 's' would be in the first person singular subject pronoun 'аз'(az) pronounced more closely as 'as'.  The 's' at the end of the English word 'as', ironically, becomes voiced as 'az'.


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## Tjahzi

A bit off topic, but does anyone have an explanation for why the -ov suffix is transliterated as -off, that is, with double f?


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## Christo Tamarin

Tjahzi said:


> A bit off topic, but does anyone have an explanation for why the -ov suffix is transliterated as -off, that is, with double f?


This is a common problem for both Russian and Bulgarian.

First, in Masculine, it is really heard -of/-off, and not -ov. Second, in German, if the spelling was -of, then the wovel would be closed and long (as in German *Bahnhof*) which is not the case: we have here an open and short wovel so we need double f in German spelling.


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## Tjahzi

Ehm, this has nothing to do with German. My question was, to be a bit more precise, why do we suddenly apply a spelling convention, inconsistently employed by some European languages using Latin alphabets, for a single suffix? When we hear, what some languages would consider a short vowel, we never double a single following consonant when transliterating. So why in the case of -ov?
(I can think of two explanations, old bad habits and lack of knowledge.)


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## Duya

I'm not sure that it has "nothing to do with German", on the contrary. At the time, German was a dominant language of the central and eastern Europe, and as such it was a frequent source of Slavic transliterations into other western languages. Furthermore, Germans themselves have a plenty of surnames of Slavic origin, which most frequently got germanized using -off or -eff, and that tradition simply continued for "non-native" surnames, such as Bulgarian or Russian. 

At least, that is my conjecture...


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## Bog Svarog

Arath said:


> I will elaborate on what Kartof said.
> 
> Bulgarian does not distinguish vowel length. So pairs like *hit/heat*, *pull*/*pool*, *cot*/*caught* are usually pronounced the same. *Hit* and *heat* can be pronounced differently by Bulgarian speakers because we have a similar opposition in Bulgarian *би*/*бий*, *пи*/*пий*, but instead of /hɪt/ and /hiːt/, they are pronounced more like /hit/ and /hijt/, so *hit* sounds like *heat* to native speakers.


Here you are already making some mistakes that are typical for a Bulgarian. 
*hit/heat*
This has nothing to do with being able to distinguish vowel length, regardless of how the English (or you) might want to call it (and the Dutch have these ridiculous and unlogical names as well).
The *ea* from *heat* and the *i* from *hit* are not two versions of the same sound, period.
Turning *hit* into *hiit* will not yield *heat*, as they are different vowels. You can stretch *i* from *hit* in any way you like, but it won't ever turn into the *ea* from *heat*, and to me that's the end of it. They might as well be calling *oo* a long *e*, for crying out loud.

The very same can be said of *pull*, which is an even better example.
Contrary to what you are saying, Bulgarians can actually just pronounce them without too much difficulty (not perfect but still good enough)
*Пъл/пъъл* vs *пуул*. There you go.


I've always found it fascinating how Bulgarians (and Macedonians for that matter) actually think that these sounds are the same, when they are very clearly not alike at all.
Macedonians from Skopje are an even greater enigma, because they have the English *i* from *hit* in their everyday speech (and THAT is a stretched short *i*!), while when having to say *hit* in English, they still pronounce it as *heat*. Sigh...


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## Tjahzi

Duya said:


> I'm not sure that it has "nothing to do with German", on the contrary. At the time, German was a dominant language of the central and eastern Europe, and as such it was a frequent source of Slavic transliterations into other western languages. Furthermore, Germans themselves have a plenty of surnames of Slavic origin, which most frequently got germanized using -off or -eff, and that tradition simply continued for "non-native" surnames, such as Bulgarian or Russian.
> 
> At least, that is my conjecture...


You have some points. Thanks for sharing.

(That said, I'd say my two reasons listed above are still valid.)


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## tuplemix

I do realise this is an old thread, but just wanted to point out that Bulgarians tend to use dark l instead of light l in words like _loo_, _loud, look, lost _and _law._


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## 123xyz

But in American English, the "l" is dark there anyway. It's British English that uses a light (non-velarised) "l" in the syllable onset.


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## tuplemix

123xyz said:


> But in American English, the "l" is dark there anyway. It's British English that uses a light (non-velarised) "l" in the syllable onset.


You are right - I was referring to RP.


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