How to {Learn} Bulgarian

One of my favorite things about Bulgarians is the way we speak. No, I don't mean the sound of our language. It's our liberal use of proverbs that I'm referring to.

Obviously, we use them more in casual conversations. I've also noticed that I personally use proverbs and sayings more when I'm speaking with my immediate family members: grandparents, mom and dad, my sister. I'm not sure why but for me using proverbs is a very intimate way of speaking. Because sayings are so idiosyncratic, regional, specific... when somebody gets your reference, that creates a sense of true understanding and belonging between the two of you. So so special.

I'm always trying to teach Kyle my favorite expressions and I thought it would be fun to start sharing some of these brief lessons with you too.



The other day I taught him "падат като круши", i.e. "dropping like pears". It is one of my favorite Bulgarian proverbs. It basically means "to fall hard". It's not the same as "dropping like flies". It's more literal than that. Kyle and I heard it while watching the Barcelona-Valencia soccer game. The Bulgarian commentator felt a lot of sympathy for the Valencia team. Towards the end of the second half when it was already obvious that Barcelona was winning the game, he tz-tz-tzuck-ed for a while, then said Valencia are were dropping like pears. Which they totally were.

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Photo by Matthew Veenker

Birds and words

About a month ago, Kyle and I were at a dinner party where we met a couple who're avid birdwatchers. They talked about rescuing wounded eagles, stuffing dead birds in their freezer, traveling to San Francisco to see the parrots of Telegraph Hill and taking daily bike rides around town to observe local birds. I was fascinated by their stories. When I asked them how one gets into birdwatching, they told me, d'uh, start watching the birds around you.

So, I started peaking out of our windows a bit more and, low and behold, there they were! Little birds, singing their butts off... right under my nose. The cardinals were the first ones that I was able to spot out because of their beautiful red feathers and punk style.


During our Christmas trip to St. Louis, Kyle pointed out the bluejays on his mom's porch. There were so many of them! Beautiful blue coloring and cocky attitudes: chasing other birds away from the food we'd left for them.


I already thought I was sort of hooked when Kyle presented me with the most awesomely unexpected holiday present ever: BINOCULARS! He's had them since he was a little kid but, needless to say, hasn't been using them much in the last twenty years or so. Now they're mine!


Exciting! Obviously, I am curious to learn about the birds in my backyard but also, I am looking forward to practicing sitting still and being patient: the two most important skills for a birdwatcher. Or any human being, really.

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Photo of the cardinal by Timothy K. Hamilton
Photo of the bluejay by Bruce Bodjack

Don't be afraid of Santa

This holiday season, Kyle and I have been mad about video montages of crying children having their picture taken with Santa. I was telling my parents about it and Dad sent me the following portrait of me at the age of 3, I think. The picture was taken minutes after I got my glamorous purse-present from Santa (We called him Grandfather Frost in Bulgaria at the time).


I emailed the picture to Kyle and here's what he wrote back in response.

Some observations:

1. You are adorable.
2. You said you were "almost" crying...
3. You have the same haircut!
4. Kude e Diado Mraz?
5. Mnogo te obicham, tikvarina.

kailcho :*

Happy New Year to you all! Don't be afraid of Santa!

Translating Tolstoy

Earlier today I came across Translating Tolstoy: an interview with Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the husband-and-wife duo behind some of the most beautiful translations of the Russian classics in the last couple of decades. Oh, my! I thought. These two are the superstars of mix-breeders!

Mr. Pevear, 66 years old, was born in Waltham, Mass., and initially translated works from French and Italian. His wife was born in Leningrad, Russia, and emigrated to Israel in 1973, where she lived for two years. The couple met in the United States in 1976 and married six years later. They've been translating books together since 1986. Ms. Volokhonsky provides the first translation of each work, with running commentary on the author's style; her husband works from that draft to render his own version. They then confer and work on that text together.

The interview is obviously focused on their work but as I was reading it I kept recognizing familiar patterns of interaction:

WSJ: How do you resolve your differences over the work, and do disagreements ever spill over into your personal life?

Ms. Volokhonsky: Richard is a native speaker of English. I'm a native speaker of Russian. My task is to explain to Richard what is happening in the Russian text. Then it is up to him to do what he can. The final word is always his. I can say this is not quite what the Russian says. Either he finds something that satisfies me or he says no, this is how we're going to do it. We discuss endlessly and sometimes it becomes a nuisance because we return to it again and again even after the manuscript goes off. But we really don't quarrel. It would be much more interesting if we did.

Kyle and I do that too. When I am moved or offended by an article, an email, or a comment on my other blog that was originally written in Bulgarian, I translate it to Kyle. Then: explain, explain, explain, go back and forth, explain. We do quarrel sometimes, though, and it definitely IS interesting.

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Bulgarian accents and Russian Spies

Every year Rhodes students organize a marathon reading of the Odyssey. They develop a schedule and students and professors take turns reading for about 20 minutes each. They start on Friday afternoon and go right through the whole thing finishing around 10 the following morning. It's the kind of awesomely dorky thing that absolutely makes me miss college.

They did the Odyssey Marathon this past Friday and since Prof. Grady had signed up to read I decided to tag along. One of the student readers was a first year student from China. The kid had a thick accent but read VERY well and at the end everyone applauded him. Everyone was really encouraging, kept telling the kid he was doing great and helped him out when he wasn't sure how to pronounce certain words. I was having such a serious flashback to my own freshman year in college, I couldn't say a word.

My accent has been a constant source of worry and anxiety for me for 10 years now. That's how long it's been since I came to the States for the first time in 1999. I've aways known that it's nothing to be embarrassed about but still hate all the attention it attracts. It makes me feel more inadequate and insecure than anything else. I've gotten to a point where my accent doesn't show itself immediately. Usually I need to have talked to someone for an extended period of time before they "catch" me and ask. It doesn't even sound Eastern European as much as it just sounds idiosyncratic. But I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Still.

A few weeks ago, I got an email from Yolina. She's Bulgarian and lives in Switzerland with her husband Marcel. Yo told me that she had just recently talked to her mentor at work, an American, who told her that sometimes when she talked, she sounded harsh. Actually, he told her she sounded like the Russian Spy in old movies. He didn't mean it in a bad way of course... just sort of... matter of fact. He also made sure it was clear that it was nothing that she said, it was simply the way she was saying it, etc. etc. etc.

Yo and I had a long exchange about that. She queried her husband and her co-workers. I spoke to my in-house linguistic expert (Kyle) and my dear friend Doriana who lives in D.C. There's no consensus on the subject but all have recognized that sometimes Bulgarians can sound a little bit, for lack of a better word, harsh. Kyle thinks its our intonation. Marcel thinks that whatever it is, it comes to the surface only during work-related conversations. Some of Yo's co-workers think it's differences in the etiquette of conducting business in Europe and the States. Others say they notice the accent but they wouldn't necessarily qualify it as harsh. I say that I don't know what it is but I am terrified that someone will notice and fixate on it. Ha! I guess I am terrified of myself.

So, this is sort of a long and rambling story without much of a point to speak of. But I wanted to put it all out there and ask for your thoughts on Bulgarian accents but also on accents in more general terms. Do you have one? And, more importantly, what is your relationship to your accent? Love it? Hate it? Both?

Explain.

Learning foreign languages

The other day I met an old Penn State professor. When he heard my name, he said that he'd been trying to learn Russian for many years (ummmm, I am Bulgarian, but... hey... close enough) but he'd never managed to get past a certain level. He no longer remembered any of it except for one phrase. The phrase: eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. In Russian, of course. I hope I never get to use it, he said.

My mother-in-law has had a very similar experience with French, I told him. The one phrase that she remembers is: All we've got left are the gray ones. He laughed and said that her phrase might have even more limited usage than his.

What I didn't mention was that she, actually, DID have a chance to use her French. She was working at a boutique at the time and this beautiful French woman walked in, looked around and inquired whether they had a certain pair of gloves in brown.

No, she said. All we've got left are the gray ones.

The French lady left the store and five minutes later, Mary realized she'd missed the opportunity of a lifetime.

Part III

I forgot to tell you about the third word I learned over Christmas:

PIDDLE (v):
It means to waste time or spend your time inefficiently.

The word, of course, came up during a MAJOR gossip session at my favorite Philly dive bar. The night started off innocently enough... a bunch of old friends drinking beer and remembering the good times when we all actually lived in the same town. As the night wore thin, though, conversation started to turn to discussions about those of our friends who could not be there with us. The word "piddle" was used to describe the working habits of a dear friend of ours who seems to be taking his sweet time working on his dissertation.

I really loved the word because it just sounds so melodic to me. When I hear piddle, I actually imagine myself sitting in a boat on a sunny afternoon... reading poetry out loud.

I also loved the word because it seems to perfectly describe what I do these days. I piddle and I LOVE it.

Part II

The introduction to the second word I learned this Christmas will be short because I am a little bit embarrassed to be telling. The word is:

PASTIES: Glue-on nipple covers. Usually with tassles.

I think that strippers and porn-stars use them. Private individuals use them, too. I think there's a Sex and the City episode in which Samantha puts some on but I could be wrong about this. It does sound like something she would do, right?

You will be disappointed to hear that I did not learn the word in usage. Kyle and I were hanging out in our Philadelphia hotel room trying to figure out where we could go look for gloves when Kyle promptly suggested Macy's. PASTIE'S?! I asked.

Kyle's eye got THIS big and... Yeah.

Part I

Sometimes people remark on how difficult it must be to speak a foreign language all the time. No, I say, I go through most of my days without really thinking about it. I go for weeks without encountering words I don't know.

This Holiday season, however, I learned not one, not two, but THREE new words. They are so great that I have to share them with you in a series of three consecutive entries.

Part I: SMARMY
Sleezy, self-centered and insincere. One who has his own agenda which conflicts with the interests of others. Very fake and/or two-faced.

Apparently, the word was used by a person to describe one of their weaknesses during a job interview. Everyone who's ever been to a job interview knows that "the weakness" question is one of those questions that require interviewees to give a totally fake answer.

OF COURSE you are not supposed to talk about a REAL weakness. D'uh. You are supposed to say that you work too hard. Or that you are so awesome that your awesomeness outshines your co-workers'. Or that clients like you so much that they end up sending way too many referrals your way.

The person in question, however, said that their main weakness was that some people found them to be a little bit... SMARMY.

Smarmy?! Smarmy?!
For real?!

Hey, you might be. But you know what. In addition to being smarmy, you might be a little bit STOOPID, too. Just sayin'.

They don't do the same for us

Earlier today:

Prof. Grady: Have I met your friend Var yet?
Me: Well, yes!!! Var=Zhoro=Joro=Georgi=George
Prof. Grady: 'Kvo?! I guess you NEED a lot of nicknames for Georgi! (pause) There are more nicknames in Bulgarian than names.
Me: We keep things simple for the bureaucrats. (They don't do the same for us, though).

What can I say, that's just a regular day in a multi-national family.

Purple Pigs and Prezidentski Izbori

Because you have been good but also, because I need to clean my apartment and would do anything to postpone THAT, you get to hear not one but TWO stories tonight:

STORY No.1:

A couple of weeks ago I saw a pair of men's leather gloves that I thought I really liked. A few days ago, I decided to go back to the store and get the Professor an early Christmas present. It was all good until I saw the gloves again. The leather was not even close to black (i.e. the color I had thought they were). They were PURPLE. No way in hell am I buying my man purple gloves!

I must have been obviously disappointed because the sales person came by and asked if there was anything she could do to help me. I tell her, well, not really. I simply can't buy a pair of PURPLE gloves. At which point she proceeds to explain to me how the gloves are actually very nice and they are made of GENUINE leather and see how soft it is. That's when I look up at her like she's out of her mind and with all my seriousness ask: Who do you think you're fooling telling me this is genuine leather?! Have you ever seen a PURPLE PIG?!?!?!?!!? And, of course, stomp out of the store.

I tell the story to Professor and he says, babe, you know that they actually dye leather before they make shoes or clothing out of it, right?!

What??!?!!!!

I guess I could have figured it out on my own if I had thought about it. But, come on, how often does one think about this kind of stuff! Yes, thank you.

STORY No.2:

Prof. Grady and I are talking about the second round of the presidential election in Bulgaria (that was last weekend, for those of you who don't go by the Bulgarian political calander).

Professor: So, are you voting for Izbori?
Me: What?!
Professor: Who are you voting for? Izbori?
Me: Babe, what are you talking about?
Professor: I thought you said that you might need to vote for the incumbant?

This goes back and forth for quite some time, but eventually we figure out that Prof. Grady thought that Presidentski meant President and that Izbori was the name of our president. In other words, he thought he had been asking whether I would be voting for President + Name (and assumed that Izbori was our president's last name). What he was actually saying was "Are you voting for the Presidential Election."

As someone who's relatively new to the wonder of the Bulgarian language, Prof. Grady is doing pretty well. However, he already is starting to build a history of confusing nouns with adjectives. On his second day in Bulgaria, he was approached by a guy on the street. Not knowing what to say, he responded with:

Изнивете. Американски съм.

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As I finish up, I keep thinking that I should maybe go back and change the title of this entry to 'Dumb and Dumber'. Prof. Grady would play Dumb and I would definitely be Dumber.

Три мекици и една кола

In the last several weeks, I’ve had a chance to experience Bulgaria through the eyes of a first-time visitor. The first couple of days were a tiny bit stressful and I worried. How do you explain a place without listing all the trivial facts?! What if you never paid attention in school and don't even know the facts? How do you make sense of a tradition that means nothing to you?! How do you feed a vegetarian when all the vegetarian options on the menu are limited to several different types of potato dishes and a couple of variations of roasted peppers?! Do you ask them to drink ракия?! Which Bulgarian phrases do you teach them first?!

Then, two days into the trip, he learned to order мекици IN BULGARIAN and as ridiculous as it may sound, that made relax.



Bulgaria, just like any other place, is truly wonderful when you have a good person to share it with.

Summer is almost over but that’s OK. There’s a lot of good stuff coming up. I promise to keep you posted.

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Photo by Prof. Grady