Bulgarian Diary #9 | January 17, 2022

Bulgarian speaking update, or, alternatively titled, “Wow I Don’t Understand Prepositions Yet”.
I definitely still find speaking really difficult and when I first watched this back I was like “ugh this is so bad”…. but I’m definitely able to understand and say way more than I was last year! I do feel like my pronunciation and particularly where I put the stress in words actually got worse compared to last year. I’ve noticed with other languages when I first start to get more comfortable speaking my pronunciation tends to deteriorate (maybe because I'm focussing on it less?), and I can tell it needs a LOT of work here. I also definitely need to work on prepositions (though my tutor and I definitely could have told you that before this video!) and I noticed several errors with my conjugations and adjective agreements, but overall I’m really happy with how much more sense Bulgarian makes after another year of study. Really excited to see what I’m capable of next year or even later this year since it’s still going to be my main focus for quite some time!
Corrections are very welcomed! If you speak or study Bulgarian and notice any mistakes or have any advice feel free to send it my way!
Thank you to my current patrons Rebecca B, and Andy R for supporting my content! I appreciate you so much :)
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[@PolyglotProgress]

If anyone’s curious I had probably around 75 hours worth of Bulgarian study between my last diary and this one! I’m excited to actually have the data to know how many hours I spend learning between this one and the next one I record now that I’m tracking my language study :)

[@mariajohnson2294]

Would love some Bulgarian subtitles if possible.

[@loraivanova8635]

Hello from Bulgaria. Здрасти! 👋🏻🇧🇬 It's so amazing to me that somebody is interested in my language that I was like 😁🫠 while watching the video. It's obvious that you take learning seriously and put much effort which I appreciate. There were some grammar mistakes like it's "език - езикът - езика" in masculine, not "езиката" (I know this video is old and you probably have figured out your mistakes a long time ago) BUT you know a lot of words. The order of the words and the grammar structures are correct. You use the correct prepositions. Also your pronunciation is quite good. I think you're doing a really great job and I had a lot of fun watching this video. Успех с българския! Чакам с нетърпение още видеа на български. 🖤

[@SomedayKorean]

Interesting watching this as someone who knows absolutely nothing about Bulgarian. It's clear you have to think through your sentences and words as you speak, but when reading the subtitles it's also clear that there is quite a bit of sentence structure/vocab knowledge behind your sentences. I might start trying to upload diary-style videos in my languages a little - I have a serious phobia of putting my language knowledge out there for the whole world to see/judge, but it would also be a cool way to document my progress in the languages over time.

[@PolyglotProgress]

I definitely still have to think a lot about it! haha I'd love to see your diary-style videos if you decide to upload them! But I also understand that fear, it can be hard to share progress online! No pressure to post them, but I hope you do if you decide you want to!

[@kristina5249]

You go, girl, this is страхотно! ⭐

[@mariajohnson2294]

I’m a Russian advanced learner. It amazed me how well I could follow you with my Russian knowledge. I know the languages are close, with Russian following from Bulgarian through Slavonic, but it still cool to hear it for myself. Just a quick tip. Read self-help books in Bulgarian. It is easier than literature, even kids lit. Try a self-help book.

[@AmbassadorSoriano]

I'm advanced beginner, and I, too, can understand quite a bit (not everything, but much more than I would think).

[@PolyglotProgress]

That's so cool! I've noticed I can pick up a few words when I hear Russian but since I'm still very much a beginner in Bulgarian I'm far from being able to follow. The self help book idea is a great tip too! Thank you!

[@aquamirrorX]

@@PolyglotProgress well, as a native bg speaker, Russian is also hard for me to follow in speech 😅

[@UmberA]

This is a great video! I really like watching people on KZbin speaking in their target language, also thanks for the eng subtitles because I don't know any Bulgarian at all!

[@Uniyou0459]

Wow I never heard Bulgarian before this video, it's like a mix between Russian, Polish and German. I like the sound of it!

[@KatieMovchan]

Oh my Goodness! I never realized how much Bulgarian sounds like Russian and Ukrainian :) It's so cool!! keep up the progress!

[@liscatcat8756]

I'm so proud of you you're inspiring and amazing !!

[@SuperRockess]

Well done 🙌🙌🙌 your confidence in using the language has definitely increased. Hard work is paying of 🤗

[@PolyglotProgress]

Thank you! A lot of that is definitely thanks to weekly lessons with my tutor :)

[@loveingbot]

Congratulations! Lots of noticeable progress

[@aquamirrorX]

🙂Good to see a new video in Bulgarian. Pronunciation and stress are sometimes off, but either way, there's no difficulty in understanding you, these are bound to improve with more experience. A few notes: 0:11 "2022" should end with "-a" (it refers to the year (feminine), not the month) 0:23 така (like that/in this manner) should be това 1:44 бавно ( is slow, not the language), or "...съм (много) бавна" (I am slow) 2:18 "да" here is wrong, use [than in](от това през)/(отколкото през) February 2:28 моят напредък с езика 2:47 plural of език is езици (at first I thought you meant to say "езика", which changes the meaning) 3:31 или се опитвам да уча (опитай is 2nd person) 3:35 по 😊 (per) 3:57 ще опитам (note: чета implies unfinished/partial attempt, finishing the whole book would be прочета) 4:31 учебник (=textbook) (but using книга is not a problem, context is clear) 5:03 за 🙏Overall, nothing major. If you have any questions, please ask.

[@PolyglotProgress]

This is all super helpful! Thank you so much for taking the time to leave these notes! I definitely really really need to focus a bit more on stress and pronunciation going forward, but I'm glad that even now I'm at least understandable! I'll definitely keep an eye on these things going forward too, as a lot are mistakes I know my tutor has caught before too (език becoming езици gets me every time haha) Thank you again!

[@kk-vs7vp]

Wow бравоо, много добре говориш

[@facetivalstaff9566]

If you want to practice, let me know. I am Bulgarian and it makes me so happy that you want to learn my language ❤️🙏🏼

[@nikolgerova5440]

Справяш се страхотно !Успех 💖

[@PolyglotProgress]

Благодаря!!!!

[@claire_450]

Thanks for sharing your progress! I am also finding that my greek is getting a little easier now and it's such a reward within itself because it is definitely still hard haha 😊 this video has been a timely reminder to also record myself soon 😃

[@PolyglotProgress]

Thank you, Claire (and for your kind comment before)! I'm happy to hear your Greek is getting easier too! It's such a nice feeling!

[@DavidHunte]

Wow - You know a lot more Bulgarian than I do. I only know a little spanish and some portuguese. You are amazing

[@PolyglotProgress]

Thank you, David! I hope your Spanish and Portuguese studies are going well :)

[@petravancaneghem6049]

Well done!!

[@PolyglotProgress]

Thank you!!

[@booksandthreads]

You're doing great! There's obviously a lot more room for improvement but i was able to understand everything perfectly well 💯

[@PolyglotProgress]

Thank you! I'm so happy to hear it was understandable! I'm really excited to keep learning and improving :)

[@MegaSkyDreams]

Абигейл, шокиран съм от прогреса, който си постигнала!! Една поправка: 1:49 '..миналото видео ми..' - грешно. Притежанието ми стои между прилагателното и съществително. --> 'миналото ми видео' е правилно. When you have a noun phrase with a possessive and an adjective, the short possessive form is between the definite adjective and indefinite noun.

[@PolyglotProgress]

Благодаря!!! Thank you for pointing that out! I remember talking about that with my tutor but I definitely need to work on practicing using it more when speaking so it feels more natural!

[@galinastaneva2019]

браво :) добра работа

[@bhutchin1996]

Good job! I studied Russian for 2 years at university, and it takes more time to reach levels in a harder language. I'm about to finish the Assimil German B2 course and seriously considering doing their Bulgarian B2 course next, and the L1 for that will be French. Bulgarian is a language the owl (Duolingo) hasn't touched yet, and some say it's the easiest Slavic language. I know that when I ignored Spanish in favor of Portuguese, I was indirectly improving my Spanish as well. I hope to do the same for my Russian by picking up Bulgarian. I'm thinking about improving my French too because Assimil's C1 courses tend to have French as the L1 due to their being a French company, but I'm already somewhere in the B2 level range as I completed the 4th semester of French (which was taught in French) and went on to take some advanced courses taught only in French. Assimil's French C1 course has English as the L1. I also have some ebooks by Tania Dimitrova Láleva ("Lengua Búlgara. Curso completo.") for learning Bulgarian with Spanish as the L1.

[@epicdjyoshi648]

I was surprised that I was able to understand a bit of Bulgarian with my limited Polish knowledge (like some of the verbs e.g. znam, czyta). Good to see your fluency building!

[@adapienkowska2605]

I am Polish and I couldn't understand the main topic of the video without looking at the subtitles. When I got that the topic is her language journey, I understand tiny bit more, but still I find Bulgarian the hardest to understand out of Slavic languages. So I am surprised you could get much without knowing very well any Slavic language.

[@epicdjyoshi648]

@@adapienkowska2605 It could be that there were a few words similar to my native language, English?

[@adapienkowska2605]

@@epicdjyoshi648 I don't think so. I believe my English is decent enough that it shouldn't make a difference. Have you studied any other Slavic language?

[@epicdjyoshi648]

@@adapienkowska2605 Hmmm. I mean I learnt a very small amount of Czech but since that's pretty similar to Polish I don't know if that would've made a difference

[@adapienkowska2605]

@@epicdjyoshi648 it might. I have noticed people who learnt even a little bit of another Slavic language (in most cases it was Russian) were far better at understanding other, not related Slavic languages, e.g. my sister had Russian in HS, and she was better at understanding Bulgarian (makes sense - Russian borrowed a lot of vocabs from Bulgarian) and Czech (doesn't make sense, as Czech is not that similar to Russian).

[@thebluebookworm3383]

I feel like it would be easier to learn through talking with others that know Bulgarian. I only know Bulgarian through my parents but it’s always fun to practice with others

[@PolyglotProgress]

I've been taking a little break right now but at the time I posted this video I was meeting weekly with a Bulgarian tutor to speak and work on learning new things! I'm really looking forward to starting that up again when I can!

[@wildwildwildwild418]

Well done!! Excellent! The progress is huge. Good luck! Браво Абигейл! Напредъка ти в изучаването и говоренето на български наистина е огромен. Когато правиш грешки, то те в повечето случаи са граматически, което е по-малкото зло, тъй като с времето ще ги изчистиш. Хубавата новина е, че изговаряш изключително добре звуците и нямаш акцент, което е впечатляващо за един чужденец. Особено като се вземе предвид, че не си била в България! Дали в миналото си не си била българка?! :) Личи си, че си положила много, много труд, но имаш и дарба дадена свише! Използвай я! Пожелавам ти да имаш щастието и късмета някой ден да дойдеш в България! Ще ти хареса. И хората и природата в България са чудесни и уникални, едни от най-древните са!

[@PolyglotProgress]

Благодаря много!! Оценявам го много! Искам да пътувам до България в бъдещето!

[@aquamirrorX]

@@PolyglotProgress в бъдеще* otherwise you'd need a time machine😉

[@maksKv91]

Добре се справяш! Граматиката ти е на добро ниво, а говоренето и то ще се подобри или с повече практика или повече слушане. Успех!

[@bhutchin1996]

From my limited Russian and learning a little about the Bulgarian language, you said that her grammar ("the" grammar) is at a good level (ниво = niveau (French)). 'Успех!' sounds like 'Удачи!' (Russian for 'good luck!'). I'm seriously considering studying Bulgarian as well.

[@maksKv91]

@@bhutchin1996 Well Done, you have analysed the text well. You already have a good basis to start from, so it should be easier for you to learn the language. The grammar you will find similar to English, the vocabulary to Russian. Just keep in mind that a lot of the words are the same as Russian, but many of them are false friends - meaning they are the same word, but with a different meaning. Успех!

[@bhutchin1996]

@@maksKv91 I know about false friends. They exist between two languages of the same family. 'Handy' also means 'useful' in English, but in German it's a 'cell phone'.

[@negin8131]

What do you think about Serbian ? I'm really into this language these days. It's my favorite Slavic language. Also good job on your Bulgarian you're killin' it ♡

[@emel3925]

My favorite Slavic language too 🤓🙌

[@PolyglotProgress]

I think Serbian is beautiful but I don't really have any plans to learn it. Thank you

[@Kender591]

There are a lot more widely spoken languages,why did you choose Bulgarian?

[@PolyglotProgress]

I don't choose languages based on number of speakers! I initially started because I really loved the way Bulgarian sounds and I've also found learning a slavic language really interesting and different from other things I've studied :)

[@Kender591]

@@PolyglotProgress alright,I see.

[@liscatcat8756]

@@Kender591 if you follow her and the older videos with matt you will realise they didn't care who speaks the languages only if they liked the sound of it and were drawn to it . She's been studying Bulgarian for years and years on and off .as she had lots of other language commitments. She's done fantastic

[@luchesartomov]

Bulgarian has a historic and cultural value like Greek language, it is descendant of the first written Slavic language, which is one of the three classical languages

[@galinastaneva2019]

защо започна да учиш български?

[@sailormoon7952]

Здравей, ще задам въпроса си на български, а ти ми отговори на английски, ако желаеш. Какво те мотивира да започнеш да учиш именно български? Като българка съм възхитена, че полагаш толкова усилия! Един малък съвет - изпускай ''аз'' понякога, на български не е нужно.

[@thereseolsen1405]

I honestly expected you to be at a much higher level, you have been making videos about language learning and about studying Bulgarian since forever! How can you be giving advice to others?

[@claire_450]

Hey, as someone who enjoys Abigail's content I feel like I can share my opinion as I am someone who appreciates both her insights and her videos sharing her progress. Abigail doesn't pretened to be something she's not - as you can even see in the name of her channel it is Polyglot *Progress* not Polyglot Perfect etc. If you've seen her other videos you see that she has taken time away from Bulgarian over the years for different reasons, which is also part of the process for many who take up multiple languages. You may or may not be aware that she is also learning a lot of other languages. From my perspective, I enjoy her videos given tips etc. and I've gained a lot from taking some of them on board. She gives suggestions and ideas and never prescribes a one size fits all. I personally prefer to hear tips from people who I can relate to and I often feel like I relate more to Abigail than others on KZbin who appear as 'better' polyglots (whatever that means) Ultimately, I feel like the wording of your message appears harsh as Abigail is being very open and vulnerable sharing her progress with us. It's incredibly brave to share a progress video on KZbin, *especially* when you are still at a beginner/low intermediate level. I hope that comments like yours dont discourage Abigail from sharing more videos like this in the future because I personally find them really comforting and inspiring That's just my opinion :) I hope you have a nice day

[@hannafrancis4409]

Even if your expectations were different, it would be best for you to keep them to yourself. Abigail owes you nothing, especially not a certain level of proficiency in a language, and i think it’s lovely and brave that she posts videos like this one to track her progress! Her advice is encouraging and realistic, and I appreciate her for the emphasis she places on having fun while learning languages. Comments like yours are what make people (myself included) feel intimidated by and excluded from the polyglot/language learning community, and I think that’s awful. We should try to be a welcoming and encouraging community, so your comment is absolutely unnecessary and damaging.

[@jillaroo1986]

Who entitled you to expect anything from someone who just enjoys language learning and shares their journey and activities?

[@PolyglotProgress]

I've said in all my recent videos I'm working on ~A2 material and feel like my speaking hasn't progressed much in the last year, so I don't think being upset with me for not meeting other expectations you had is really fair. I know most likely you haven't actually watched any of my videos in the last year(s) and so this is based more on an assumption I've been studying Bulgarian since I did Add1 in 2016 or that this is just a general dig at me, but I also know a lot of people who are at similar levels in their target languages might read this comment, so I feel like it's all worth addressing. I started studying Bulgarian in 2016 but put it on hold for a good 4/4.5 years until late summer/fall of 2020, so I've only really been studying Bulgarian for a little over a year this time around. I made my last update in February of last year, but again, I only actually was able to put in roughly ~75 hours into my Bulgarian last year as I was really busy with major life changes (including but not limited to moving a couple thousand miles during a pandemic). So honestly, it does make sense that there's not a *ton* of change between the two videos even though it's been a year. Would I also liked to have seen more progress? Sure! But it hasn't been too long and, more importantly, it would be okay even if it HAD been a lot of study and not a lot of change. Speaking is one part of language learning and even though it's not something I can show in this video I do feel like my Bulgarian majorly progressed in a lot of other ways this past year. My reading and listening comprehension improved, my vocabulary improved, I found methods that work well for me for learning this language, and I built a really strong habit in and love for the language. Plus, as I've said often, I don't progress in Bulgarian the same way I do in other languages. It's a lot harder for me, I move a lot slower in picking up new words and grammar concepts and to top it all off, there's a lot less resources for me to immerse or get additional instruction on tricky grammar points etc. I'd hope my channel reflects my belief that there isn't a pace you need to move at when learning a language for fun, and that there is no one best way to learn. I share my diaries because I learn from them and because I want to share the progress I HAVE made honestly and openly. I’ve never (and will never) claim to have the secrets to language learning or say that I'm an expert at learning or anything because I don’t think anyone does and I don't think I am. I’m just sharing my experience and what’s worked for me. That said, if you feel like you don’t want to take any advice I have about language learning then that’s okay, there’s lots of other great people out there to watch instead! I'm only here to try to meet my own expectations and share my progress and tips with people who want to see it :)

[@PolyglotProgress]

I also really appreciate the three of you who replied to this!