Bulgarian is written in Cyrillic, with 30 letters. The script grew out of the Glagolitic alphabet of Saints Cyril and Methodius: Bulgaria adopted Glagolitic in 886, and Cyrillic, created at the Preslav Literary School around the turn of the 10th century, gradually replaced it.

Most letters are read exactly one way, so once you know them you can read any word aloud.

Hear the whole alphabet

A few letters to watch

• Ъ is a short "u" as in "turn". It is a full vowel in Bulgarian, not a silent sign as in Russian: ъгъл (corner).
• Ь never stands alone. It only appears in ьо, after a consonant, to soften it: шофьор (driver).
• Щ is "sht", not the "shch" of Russian: щастие (happiness).
• Й is a short "y" glide: май (May), чай (tea).
• Ю and Я are "yu" and "ya", written as one letter: ютия (iron), ябълка (apple).
• Р is rolled, like in Spanish or Italian.

Handwritten letters

Bulgarians write in cursive, and a few letters look quite different by hand: д looks like a Latin "g", т like an "m", and г and и turn into "z" and "u" shapes. Practise writing them on the handwriting page.

Typing in Bulgarian

Install the Bulgarian (Phonetic Traditional) keyboard layout. It puts each letter on the Latin key that sounds like it (б on B, д on D), so it takes minutes to learn.

Latinized Bulgarian (шльокавица)

Without a Cyrillic keyboard, people type Bulgarian in Latin letters, borrowing lookalike characters and digits. Most letters map to the obvious Latin one; these are the ones that surprise:

For example, tova ne e dobra ideq is "това не е добра идея" (this is not a good idea). To turn Latin text back into Cyrillic, use the Latin to Cyrillic converter.

More

• Bulgarian alphabet on Wikipedia (Bulgarian)
• The Bulgarian alphabet on Linguicious (English)
• Letters practice: tap any letter, then play a speed round