The Bulgarian Alphabet: All 30 Letters, Explained

The Bulgarian alphabet has 30 letters, all of them Cyrillic. It is a true alphabet, so vowels and consonants are written as equal letters, and words are spelled close to how they sound. If you know Russian Cyrillic you know most of it already; the differences are that Bulgarian has no Ы, Э or Ё, uses Ъ as a real vowel, and reads Щ as “sht”.

This guide takes the letters, names and sounds from our free Bulgarian alphabet chart, and every practice word comes from our list of the 10,000 most common Bulgarian words, with its rank.

#What kind of script is Bulgarian?

Bulgarian is written in the Cyrillic script, the same family of letters used for Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian and Macedonian. Cyrillic has deep roots in Bulgaria: it was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire around the late 9th and early 10th centuries, by the school that followed the missionaries Cyril and Methodius, and it is named after Cyril. Bulgaria still celebrates the alphabet every year on May 24. When Bulgaria joined the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the EU’s third official script, alongside Latin and Greek.

The modern alphabet dates from the spelling reform of 1945, which removed two old letters, ѣ (yat) and ѫ (big yus). What remains is the smallest of the Cyrillic alphabets in our charts.

Fewer letters does not mean fewer sounds. Bulgarian simply doesn’t need Ы or Э, and it writes the “yo” sound with two letters instead of one (more on that below).

#The Bulgarian vowels

Bulgarian has six vowel sounds, and eight letters to write them: six plain vowels and two that add a “y” sound in front.

Two things catch Russian learners here. First, Bulgarian Е is a plain e, as in bet. It does not start with a “y” sound the way Russian Е does, so не (no, #3 on our list) is simply ne. Second, Ъ is a full vowel, not a silent sign. It sounds roughly like the u in but and appears in some of the most common words in the language, such as съм (I am, #20) and път (road, #127).

Stress is not written in Bulgarian and can fall on any syllable, so learn each new word with its stress. In relaxed speech, unstressed vowels also weaken a little: an unstressed а can drift toward the sound of ъ, and an unstressed о toward у. You’ll hear this long before you need to produce it.

#The Bulgarian consonants

Here are the 21 consonants from our chart, plus the one sign. Bulgarian names each consonant by adding ъ after it, so Б is bŭ, В is vŭ and so on, which makes the names easy to remember.

A note on Х: our chart gives it as h, which is close enough to read with. Strictly, it is the same sound as Russian х, like the ch in Scottish loch, made at the back of the mouth rather than a breathy English h.

#Bulgarian vs Russian: what is different

If you already read Russian, this is the section to study. The two alphabets share 30 letters, and Russian adds three more, but several shared letters are used differently. You can compare the two charts side by side: Bulgarian and Russian, or read our Russian alphabet guide.

The “yo” sound is a good example. Russian has the letter Ё for it. Bulgarian writes йо at the start of a syllable and ьо after a consonant: шофьор (driver, #1,946) and синьо (blue, #2,317). The ь in those words is the only job the soft sign has in Bulgarian.

Щ is the difference you’ll meet first, because ще (will, #9) is one of the most common words in the language. It is said shte. The same letter gives още (yet, more, #57), O-shte, and щастие (happiness, #1,105), SHTAS-ti-e.

Other Cyrillic alphabets differ again. Ukrainian has 33 letters, including І, Ї, Є and Ґ, and its Щ is closer to shch. Macedonian, Bulgarian’s closest relative, has 31 letters, adds Ѓ, Ќ, Ѕ, Љ, Њ and Џ, and drops both Ъ and Щ. One word shows it well:

Bulgarian сърце (#822 on our list) needs ъ for its first vowel, sŭr-TSE. Russian and Ukrainian use е, and Macedonian gets by with no vowel letter at all. If you want to see how much vocabulary the two languages share, our Bulgarian and Russian word comparison lists the words that are the same in both.

#The letters that look Latin but aren’t

These are the real traps for English speakers. Some Cyrillic letters look exactly like Latin letters and sound the same, and some look the same but sound completely different.

The honest ones, which look and sound like their Latin twins: А, Е, К, М, О, Т.

The false friends:

A few lowercase letters are traps of their own: п looks like an n but is p, и looks like a backwards N and is ee, and я looks like a backwards R and is ya.

Put them together and you get words that read like nonsense in Latin letters. Try ресторант (#1,451): read as Latin it looks like pectopaht, but it is res-to-RANT, restaurant. хотел (#1,055) is ho-TEL, hotel, and такси (#1,327) is tak-SI, taxi.

One more thing to expect on signs and menus in Bulgaria: many fonts there use lowercase shapes closer to handwriting, so д can look like a g and т like an m. They are the same letters, just drawn differently.

#Read your first Bulgarian words

Each of these is on our most common words list. The stressed syllable is in capitals.

Start with да, не and мама: nothing new except that Н is n. Then кафе and вода, where В and Ф appear. Then път and добър for ъ, and ще, още and баща for щ. By благодаря you are reading a four-syllable word with я at the end.

#A learning plan for the Bulgarian alphabet

The chart is at /tools/alphabet/bulgarian; keep it open while you read. After the letters comes vocabulary: the 10,000 most common Bulgarian words, each with its English meaning. When you can read a few hundred of them, the Bulgarian vocabulary test samples words from every part of the list and estimates how many you know.

Learning more than one script? We have the same kind of guide for Russian, Greek, Korean, Hindi, Bengali and Malayalam, and you can browse all our alphabet charts.

#Practice reading and speaking with native speakers

A chart teaches you the shapes, but the sound of ъ, where the stress falls and how fast people really speak comes from hearing a person and being corrected. On LangX, Bulgarian is one of the 182 languages you can pick, and matching runs both ways: you see people who speak Bulgarian and are learning a language you speak.

9:41

Lucía M. Online

Today

Hold any message to correct it — corrections are the most useful thing you can send.

¿Cómo fue tu fin de semana? Cuéntame en inglés si quieres. How was your weekend? Tell me in English if you like. 09:12

Fui a la playa con mi hermana. Hacía mucho calor y yo no llevé agua. 09:14 · Read

Correction from Lucía Hacía mucho calor y yo no llevé agua. Hacía mucho calor y no llevé agua. The «yo» isn't wrong, it just sounds emphatic — like you specifically forgot. 09:15

Message in Spanish…

Write a few sentences in Cyrillic, and your partner can hold any message to correct it. Corrections and replies are unlimited on every plan, and translation is built into the chat (20 a day on the free plan). LangX has voice and photo messages rather than live calls, which suits a beginner: you can record a word as many times as you like before you send it. The free plan includes 5 new conversations a day. Keep in mind that the community is smaller than the biggest apps’, so for a less widely learned language like Bulgarian it can take a little patience to find the right partner. Get the app, and read how to do a language exchange before your first chat.

#FAQ

#How many letters are in the Bulgarian alphabet?

Thirty: eight vowel letters (а, е, и, о, у, ъ, ю, я), 21 consonants, and the soft sign ь. It is the smallest of the Cyrillic alphabets in our charts; Russian and Ukrainian have 33, Macedonian 31.

#Is the Bulgarian alphabet the same as the Russian one?

No, but it is close. Bulgarian uses 30 of Russian’s 33 letters and has none of its own; it leaves out Ы, Э and Ё. Some shared letters are read differently: Ъ is a vowel in Bulgarian, Щ is sht, and Е has no y sound in front.

#How do you pronounce Ъ in Bulgarian?

Roughly like the u in but, or the vowel in the second syllable of sofa. It is a real vowel, never silent, and it appears in common words like съм (I am) and път (road).

#Which Bulgarian letters look like English letters?

А, Е, К, М, О and Т look and sound much like their English twins. В, Н, Р, С, У and Х look like English letters but stand for v, n, r, s, oo and a throaty h.

#How long does it take to learn the Bulgarian alphabet?

It depends on how much you practice, but it is one of the quicker alphabets to learn: 30 letters, several already familiar, and spelling that follows the sound. Learning it in the order above and reading real words early makes the letters stick.