Software and Books to learn the language

A few days ago I wrote a blog about how I was learning the language, mainly with help from my friend called Boris, but also I hinted that I was using some software for this.

As I ran out of room in that update I am putting this short collection together with the software and pulp based books I have used or had recommended to me, along with a brief summary of how useful they are. I hope you find this helpful and if you know of any which I have forgotten please add them to the bottom with the comment form.

Two screens from BYKI Bulgarian

The first suggestion I would like to make (and actually this goes for anyone learning any language, not just Bulgarian) is check out http://www.byki.com/. They have a free offering you can download from that website which allows you to select one language which you want to learn. Alternatively you can pay for the full service which includes LOADS of languages. I am currently using the free version and in my opinion this software is the best I have come across. The best thing is their concept of learning is the same as mine; you want to learn words and phrases and then how you plug it together follows. It has an easy to use interface, and doesn't only focus on the listening and speaking, but also expects you to learn how to spell the phrases back in Bulgarian. I'm not being as disciplined as I should be however I think you could spend ten-fifteen minutes a day on this and make very swift progress.

The Lonely Planet two way phrasebook

Next are a couple of phrasebooks which I have and have found to be useful. The first is the Lonely Planet Bulgarian Phrasebook. This has a two way phrasebook so if you are in a restaurant and there is only a Bulgarian menu you can (with some guesswork) find the word and translate it into English. This is more useful than you might think.

One Way phrasebook

The first phrasebook we bought was the English to Bulgarian Phrasebook. This is not just a dictionary and phrasebook, however, as it contains pages of explanatory text and cultural information. On our first visit I can remember sitting in the restaurant trying to work out how to order food (without the two way phrasebook) and then sitting and reading this book while waiting for whatever it was we had ordered to arrive.

Finally is this DVD which battsby has recommended to me; I have not yet used it but he tells me it is full of useful phrases, mp3 files which you can listen to via your phone on the go, and various other helpful things. I will give this a go at some point and report back.

I do have another piece of software which was given as a birthday gift which we used for a little while; I cannot remember the name of it (my fault) and can't find the install disks either at the moment. I will update this page if and when I do. From what I remember of using it we found that the pronunciation was a bit off and confused us slightly from what Bulgarians actually say to you in person. I think this could be the case with a lot of these online systems and ultimately you have to live immersed in a language to really get fluent with your local dialect.

Yeah, that's me

There is also a free website which I was a member of for a while which seems to have shut down recently. This was quite good, but not as good as Byki. Again I've forgotten the name of it.