Learn how to ask someone about their family
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Becky: Hello and welcome back to BulgarianPod101.com. This is Lower Beginner, season 1, lesson 20 - Talking About Your Family in Bulgarian. This is Becky here. |
| Iva: Zdravei And I’m Iva! |
| Becky: In this lesson, you'll learn how to ask about someone's family in Bulgarian. |
| Iva: This conversation takes place on the street. |
| Becky: The conversation is between Maria and James; they are walking around the city. |
| Iva: They’re friends, so their speech is informal. |
| Becky: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Becky: So Maria said her brother had a nickname. |
| Iva: Like in other languages, Bulgarian has nicknames, which are sometimes also diminutives of the original name. |
| Becky: Basically, they’re a vocative form of the person’s name. |
| Iva: In the dialogue, Maria said her brother “Георги” (“Georgi”) was called “Жоро” (“Zhoro”). |
| Becky: This is a very common name, and it’s usually abbreviated like this. Can you give us some more examples, Iva? |
| Iva: Another typical Bulgarian name, “Петър” (“Petyr”), changes its form to “Петьо” (“Petio”). |
| Becky: In an earlier lesson, we had a nickname for the name “Мария” (“Maria”) which was “Маре” (“Mare”). |
| Iva: “Маре” is also the vocative form, and it’s also kind of a diminutive and cute way to address a girl. |
| Becky: Bulgarian nicknames can vary a lot. |
| Iva: Yes, one name can have many variations. |
| Becky: For example one very common name, “Иван” (“Ivan”) can be modified as a nickname in several ways with varying degrees of diminutive meaning, and connection with the original name: |
| Iva: So, it can become “Ванко”, “Ваньо”, “Иванчо” and so on. |
| Becky: Why not try to learn the nicknames of your Bulgarian friends, listeners? Ok, now on to the vocab. |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Becky: Let’s take a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Iva: The first one is “Всички”. |
| Becky: This is a pronoun that means “all”, “everybody” or “everyone” in English. |
| Iva: It’s very similar to another pronoun in Bulgarian, “всеки”, which means “each”, “every”, “everybody” or “anybody”. |
| Becky: Since the forms sound similar, it is easy to confuse them. |
| Iva: Remember, they are forms in the plural. |
| Becky: Can you repeat them again for our listeners, please? |
| Iva: “Всички” [pause] - “all”, “everybody” or “everyone”. And “всеки” [pause] - “each”, “every”, “everybody” or “anybody”. |
| Becky: OK. What’s next? |
| Iva: “Казвам”. |
| Becky: This is an important verb that means “to say”, “to tell” or “to call”. |
| Iva: And you use it when you introduce your name. |
| Becky: Oh, I thought it was familiar! |
| Iva: So the form, “Казвам се (name)”, can be translated in English as “I call myself (name)”. |
| Becky: It’s the most common way to introduce yourself, right? |
| Iva: The other way is to say “I am (name)” or in Bulgarian “Аз съм (name)”. |
| Becky: OK. Now the last word… |
| Iva: “Сигурно” |
| Becky: This is an adverb meaning “sure”, “certainly” and so on, but sometimes in Bulgarian expressions the best translation in English will be “must”. |
| Iva: Yes. That’s because it’s used in cases when something will happen “for sure”, or something must be in a “certain” condition. |
| Becky: I see. OK. Now onto the grammar! |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Becky: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to ask about family members in Bulgarian. |
| Iva: Yep. When you want to know how many people there are in someone’s family, or if someone has brothers and sisters, there are some set expressions you can use. |
| Becky: In English, a set expression is “Do you have any brothers and sisters?” |
| Iva: In Bulgarian, this question usually sounds like this: “Имаш ли братя или сестри?” |
| Becky: Can you repeat that, Iva? |
| Iva: “Имаш ли братя или сестри?” |
| Becky: Listeners, please repeat. |
| Iva: “Имаш ли братя или сестри?” [pause] |
| Becky: What can you tell us about this question? |
| Iva: First we have the verb “имам”, which means “to have”. |
| Becky: It’s in the second person singular form... |
| Iva: “имаш”. |
| Becky: Then we have the particle commonly used in Bulgarian questions, “li”. |
| Iva: Finally, we add the words for “brothers” and “sisters”, respectively, “братя” and “сестри”. |
| Becky: If you want to ask someone in a polite way about brothers and sisters, or you are talking to more than one person, you will have to use the second person plural form of the verb “to have” |
| Iva: which is “имате”. |
| Becky: The rest of the sentence remains the same. So how does this formal question sound in Bulgarian, Iva? |
| Iva: “Имате ли братя или сестри?” |
| Becky: “Do you have brothers or sisters?” - formal. |
| Iva: Here’s a tip: usually, this form ends in “-те” in Bulgarian. |
| Becky: So we can say “brothers or sisters”; do we say “brothers and sisters” in Bulgarian? |
| Iva: Yes, we will use another word instead of “или”. |
| Becky: So the word “или” which we have in our example means “or” in English. How will it be if we say “Do you have brothers and sisters?” |
| Iva: “Имаш ли братя и сестри?” |
| Becky: Do you have any brothers and sisters? |
| Iva: We can use this sentence in Bulgarian. Here the conjunction “и” means “and”. |
| Becky: OK. But I think that the formal and the informal sentences are important to remember. Listeners, repeat the formal and informal examples after Iva! |
| Iva: “Имате ли братя или сестри?” [pause] |
| Becky: the formal version, “Do you have brothers or sisters?” |
| Iva: “Имаш ли братя или сестри?” [pause] |
| Becky: the informal one. Now listeners, make sure to check the lesson notes to reinforce what you’ve learned in this lesson. |
Outro |
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| Iva: Okay everyone. that’s all from us! |
| Becky: Thanks for listening, see you next time! |
| Iva: Bye-bye! |
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