NVO Grade 4 Bulgarian cheat sheet

Narrative structure: exposition (setting and characters), complication (the conflict), climax, resolution; identifying where each begins is a standard question type.

Characterization is direct when the narrator names a trait ("той беше смел") and indirect when the reader infers it from speech, actions, or others' reactions.

Narrator types: first-person (аз-form, participant) versus third-person (той/тя-form, outside observer); the narrator is not automatically the author.

Theme vs. subject: the subject is what the text is about (e.g., winter), the theme is the idea it conveys (e.g., friendship overcomes hardship).

Figurative language in literary texts: comparison (сравнение, with като/като че ли), personification (олицетворение), metaphor (метафора), hyperbole (хипербола).

To infer a character's feeling, locate evidence in verbs of action, adjectives, and quoted speech; an answer without textual evidence is unsupported.

Sequence questions: order events by time markers (първо, после, накрая, след това, преди да) and by cause-effect links, not by paragraph length.

A title often encodes the main idea or a central symbol; check whether the title is literal or figurative before choosing it as the main-idea answer.

Informational text structures: description, sequence, comparison, cause-effect, problem-solution; the structure determines where the key information sits.

Functional text types in primary school: announcement (обява), invitation (покана), poster, timetable (разписание), recipe, instructions, notice, form.

Scan for data fields before reading: date, time, place, addressee, price, deadline, contact; most functional-text questions ask for exactly these.

Headings, bold type, bulleted lists, and captions carry meaning; ignoring them causes wrong answers about main idea and organization.

Distinguish fact (verifiable statement) from opinion (judgment with words like най-хубав, трябва, мисля).

Instructions must be read in order; sequence words (първо, след това, накрая) signal steps, and skipping one breaks the procedure.

A timetable or schedule question is answered by intersecting two coordinates (day/row and time/column); answer only what the grid shows.

Main idea of an informational paragraph is usually stated in the first or last sentence; supporting details answer who, what, when, where, how much.

Bulgarian has six vowels (а, ъ, о, у, е, и) and consonants; the letter я, ю, йо can represent a soft consonant plus vowel or a vowel with й depending on position.

Voicing assimilation: voiced consonants before voiceless ones devoice (e.g., written б before п, т, к, с, ш sounds voiceless); the spelling keeps the morpheme, the pronunciation changes.

Word-final devoicing: voiced obstruents are pronounced voiceless at the end of a word (град sounds like грат), but the letter is unchanged.

The ъ sound is never written in place of а/я in stressed positions; check the plural or a related form to decide between а and ъ.

Vowel reduction in unstressed syllables affects pronunciation, not spelling: spell by morpheme and by related-word check, not by sound.

Double consonants occur at morpheme boundaries (e.g., prefix + root); a single consonant is written when the morphemes do not double.

The soft sign ь never stands at the beginning of a word and never after a prefix; it marks softness of the preceding consonant.

Orthoepic stress in Bulgarian is free and mobile; stress can distinguish meaning (e.g., noun vs. verb forms), so verify stress in a dictionary when unsure.

Bulgarian parts of speech: noun, adjective, numeral, pronoun, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, particle, interjection.

Nouns have gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), number, and definiteness; the definite article is a suffix: -ът/-ят, -та, -то, -те/-та.

Masculine definite article choice: -ът/-ят for subject function, -а/-я for object or after prepositions; the choice is grammatical, not phonetic.

Adjectives agree with the noun in gender, number, and definiteness; the definite adjective takes -ият/-ия, -ата, -ото, -ите.

Verbs have person, number, tense, aspect (свършен/несвършен вид), mood, and voice; aspect is a lexical-grammatical property, not a tense.

Bulgarian has no infinitive; the dictionary form is the 1st person singular present (чета), and the particle да introduces subordinate verb forms.

The renarrative mood (преизказно наклонение) marks reported information with forms like чел, отишъл; it is distinct from the indicative.

Pronouns: personal, possessive, reflexive, demonstrative, interrogative, relative, indefinite, negative; short dative/accusative forms (ми, ти, го, я) stand before the verb.

Sentence parts: subject (подлог), predicate (сказуемо), object (допълнение), adverbial (обстоятелствено пояснение), attribute (определение); the subject answers кой/какво.

Simple sentence = one predicate; compound (сложно съчинено) joins equal clauses; complex (сложно съставно) joins a main and a subordinate clause.

Comma separates homogeneous parts only when they are not joined by и/или; a single и between two homogeneous parts takes no comma.

Subordinate clauses are set off by a comma: the clause introduced by че, да, който, където, когато, защото, ако is separated from the main clause.

The particle да is written separately from the verb; не is also written separately except in fixed negative pronouns/adverbs (никой, нищо, никъде).

Direct speech is enclosed in quotation marks; the introductory words are followed by a colon, and a new paragraph marks a change of speaker.

The vocative form and address (Марийо, господине) is set off by a comma.

A dash (-) marks a sharp contrast or an omitted word; a colon introduces an explanation, enumeration, or direct speech.

Synonyms share core meaning but differ in nuance or style (голям/огромен); choose by context intensity and register, not by length.

Antonyms are opposite in meaning (висок/нисък); a word may have several antonyms depending on the sense used.

Homonyms are identical in form but unrelated in meaning (e.g., noun vs. verb readings); context disambiguates them.

Polysemy: one word with related senses; a figurative sense (преносно значение) is licensed only when the context supports the comparison.

Phraseologisms (фразеологизми) are fixed expressions whose meaning is not the sum of the words; substituting a word breaks the idiom.

Borrowed and native doublets: prefer the established Bulgarian word in neutral text; a foreign word is correct only if it is the standard term for the concept.

Word-formation: prefix changes meaning (пиша/напиша), suffix changes part of speech (учен/учение); use the derived form the sentence's grammar requires.

Collocation: some words combine only with specific partners (вземам решение, not правя решение); check the fixed verb-noun pairing.

Three-stage model: plan (topic, purpose, audience, outline), draft (write without stopping), edit (content, then grammar, then spelling and punctuation).

Text types and their obligatory parts: description (general impression + details), narration (time order + complication), reasoning (thesis + arguments + conclusion), letter (address, greeting, body, closing).

Paragraph = one main idea + supporting sentences; a new paragraph marks a new idea, time, place, or speaker.

Cohesion devices: pronouns referring back, conjunctions (защото, но, следователно), and lexical repetition or synonyms to link sentences.

Formal letter register: no colloquialisms, consistent address form (Вие with capital in polite correspondence), and a standard closing formula.

Editing checklist: subject-predicate agreement, tense consistency, definite article choice, comma before subordinate clauses, and double consonants at morpheme boundaries.

Redundancy and tautology (e.g., repeating the same word in a sentence) are style errors; replace with a synonym or delete.

Word count and format requirements (heading, date, signature) are part of the task; omitting a required element costs points regardless of prose quality.

Folklore genres: приказка (fairy tale), народна песен (folk song), гатанка (riddle), пословица (proverb), поговорка (saying), легенда, предание; folklore is anonymous and orally transmitted.

Literary (author) fairy tale differs from the folk tale by a known author and a more individual style; both use magic helpers and a tripartite structure.

Fable (басня): short allegorical narrative with animal characters and an explicit moral; the moral may open or close the text.

Poem (стихотворение): organized in stanzas and lines with rhythm and rhyme; prose has paragraphs and no line breaks.

Story (разказ): short prose narrative with few characters and a single central event; a povest (повест) is longer with several episodes.

Bulgarian classic authors studied in primary school include Ivan Vazov, Elin Pelin, Ran Bosilek, Chudomir, and Angel Karaliychev; match each to a work you have read.

Genre identification rule: check form (line breaks = poem), length and number of events (short = разказ), animal characters plus moral (басня), magic plus anonymous origin (народна приказка).

A retelling must preserve the sequence of events and the main idea; a summary omits dialogue and detail but keeps the complication and resolution.