How do you say.....

Today I was at the open air market, getting some fresh tomatoes and cucumbers for my favorite salad and I was really struggling to communicate. This was a challenge I had not yet faced before, even in Russia. At least with Moscow I came with four months of vocabulary and familiarity with basic phrases like "please" (po-zhal-stah) and "thank you" (spah-see-bah) and "how much?" (skol-ka). You could say that my intensive Russian last summer prepared me to survive on the Russian streets and even though I felt like I knew ZERO Russian, when it actually came time to converse, I was able to make my needs known with rudimentary greetings and commands.

I have no four month's headstart with Bulgarian. I know that it uses the same alphabet, which makes it no problem for me to read or decipher, and I know that Bulgarian should be easier than both Russian and Polish because it doesn't have the complicated case system (or so I've been told) that both those languages have. But what I don't know is the word for please, or how to say hello (formally and informally). Today I just pointed and grunted at what I needed, and when I had to ask how much, I defaulted into Russian.

This produced two reactions that surprised me. First, the owner of the stand grinned and answered "Dwa Leva" (2 Leva, about $1.50 for a package of Mushrooms). He then passed the bag holding the package of mushrooms and with a slight nod of his head, still grinning broadly, said "Spah-see-bah" (Thank you). I was so happy to be understood after so much frustration with the other vendors in explaining what I wanted, that I answered "Ya Toe-zhe" (I also [thank you]). Meanwhile, the owner's wife was arranging vegetables nearby and sharply looked up when I first asked the owner about the price. Hearing the Russian also made her smile, but it was less friendly than the one I received from the owner and I realized that hearing Russian, even in Bulgaria, can bring back some bad memories for many older Bulgarians. As I walked away, I heard her muttering to her husband, but I was unable to understand what she said. All I know is that today I was not recognized as an American outsider, but a Russian one. And it made me long all the more for the Bulgarian lessons I will be starting next week and the Bulgarian phrase book that is making its way to me across the ocean thanks to Amazon.com.

Making my learning all the more difficult are the adopted words and phrases from outside the Slavic language base, like the French "Merci" (an informal way of saying thank you, but it's the most popular way that I've heard Bulgarians thank other Bulgarians). And "Ciao", the Italian aloha, is used as the informal goodbye here in Sofia. I'll let you know of more language discrepancies as I meet them during my time here in Bulgaria.

But for now, Ciao!
~Monica