I work with my Bulgarian Language tutor two times a week.  As I've already mentioned, she grew up in Sofia and whet to college in the American South and is now working on her PhD in Washington DC. Recently I learned that she graduated from the second class of the American College of Sofia which was re-opened in the early 1990s.  In a meeting with the then principle, I was told that the school accepted 50 girls and 50 boys for each of the early classes.  My tutor went to this private high school; one of fifty girls.  I am not sure that this is something I that I can comprehend (both the level of the competition and the serious role that school plays in one's life).  I went to a large but strong public high school in Walla Walla, WA (well I don't know how strong it was academically but it was the only high school and we were great at sports which is what really seems to matter in a small farming town) and there was never any doubt that I would graduate from high school and attend college.

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In high school, I took German and I tried very hard to learn the language but I didn't get it.  I didn't have a structure or a system for learning a new language.  English doesn't have cases (male, feminine or neutral cases of nous) so I didn't spend a lot of time memorizing the der, the die or the das.  It turns out that this makes it much more difficult to learn German when you want to start creating more complex sentences.  So when I started studying German in college--I got it.  I understood what I needed to learn and why; i understood how to study the language and what I needed to do to get it.

Now that I am learning Buglarian, I am not sure how helpful the German has been.  Well beside the fact that the words for potato and cake are nearly the same in German and Bulgarian: KARTOF and TORTE.  Frankly, I'll take it.

What's been more challenging has been learning my numbers in Bulgarian.  A couple of weeks ago now, my tutor wrote out the numbers from 1-100 and told me that I had to learn 1-20 for our next meeting.  I spent the whole weekend working on it.  I practiced again and again until I could say them perfectly and quickly.  I then looked at the numbers 20-100 and thought okay I can do this.  The numbers are constructed more or less as we do in English so for example the number 21 is said in Bulgarian "20 and 1" rather than "1 and 20" as the Germans would construct the number.

When I saw my tutor, I was very proud of myself for doing such a good job learning my numbers. I am not talking pleased; I am talking proud--gold stars on a chart proud. Proud, proud.  She listened to me repeat my numbers and corrected the pronunciation on a couple of numbers. And that's okay because a number of the sounds in Bulgarian are foreign to me and I struggle to put together sounds like "lya" or "rdv."

So, I received some praise for my work and then it happened.  She tells me: Now you are going to listen to me say the following prices and you should write down what you hear.  I thought: easy.  I've got this.   But she says the first price and all I hear is mahwamah.  It was all goblidygook and I couldn't catch a word of what she was saying. She said it more slowly and I kind of heard numbers.

I am getting better at the numbers  but it's one thing to memorize numbers in order or to be able to count numbers to 100 and it's a wholly different thing to be able to listen to and understand the prices that someone is telling you.  It's also much harder to be proud when you can't hear or make sense the numbers that someone is telling you.  I find myself reminded and humbled daily.  It's hard work and until recently I hadn't found myself in a position where I really didn't know something or had to learn how to do something new. Now that I am learning Bulgarian and moving to Sofia, I am learning once again to ask questions, even the silly ones, to rely on other people for answers and expertise and I am trying to remember to smile rather than to sigh with frustration.

I know it's not easy to learn a new language but it's easy to feel frustrated and disipointed with yourself when your  learning the numbers and something that is so basic and fundamental in English is difficult to do.  So now I play little games with myself and practice, practice, practice as I walk to work in the morning.  I try to say all of the number that I see on my walk to work and if you make a point to look, there are a lot.

The thing is, it's getting better now.  I think that it's the practice, hearing more of the language and probably all of the awesome things that I've been watching and listening to on YouTube.  Okay... maybe not but at least these pieces are entertaining.  I'd encourage all of my friends to check out <a title="Bulgarian Chalga and Singer Azis" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ6pPc5LIlU" target="_blank">Azis and Chalga</a> and <a title="Can't Liba libe wib out you...." href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LTLEVC-sfQ" target="_blank">Bulgarian Idol</a>(amazing--if this doesn't convince you to come and visit me, I don't know what will).