Counting in Bulgarian
Language overview
Bulgarian (български език, transliterated as balgarski ezik) is an Indo-European language from the Slavic linguistic group. Written in the Cyrillic alphabet, it is spoken in the Balkans and counts about 10 million speakers, mainly in Bulgaria where it is the official language.
Bulgarian numbers list
- 1 – едно (edno)
- 2 – две (dve)
- 3 – три (tri)
- 4 – четири (chetiri)
- 5 – пет (pet)
- 6 – шест (shest)
- 7 – седем (sedem)
- 8 – осем (osem)
- 9 – девет (devet)
- 10 – десет (deset)
- 11 – единадесет (edinadeset)
- 12 – дванадесет (dvanadeset)
- 13 – тринадесет (trinadeset)
- 14 – четиринадесет (chetirinadeset)
- 15 – петнадесет (petnadeset)
- 16 – шестнадесет (shestnadeset)
- 17 – седемнадесет (sedemnadeset)
- 18 – осемнадесет (osemnadeset)
- 19 – деветнадесет (devetnadeset)
- 20 – двадесет (dvadeset)
- 30 – тридесет (trideset)
- 40 – четиридесет (chetirideset)
- 50 – петдесет (petdeset)
- 60 – шестдесет (shestdeset)
- 70 – седемдесет (sedemdeset)
- 80 – осемдесет (osemdeset)
- 90 – деветдесет (devetdeset)
- 100 – сто (sto)
- 1,000 – хиляда (hilyada)
- one million – един милион (edin milion)
- one billion – един милиард (edin miliard)
- one trillion – един трилион (edin trilion)
Bulgarian numbering rules
Now that you’ve had a gist of the most useful numbers, let’s move to the writing rules for the tens, the compound numbers, and why not the hundreds, the thousands and beyond (if possible).
- Digits from zero to nine are specific words, namely нула (nula) [0], едно (edno) [1], две (dve) [2], три (tri) [3], четири (chetiri) [4], пет (pet) [5], шест (shest) [6], седем (sedem) [7], осем (osem) [8], and девет (devet) [9]. The digits one and two have both a feminine and a masculine form: едно/един (edno/edin) [1], две/два (dve/dva) [2].
- The tens are formed by adding the ten word (десет (deset)) at the end of the digits, with the exception of ten where the unit is implicit: десет (deset) [10], двадесет (dvadeset) [20], тридесет (trideset) [30], четиридесет (chetirideset) [40], петдесет (petdeset) [50], шестдесет (shestdeset) [60], седемдесет (sedemdeset) [70], осемдесет (osemdeset) [80], and деветдесет (devetdeset) [90].
- The compound numbers are constructed from the matching units in the masculine form, followed by the conjonction и (i) (and), then the word for ten with no space from eleven to nineteen (e.g.: тринадесет (trinadeset) [13]), the conjonction being separated with spaces from twenty-one to ninety-nine (eg.: двадесет и пет (dvadeset i pet) [25]).
- The conjunction и (i) (and) is added between the second and the third member of each group of three digits.
- The hundreds, formed from the matching multiplier units, are: сто (sto) [100], двеста (dvesta) [200], триста (trista) [300], четиристотин (chetiristotin) [400], петстотин (petstotin) [500], шестстотин (sheststotin) [600], седемстотин (sedemstotin) [700], осемстотин (osemstotin) [800], and деветстотин (devetstotin) [900].
- Being gendered, one and two share the same gender as the following scale unit if any. For instance, the word for thousand (хиляда (hilyada)) is feminine, hence we say две хиляди (dve hilyadi) [2,000]. The same occurs with the millions (един милион (edin milion) [1,000,000] and два милиона (dva miliona) [2,000,000]) and the billions (един милиард (edin miliard) [1,000,000,000] and два милиарда (dva miliarda) [2,000,000,000]), both of them being masculine.
- The Bulgarian language follows the short scale system for naming big numbers: every new word greater than a million is 1,000 times bigger than the previous term. Thus, един милиард (edin miliard) is equivalent to 109 (one billion in the US).
Write a number in full in Bulgarian
Let’s move now to the practice of the numbering rules in Bulgarian. Will you guess how to write a number in full? Enter a number and try to write it down in your head, or maybe on a piece of paper, before displaying the result.
Books
Intensive Bulgarian: A Textbook & Reference Grammar (Vol 1)
by Ronelle Alexander, Olga M. Mladenova, editors University of Wisconsin Press (2000)
[ Amazon.com]
Intensive Bulgarian: A Textbook & Reference Grammar (Vol 2)
by Ronelle Alexander, Olga M. Mladenova, editors University of Wisconsin Press (2000)
[ Amazon.com]
A comprehensive Bulgarian grammar for foreign learners
by Lily Earl, editors Daniela Ubenova (2000)
[ Amazon.com]
Le bulgare de poche
by Elena Engelbrecht, editors Assimil (2009)
[ Amazon.com]
Parlons bulgare
by Margarita Vassileva, editors L’Harmattan (1996)
[ Amazon.com]
Dicionário Editora de Português-Búlgaro
by Margarita Drenska, editors Porto (2006)
[ Amazon.com]
Articles
Last train for Bansko In the southwest of Bulgaria, in the city of Bansko, lies an abandoned train. Like an invite to urban exploration, it shows signs with cryptic messages in Bulgarian and Czech I will try to decipher. |
Links
South Slavic languages
Bulgarian, Macedonian, Old Church Slavonic, Serbian, and Slovene.
Other supported languages
As the other currently supported languages are too numerous to list extensively here, please select a language from the full list of supported languages.