In Bulgaria, they use the Cyrillic alphabet, which is completely different from ours. You can't sound the words out, so you can't read street signs or packages in the grocery store! You have to rely on pictures and guesses.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Russian is such a tough and complex language that I am happy enough to understand everything and read most things pretty well, but, without constant practice, my speech is not what I wish it was, and I would sooner write in crayon than write a letter in Russian.
If Russians knew how to read, they would write me off.
I think somebody who speaks the language is going to notice immediately that I'm not Russian.
I love to cook and I've cooked a lot of Bulgarian food over the years.
Bulgaria is fascinating. Because it had been a Communist country until the mid-80s, so it had just recently transitioned. And there were still the police towers on the street corners, where they look down - they were still there, although no one was in them.
The Russian people have their own cultural code, their own tradition.
After the turmoil of the Second World War, my family ended up in Russian-occupied East Germany. When I attended fourth grade, I had to learn Russian as my first foreign language in school. I found this quite difficult because of the Cyrillic alphabet, but as time went on, I seemed to do all right.
I had a really fantastic dialect coach that I worked very well with, and I was constantly surprised by the different intonations that the Russian dialect has.
Um... Bulgaria is an interesting country. The people are lovely. There are potholes the size of small planets.
The main thing is that the 'C' is silent, so it kind of starts with a 'Z.' Z-O-O-K-RIE. It's Ukrainian, on my dad's side.