Learning Bulgarian - Mutual Support Group

Not sure if you know about it but have a look at .livemocha.com as they run a pretty good online - and free Bulgarian course using native speakers as online tutors. Hope that helps.

Best Regards

Sorry, moderator intervention reviews links so not sure what happens next. Could contact me via inbox.  Rgds.

Hi worldlywanderer, I am Bulgarian and I will be happy to join your English-Bulgarian online group (if you are interested, of course). I think I can also further improve my English, and I can probably help you to learn our exotic language.

There is also one thing I can tell you, there is a special school in Sofia, Bulgaria ( probably in other cities too, but I m not sure) that teaches Bulgarian for foreigners, the students there are mostly foreigners that study Bulgarian in order to do their studies in Bulgarian universities, but all kinds of people can join the courses too. In case you are interested you can either join their courses or you can buy the course books and you can learn Bulgarian by yourself.

Let me know if you need more information about the school or if you need a Bulgarian for your online initiative:)

Take care!

Good Morning Kakarutto and thank you for being the first to offer to join the group. My idea is simple. There is a growing number of people around the world who wish to speak English because it is now recognised as the international language. There is also a growing number of native English speakers, around thirty thousand each year from the United Kingdom alone, who choose to live in another country. Not all can afford to employ tutors .wish to take formal classes but need to learn a new language in order to survive successfully in their chosen country. These people need only to be in direct contact in order to take advantage of each other's knowledge.

I am no computer expert but know that there are many services available which can be utilised free of charge to enable that contact.

* First and most obvious is email with which most people are familiar but that requires a knowledge of the written language. It is not to be ignored, however, since the use of Google Translator with email is a first step in allowing people with different languages to communicate.

*Next come the various VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) services of which Skype is probably the best known. The problem, at least initially, will be co-coordinating times which will enable people to meet on-line.

*There are also the social media, bulletin boards like this one and perhaps in some areas the possibility of face to face meetings.

I propose waiting a week or two to gauge the response before making another move but meanwhile I have sent you a pm.

Hi there,

You can also join a free group for learning survival Bulgarian.

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There are, I imagine, many such groups in Sofia and more cosmopolitan areas of Bulgaria but they are of little use if you are hundreds or even ten of thousands of miles away.

As a Scot who moved to Bulgaria in June this year I'd be interested is a learning group or something similar. I've been trying to learn on my own at home using a software package called Bykie but Bulgarian is not an easy language to learn by any means. I'd be grateful is you could keep me informed of progress with the concept. Meanwhile I'll have a look at livemocha.com and accentschool.net also everyone feel free to PM me at any time

Not completely. At least not if you are using the internet options and if you have time to talk to s.o. via skype for example.

Language learning software is as useless for Bulgarian language as it is for any other languages. Especially when you are already in the target country.
Buying this stuff is a waste of money, you'd better go out on the street and try to ask s.b. for directions or for sth. else.

By the way, we'll be launching another free group soon. I will inform you.

If advertising is genuinely not permitted then why is a commercial organisation allow to post using their commercial website address? The irony is that when they do, apparently, post a link to a free facility the link to that facility is removed.

I do accept the point made by Focus Language School that they offer VOIP (I won't mention which brand they use as that would be advertising) based courses, however, they cost 15 BGN per hour and that is outside the budget of many people. The idea behind a self-help group is that there is mutual benefit to all and no cost to anyone.

It my be wise to bear in mind when dealing with any commercial organisation the old adage "there's no such thing as a free dinner"

Language learning software is as useless for Bulgarian language as it is for any other languages. Especially when you are already in the target country.
Buying this stuff is a waste of money, you'd better go out on the street and try to ask s.b. for directions or for sth. else.

Ths sounds quite disingenuous when coming from a commercial organisation which must always have a concern about competition. I can think of one internationally famous company whose name is so famous there is no need to mention it. They have managed to survive for over a century selling this type of product and now operate in sixty countries.

The very idea of people struggling to talk to each other in different languages without the help of a professional organisation may amuse some, would likely horrify academics and send shivers up the corporate spine of commercial organisations but it may just help a few to get by and make a friend or two into the bargain.

With little or no available local courses or even Skype based help, then people like me have little or no option than to turn to the commercial software packages of which there are many. Incidentally if the world famous company mentioned above by Edislaw is Rosetta Stone who do teach over 60 languages,, I can say that Bulgarian is not one of the 60 languages they teach!

It's curious how the idea of a self-help group manages to create controversy.

I can think f a couple of other commercial companies offering self-help courses and the description by Edislaw also applies to L----ne ut apparently in only fifteen languages. The famous language school with the French name which started in the US also offer many languages but I think their business is largely teaching English to non-English speakers.

The problem today apears to be that we are in a transition period. The whole globe is rushing headlog into English as a lingua franca while we British people who have the good fortune to speak it already are moving to exotic parts of the world where our age group are very unlikely ever to elarn English leaving us no choice as polite guests but to learn their language.

I am one of the generation whose school days were plagued by well-meaning but useless language teachers cramming students with the bare minimum to guarantee an O'Grade pass in French or exceptionally, German or Spanish which was necessary for university entrance. Despite this I have survived over seventy countries and learned little of the languages of any of them.

My original post spoke of the NEED to learn Bulgarian. A need born from painful experience of attempting to discover what an interpreter actually meant as opposed to what was said. A need to read a Bulgarian menu to avoid being trapped into using only tourist restaurants and even the need to read the label in a supermarket to avoid buying vanilla flavoured baking powder when what I want is dried yeast.

Roll on the day when we have a single word language and the politicians have one less hiding-place. Meanwhile, even if it's only to help one more Bulgarian move to that glorious day I'll accept the NEED to learn their language and even this infuriating alphabet which is made so much more difficult by the standardising of Cyrillic letters for the ease of the printer.

I agree entirely with worldlywanderer's post above. I just want to learn Bulgarian to get by. I don't need to know all the technical stuff as I've no intention of teaching Bulgarian. I just want to be able to converse and read the labels!!

Hi, I would love to be part of this learning team, but I I am still in Scotland and do not have Skype (I am on Linux which does not work with Skype). Would that pose a problem for this planned group?
I find learning on my own with books gets boring, so I procrastinate, then I forget what I have learned due to not practising.
I wish there were Bulgarian films with Bulgarian and English subtitles. English I learned to understand by having the TV on lots. Radio or CDS do not work half as good as the pictures are missing.
When I moved from England to Scotland, Ayrshire to be precise, I found it very hard to understand people due to the strong local dialect although I was already fluent in English through my time in England.
So I would be pleased if you can find a way to have me in your learning team.....Thanks! Annette

Since Edislaw's post is largely inspired by mine probably a short comment is required.
For the first part - commercial organisation posting with their website address I see no violation of rules since no advertising is being carried out, even the opposite - advise on directly contacting local people on the streets without buying useless software. Consider this as a professional opinion. Free of charge. The effectiveness of both methods was compared also free of charge.

This part: "It my be wise to bear in mind when dealing with any commercial organisation the old adage "there's no such thing as a free dinner" could actually be very wise, just that I can't think of a way to apply it to a group which is free. How and why FREE, well, people willing to study once a week can join it for free, people that need to learn the language faster and are satisfied with the quality of the service will buy additional lessons. Does this make the free lessons less free ?! Actually, "no free dinner" means that finally s.o. has to pay, but not necessarily the one who consumes it.

Budget is not an issue since in almost 100 % of the cases  the employer pays for the lessons. Money spent on this delivers a   very fast return to the investor. This applies also for the online lessons.

As for the competition concern issues regarding the language learning software actually our concern is mainly how to help the people that have already suffered the effects of such methods and how to repair their "understanding and knowledge" of the foreign language. It may not be always the case and surely not forever, but now it is.

I'm inclined to agree with Edislaw's view that a commercial organisation using their web address as a screen name is advertising, need I would go so far as to describe it as blatant advertising. The logic used by the representative of the language school suggests there should be someone on threads about mobile telephones with a screen name like Nokia.com or on internet threads a name line Vivacom,com.

I suppose, on the other hand that the people who read these blogs are clever enoug to recognise such advertising for what it is and the only people losing out are those who are not being paid to advertise a commercial company's wares.

As for the negativity about language software methinks the gentleman doth protest too much!

Hi to all following this post. I would also be interested to join this mutual support group.

I am also English speaking and living here in Ruse City the pass two years.

Have a good day to all

Neil Headley

Hi all, i didn` visit this place for a while. I like the idea u are talking about, so if there is such group, I can join too.

@nayreel

Hi, can I join your group, too?  I am teaching myself using a book and CD course called Bulgarian the Easy way.  I have got zoom and will happily exchange English conversation for some very basic tuition in Bulgarian.

Thanks