Moving to Bulgaria, visiting for a longer period of time, moving for work, or even just deciding to properly dive into our culture is always an adventure. And while learning words like здравейте, благодаря and една баничка, моля is definitely a good beginning, there are some situations no textbook can fully prepare you for.
You see, living in Bulgaria is not only about learning the language. It is also about understanding when someone is actually angry, when they only sound angry, why you suddenly have three plates of food in front of you after saying you are not hungry, and why you are guests in some nice grandma’s house in rural Bulgaria.
At Kristina Progress, we believe learning Bulgarian is inseparable from understanding Bulgarian culture. Grammar and vocabulary are important of course but sometimes knowing how to react when the aforementioned Bulgarian grandma gives you homemade rakia might prove just as useful as mastering articles or past tense.
So, whether you have just arrived in Bulgaria, have lived here for years, or are currently wondering why everybody around you is shouting while apparently having a perfectly friendly conversation, here are ten situations every foreigner in Bulgaria will eventually face:
1. Someone will nod at you… and you will have absolutely no idea what they mean
Let us start with the classic! Bulgaria is famous abroad for the supposedly reversed head gestures for yes and no. Traditionally, shaking the head can indicate agreement, while nodding can indicate disagreement.
Simple enough, right…?
Not really! Modern Bulgarians have spent decades interacting with foreigners, watching foreign media and generally living in a world where everybody else does it the right way. Because of that, nowadays you may encounter traditional gestures, international gestures, or occasionally something in between.
Which means that sooner or later you will ask a Bulgarian something important, like for example:
“Does this bus go to Sofia?”
The person will move their head. You will stare at them. They will stare at you.
And suddenly your entire journey depends on your ability to interpret five centimetres of neck movement.
Our advice? When in doubt, always seek verbal confirmation, i.e. listen for the words да and не. Especially when public transport is involved.
2. Someone will offer you homemade rakia
There comes a moment in every foreigner’s Bulgarian journey when somebody proudly produces an unlabelled bottle containing a completely transparent liquid, or better yet – a very much labeled fizzy drink bottle, but with the wrong cap… Then you know you’ve really gone in deep!
Feel lucky! You have reached an important cultural checkpoint.
Rakia is not simply an alcoholic drink in Bulgaria. It is connected to family gatherings, celebrations, village traditions, long dinners and the mysterious Bulgarian ability to discuss politics or football for four consecutive hours without leaving the table.
And homemade rakia comes with an additional level of seriousness. Quite often the person offering it has either made it themselves or knows exactly who did, how many kilograms of fruit were used and why this particular batch is much better than the neighbour’s.
If you are a first timer – take it slowly. There’s never a rush!
Also, do not be surprised if somebody insists that rakia is good for your health, your digestion, your cold, your circulation and possibly several conditions modern medicine has not discovered yet.
3. A Bulgarian grandmother will decide you are starving
Here’s what to do if you get yourself in this situation! Firstly, it doesn’t matter if:
- You ate twenty minutes ago
- You are completely stuffed
- You are lactose intolerant
- You prefer not to eat whatever she has got on herr mind…
None of this matters to our dear grandmas. If one of them has decided you need food, then food is going to happen.
Hospitality has always been extremely important in Bulgarian culture, especially when somebody enters your home. Offering food, drinks, coffee and whatever happens to exist in the kitchen is almost automatic.
There’s no such thing as refusing politely. Just don’t. Refusing is impolite here by default.
The correct survival strategy is complicated, but accepting at least a small amount usually makes everybody much happier.
Just remember that saying “only a little” may result in a Bulgarian interpretation of “little”, which is considerably larger than the international one.
4. Somebody will ask you a surprisingly personal question
You meet somebody. – You exchange names. – You tell them where you are from.
Approximately ninety seconds later:
“Are you married?”
“How old are you?”
“Do you have children?”
“How much is your rent?”
Depending on where you come from, this might feel like you are being interrogated. Most of the time, however, the Bulgarian asking these questions is simply being curious.
Our culture can be considerably more direct about topics that some Western cultures consider private, especially among older generations. Family, relationships, work, housing and money can enter the conversation remarkably quickly.
This does not mean you have to answer everything.
But it does mean that if a seventy-year-old woman you met at a bus stop asks why you still do not have children, there is a good chance she is not trying to offend you.
She’s probably already emotionally invested in your future, just you be warned!
5. You will think two Bulgarians are fighting
They are speaking loudly. – One of them interrupts the other. – Both are gesturing dramatically. – Their voices are getting louder.
You begin considering whether you should move to another table.
And then suddenly they start laughing. Nothing happened – they were discussing football.
Bulgarian conversation can sound considerably more intense than conversation in some other cultures. We interrupt each other, raise our voices, use dramatic gestures and sometimes sound deeply offended when we are actually having a perfectly normal discussion.
Of course, sometimes Bulgarians really are fighting.
Unfortunately, we cannot give you a grammar rule that explains the difference.
This one requires experience.
A useful clue is that if five minutes later everybody is laughing, eating and drinking together, things are probably fine.
6. You will receive directions that somehow involve absolutely no street names
You ask:
“Where is the pharmacy?”
And instead of getting a street name, you hear something like:
“Go straight, pass the yellow building, then after the bakery turn left where the old bank used to be. Not the new bakery, the other one. Then you will see a small shop where they sell socks.”
Perfectly clear! Bulgarians, especially in smaller towns and neighbourhoods, have an impressive ability to navigate using landmarks that may no longer exist.
“The old cinema.” – The cinema closed in 1998.
“Next to the former post office.” – There is now a casino there.
“Where the restaurant used to be.” – Which restaurant?
And somehow every local understands perfectly.
This is one of those situations where knowing some Bulgarian suddenly becomes extremely useful, because even when Google Maps gives up, the nice uncles drinking coffee nearby probably know exactly where you need to go.
Be sure to also check our Free resources, since we do cover much of the very very basics… just enough to get you started!
7. You will enter somebody’s home and immediately wonder what to do with your shoes
This is one of those small cultural situations nobody really teaches you. You enter a Bulgarian home, you look down, you think to yourself – shoes or no shoes?
You pause awkwardly at the entrance.
Your host notices. Your eyes meet. Then the great negotiation begins.
“Keep them on.”
“No, no, I can take them off.”
“No, really.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes!”
Different Bulgarian households have different rules, of course, but taking your outdoor shoes off is very common. And sometimes, before you have even made a decision, somebody appears holding a pair of slippers.
At that point your fate has been decided for you. Accept the slippers. It’s like with the food – refusal is not really an option…
8. Somebody will spit symbolically at you after saying something nice
Your Bulgarian friend sees the neighbour’s little kid playing around the park.
“Пу-пу-пу!”, they say, then they proceed to spit on the ground.
Do not panic! Nobody is actually spitting on the child.
This is connected to old superstitious traditions around protecting people from bad luck, envy or the so-called evil eye. You may hear people symbolically say пу-пу-пу, knock on wood, or say things like да не чуе дяволът – “so the devil does not hear”.
The basic idea is that praising something too confidently might tempt fate.
“Everything is going perfectly!”
Knock on wood.
“My child never gets sick!”
Пу-пу-пу.
“The car has never broken down!”
Please do not say that.
Even Bulgarians who do not consider themselves particularly superstitious sometimes do these things almost automatically. Because, to be fair… why risk it?
By the way… the more you travel around, the more you discover small peculiarities about Bulgarian people. You might wanna follow up on our Language trips, to enrich your Bulgarian cultural knowledge even more!
9. Someone will tell you “ей сега”, and you will learn that time is relative
The Bulgarian phrase ей сега is a wonderful thing. Technically, it means something like “right now” or “in just a moment”. In practice, its relationship with time can occasionally be flexible.
“I am coming ей сега.”
This may mean thirty seconds, it may mean five minutes. It may mean that the person has only just started looking for their keys.
Similar mysteries surround phrases like след малко – “in a little while” – and има време – “there is time”.
This does not mean Bulgarians are incapable of punctuality, of course. But socially, especially among friends and family, our relationship with exact timing can sometimes be considerably more relaxed than foreigners from very punctual cultures expect.
Which, though, brings us naturally to one of our favourite Bulgarian concepts:
10. Eventually, somebody will teach you how to be айляк
At first, you will probably translate айляк as “relaxed”, “chilling” or “doing nothing”, but none of those explanations fully captures it.
Айляк is sitting outside with a coffee when you technically could be doing something productive. It is having nowhere particularly urgent to be. It is ordering one more drink because the weather is nice. It is spending two hours talking about absolutely everything and absolutely nothing at the same time.
And although the word exists across Bulgaria, the city of Plovdiv has adopted it with particular enthusiasm. For us here, айляк is practically a philosophy.
You might arrive in Bulgaria wondering why everybody spends so long sitting over coffee, and six months later, somebody asks whether you want to leave.
And you answer:
“Спокойно. Има време.”
At that moment, congratulations! You have survived Bulgaria, as a beginner. Then you really become one of us!
Alright…
Of course, these ten situations are only the beginning. Bulgarian culture is full of tiny rules, habits, expressions and behaviours that are difficult to explain until you actually experience them. And that is one of the things our teachers love most about teaching Bulgarian at Kristina Progress – our language does not exist separately from the people who speak it.
So learn the grammar. Learn the vocabulary. Make mistakes. Ask questions. Talk to people. Join us for a course 🙂
And when somebody’s grandmother puts a third helping of banitsa on your plate after you have already said no twice?
Do not fight it.
Some battles simply cannot be won.