Glory Ho

First, ditto on what Michael said–thank you for reading the blog and commenting. I really appreciate it!

Ah, the language. Thought not the most exciting topic, I felt it necessary to blog about this immediately, as we live and breathe Bulgarian right now.

I remember this feeling from years ago when i was traveling across Europe. . .that unnatural, and certainly Un-Andrea, yet unexpectedly comfortable feeling of having no idea what others around you are saying. Per my typical social frenzy, it can be quite isolating, but it’s also pressureless. Rather than knee-shifting silences and escapes to the bathroom around new friends, you just keep listening, smiling and sipping that Antique-Row-like shot glass of Rakia. You become familiar with vague instructions, comfortable with planless days and you’re hardly bothered when you leave at 10:30, rather than 9:30 (which you showered and dressed for) because you mixed up the words for “nine” and “ten” the night before.

Bulgarian is a Slavic language and uses the Cyrillic alphabet. This alphabet has around 29 letters and contains some probably two-thirds letters that we’ve never seen before, then a third that are familiar like a backwards R and a backwards N, a few that are, in fact, our letters, but don’t stand for the same sound, and then a few just like ours, but with more limitations. So, for example, “B” is not a “B”. It’s a V. So, herein lies its own challenge. Not only are we trying to learn new letters, but when reading and writing, we’re trying to reverse 27 years of previous teaching.

And then there are the usual language challenges that the creator of the English language (feminist that she must have been) decided to ditch, like masculine and feminine verbs, nouns and adjectives. This, in short, means that the rest of the words in a sentence can change dramatically depending on what object you’re talking about.

I love learning the language, but it’s very difficult. Most frustrating is when you learn a few words and attempt to create a sentence only to have the Bugarian you’re speaking with simply stare back at you like you’re speaking Japanese. This is because you’re not quite pronouncing the words right. AARRGGH! Too, most people aren’t patient enough to wait around for me to think of the right word.

So, I hope this gives you a glimpse of our language experience. I feel extremely fortunate to be here in the Peace Corps. Just imageine it–We have no bills, no cell phones, very minimal expenses (shampoo, kleenex) no real job yet (I’ve only made one or two lists since I’ve been here!) we’re getting four hours of language lessons every day and we stay with a family who is eager to hear about our culture and share their home.

Nastrave (Cheers)
Love, Andrea