Obviously everywhere we go (save for South Africa) we are typically plagued with the same problem of speaking a language that those around us don’t whilst not being able to speak the language that they do.
Occasionally this is made all the more fun when the script that we write with is completely different too. China is the obvious example for this and I have no idea about any Chinese words because they aren’t remotely related to sound – you have to rote learn every word in Chinese. But Bulgaria is the new place of interest, because whilst Romanian was the same alphabet that we use (plus some extra accents), Bulgarian is written with the Cyrillic (think Russian) script.
I started learning about this last Easter when I went out to Crimea in the Ukraine, and now that I’m here I’m getting better at pronouncing the Cyrillic alphabet again. It’s weird having to learn a new alphabet, it’s almost like having to learn our alphabet from scratch, except occasionally you have to unlearn things.
This is because some of the letters look like the letters from our latin alphabet, but sound like a different letter: B in Bulgarian (and Russian, etc.) is pronounced as a ‘v’, H as an ‘n’, P as an ‘r’, C as an ‘s’, Y as ‘oo’ and X as ‘h’ (well, almost, it’s more like the ‘ch’ in loch).
Fortunately some letters are the same: A, K, M, O and T are the same, although a lower case T looks like m (see why you have to unlearn things?!).
There are also letter that look like backwards latin letters: Иis an ‘i' or ‘y’ sound, Я is ‘yah’; and some that look vaguely like latin letters: �- is ‘z’, Ш is ‘sh’, Ч is ‘ch’ (like in church),
Finally, there are letters that are unusual: �" is ‘d’, �" is ‘g’, Л is ‘l’, Ф is ‘f’, �- is like the ‘s’ in measure, or the ‘g’ in beige.
So, almost every opportunity I will try and pronounce what I see. I particularly like words that, when pronounced, are pretty much the same in both languages. So Ð�ПРИЛ is April and Ð¥OTEЛ is Hotel. I only know I’ve pronounced any other words right when I get excited looks and cheers from our translators, which fortunately is most of the time. Whilst I can’t read the words quickly enough to keep up with the songs in church, it’s cool to know I can at least pronounce them accurately (even if I have no idea what I’m saying).
I’ve also had a go at writing English words using Bulgarian letters. So ‘Hello, my name is Francis’ is: ХЕЛOУ, МИ Ð�Ð�ИМ И�- ФРÐ�Ð�СИС (close enough anyway).
(I realise this isn’t the deepest blog I have posted but hopefully it is a little insightful as to what it is like to be on the other side of a language barrier – it’s a big part of the race for sure.)
P.S. If the letters aren't displaying properly (i.e. if you're seeing a question mark or a half fraction where the symbol should be, or something you suspect isn't really the symbol I'm getting at), then HERE is a useful site about the alphabet.
