Bulgarian FAQs

Where is Bulgarian spoken?

Bulgarian is a South Slavic language spoken in Southeastern Europe, primarily in Bulgaria. Bulgarian speaking communities are also found in many South and Eastern European Countries such as Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, Moldova, Romania, Turkey and the Ukraine. It is also spoken in Canada, Hungary, Israel, and the U.S.

How many people speak Bulgarian?

According to a study of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAN), around fifteen million people across the world speak the Bulgarian language.

Around 7 million speakers live in Bulgaria, and the other 8 million in Southern and Eastern Europe, as well as other countries around the world, such as, for instance, the US and Canada.

Unfortunately, no estimate of the number of learners of Bulgarian is available.

What makes Bulgarian difficult to learn?

The difficulty of learning Bulgarian depends on your native language: for instance, it will be a bit easier to learn for speakers of other Slavic languages.

Here are a few things that can make learning Bulgarian difficult:

• the Cyrillic script (if your native language uses another type of script)
• there are a few sounds that are typical for Slavic languages but may be hard to master for speakers of other languages
• the verb conjugation system is rather complex in Bulgarian
• the category of gender in nouns can be tricky to master as well.

However, there is nothing about Bulgarian that you cannot master through some effort and regular practice.

Is Bulgarian a Slavic language?

Bulgarian is a South Slavic language. Other South Slavic languages include Macedonian, Slovene and Serbo-Croatian.

Other Slavic languages are:

• East Slavic: Belorussian, Russian, Ukrainian
• West Slavic: Czech, Slovak, Polish