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| SECTION 3: Nouns, gender, definite & indefinite articles: feminine, masculine & neuter; how to say THE/A or AN and more 3.1. Genders: Nouns in Bulgarian have 3 genders. You have already been introduced to 2 genders in the list of jobs from Section 2. There we distinguished between a male teacher and a female teacher - учител (male) and учителка (female). Although there is a logical differentiation between masculine and feminine gender here, i.e. men/male jobs are in masculine gender and women/female jobs are in feminine gender, there is, I am afraid, more to the story. Many of you might remember their frustration with French, where a table is in feminine gender. To the English speaker, this makes no sense. Unfortunately, Bulgarian suffers from the same 'disease' as French and our tables are also in fem. gender. маса [mah sah] feminine noun (fem.) table So, there is little logic as to what is in feminine gender and what is in masculine gender beyond the obvious male/female distinctions. For example: |
къща [kuh shtah] fem. house
| Like in many languages, there are in fact some rules with re: to recognizing masc. and fem. nouns but there are of course exceptions to them. Fem. nouns generally end in the vowel "a" and "я", for example:
Masc. nouns, on the other hand, usually end in a consonant:
There are, of course, exceptions and these rules aren't set in stone but are worth knowing and will be helpful to you in the majority of cases. |
It's time to introduce the 3rd gender in Bulgarian - neuter. If you have learnt German, this may not be
a surprise to you - its equivalent is the German 'das'. If you haven't learnt German, here is some info:
Neuter nouns usually end in the vowels "e", "o" and "и": такси [tah ksee] taxi; кафе [kah feh] coffee.
Other examples are the following:
Neuter nouns are also commonly diminutive words or as Wikipedia defines them: words which indicate
"smallness of the object named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment." There is in fact a separate
page on Bulgarian diminutives on Wikipedia and should you wish to find out more on the subject, you
can do so here.
IMPORTANT: Please note that only diminutives that end in че and e are in neuter gender. These are
generally the diminutives of masculine nouns. The diminutives of fem. nouns (for example, a little
table) remain in feminine gender.
Here are some examples using the above words:
Like masculine and fem. nouns being associated with male and female beings, the neuter gender
corresponds to words such as baby, child, boy and girl:
In fact all of these do end in the vowel "e", which we mentioned above is associated with neuter
gender.
PLEASE REMEMBER that the words for boy and girl are not, as it may seem logical, respectively
masculine and feminine BUT are as we see above, both neuter.
YOU HAVE NOW ACQUAINTED YOURSELF WITH THE 3 NOUN GENDERS IN BULGARIAN.
a surprise to you - its equivalent is the German 'das'. If you haven't learnt German, here is some info:
Neuter nouns usually end in the vowels "e", "o" and "и": такси [tah ksee] taxi; кафе [kah feh] coffee.
Other examples are the following:
- училище [oocheelishteh] school
- кафене [kahfehneh] cafe
Neuter nouns are also commonly diminutive words or as Wikipedia defines them: words which indicate
"smallness of the object named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment." There is in fact a separate
page on Bulgarian diminutives on Wikipedia and should you wish to find out more on the subject, you
can do so here.
IMPORTANT: Please note that only diminutives that end in че and e are in neuter gender. These are
generally the diminutives of masculine nouns. The diminutives of fem. nouns (for example, a little
table) remain in feminine gender.
Here are some examples using the above words:
- столче [stohl] a little chair
- речниче[rechnik] a little dictionary
- ножче [nozh] a little knife
- самолетче [ samohlet] a little aeroplane (most likely to refer to a toy aeroplane)
Like masculine and fem. nouns being associated with male and female beings, the neuter gender
corresponds to words such as baby, child, boy and girl:
- бебе [beh beh] baby
- дете [deh teh] child
- момче [mom cheh] boy
- момиче [moh mee cheh] girl
In fact all of these do end in the vowel "e", which we mentioned above is associated with neuter
gender.
PLEASE REMEMBER that the words for boy and girl are not, as it may seem logical, respectively
masculine and feminine BUT are as we see above, both neuter.
- MAN - masculine gender
- WOMAN - feminine gender
- BOY - neuter gender
- GIRL - neuter gender
YOU HAVE NOW ACQUAINTED YOURSELF WITH THE 3 NOUN GENDERS IN BULGARIAN.
стол [stohl] masculine noun (masc.) chair
3.2 Definite & Indefinite Articles
So what's this? Rather than explaining, I'll just tell you what they are in English. There is 1 definite article
in English and it is THE. It's the same for all nouns because unlike languages like French, German and
Bulgarian and many more, English nouns do not have genders, as such.
Indefinite articles are A and AN. For example: An aeroplane lands at a terminal in Gatwick. So, we don't
know which aeroplane and at which terminal. If we knew exactly which aeroplane and terminal were
talked about, we'd say: The aeroplane lands at the terminal in Gatwick.
That's enough English, let's look at Bulgarian.
Bulgarian indefinite articles:
The good news is that Bulgarian does not use indefinite articles - instead the word one or some, or simply
no word in front of the noun is used. Here is the word for one in Bulgarian:
JUST FOR YOUR INFORMATION: When we count one, two, three, etc. (which we'll do in the next
section), we use the neuter version of one: едно [ehd noh].
Bulgarian definite articles:
1. The bad...quite bad news is that Bulgarian has a couple of definite articles. In fact different ones for the
different genders of the nouns.
2. Another difference with English is that instead of in front of nouns, Bulgarians put their definite articles
after a noun and as part of it. This is what I mean:
aeroplane самолет
the aeroplane самолетът
So in order to get "the aeroplane" we added two additional letters at the end of the word for aeroplane
in Bulgarian -----> самолет + ът = самолетът (the aeroplane). Unfortunately, ът is just one of the
definite article endings. The endings vary depending on what gender the noun in question is. Aeroplane is
in masculine gender and ът is one of the masculine endings.
Please note that we are concentrating on singular nouns only at the moment. Pluralised nouns will be
discussed later on as endings vary there too. Now let's see all the possible endings for singular nouns:
1. MASCULINE NOUNS:
1.1. ът ending - pronounced [uht]
man мъж [muhzh]
the man мъжът [muhzhuht]
2. FEMININE NOUNS:
та ending pronounced [tah]
woman жена [zheh nah]
the woman жената [zheh nah tah]
So what's this? Rather than explaining, I'll just tell you what they are in English. There is 1 definite article
in English and it is THE. It's the same for all nouns because unlike languages like French, German and
Bulgarian and many more, English nouns do not have genders, as such.
Indefinite articles are A and AN. For example: An aeroplane lands at a terminal in Gatwick. So, we don't
know which aeroplane and at which terminal. If we knew exactly which aeroplane and terminal were
talked about, we'd say: The aeroplane lands at the terminal in Gatwick.
That's enough English, let's look at Bulgarian.
Bulgarian indefinite articles:
The good news is that Bulgarian does not use indefinite articles - instead the word one or some, or simply
no word in front of the noun is used. Here is the word for one in Bulgarian:
- "one" referring to masc. nouns - един [eh din]
- "one" referring to fem. nouns - една [eh dnah]
- "one" referring to neuter nouns - едно [ehd noh]
JUST FOR YOUR INFORMATION: When we count one, two, three, etc. (which we'll do in the next
section), we use the neuter version of one: едно [ehd noh].
Bulgarian definite articles:
1. The bad...quite bad news is that Bulgarian has a couple of definite articles. In fact different ones for the
different genders of the nouns.
2. Another difference with English is that instead of in front of nouns, Bulgarians put their definite articles
after a noun and as part of it. This is what I mean:
aeroplane самолет
the aeroplane самолетът
So in order to get "the aeroplane" we added two additional letters at the end of the word for aeroplane
in Bulgarian -----> самолет + ът = самолетът (the aeroplane). Unfortunately, ът is just one of the
definite article endings. The endings vary depending on what gender the noun in question is. Aeroplane is
in masculine gender and ът is one of the masculine endings.
Please note that we are concentrating on singular nouns only at the moment. Pluralised nouns will be
discussed later on as endings vary there too. Now let's see all the possible endings for singular nouns:
1. MASCULINE NOUNS:
1.1. ът ending - pronounced [uht]
man мъж [muhzh]
the man мъжът [muhzhuht]
2. FEMININE NOUNS:
та ending pronounced [tah]
woman жена [zheh nah]
the woman жената [zheh nah tah]
1.2. ят ending [pronounced yat]
Some masculine nouns don't get the ът ending but the
alternative ят ending. There is no specific rule as such
practice and learning should help you improve that. Here's an
example of an ят ending:
teacher (masc.) учител [oocheetehl]
the teacher (masc.) учителят[oocheetehlyat]
Some masculine nouns don't get the ът ending but the
alternative ят ending. There is no specific rule as such
practice and learning should help you improve that. Here's an
example of an ят ending:
teacher (masc.) учител [oocheetehl]
the teacher (masc.) учителят[oocheetehlyat]
3. NEUTER NOUNS:
то ending - pronounced [toh]
child дете [deh teh]
the child детето [deh teh toh]
то ending - pronounced [toh]
child дете [deh teh]
the child детето [deh teh toh]
| ONE MORE THING ON MASCULINE ENDINGS: The ът and ят endings are used when the masculine nouns is the subject of the sentence/the doer of the action - for example The man hit Jon. Here the man is the subject, he did the action - he hit Jon. Now if Jon becomes the subject, as in Jon hit the man, then here the man is the object - he is being hit. When masc. nouns in Bulgarian are objects, their definite article endings become respectively simply -a (for ът ending nouns) and -я (for ят ending nouns). For example, see the difference below: 1. The man hit Jon - Мъжът удари Джон. 3. The teacher saw Jon - Учителят видя Джон. 2. Jon hit the man - Джон удари мъжа. 4. Jon saw the teacher - Джон видя учителя. |
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