6 ms·

I live in the UK, and whenever I travel back to Bulgaria, I get told off for saying "sorry" and "thank you" all the time. In Bulgarian, the word for "thank you

I live in the UK, and whenever I travel back to Bulgaria, I get told off for saying "sorry" and "thank you" all the time. In Bulgarian, the word for "thank you" is "благодаря" ("blagodarya") but people often fall back to a simple "мерси" ("merci" - the French word, yes) for transactional thank-yous. I'm not really sure whether that's because "благодаря" is reserved for sincere, heartfelt thanksgiving or because the word is just too long to say very often.

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- psykovsky 11y ago
  He wasn't saying merci is yes in french, he was saying that it is indeed the french word merci they use in Bulgaria.
- mrcarrot 11y ago
  I think the parent meant "Yes, we use the french word 'merci'", not that he thought 'merci' meant 'yes'.
bolaft 11y ago
> ("merci" - the French word, yes) Do you know why?
- vlasev 11y ago
  French had a large influence on Bulgarian. A lot of bulgarian words are borrowed from French.
vlasev 11y ago
I think it's mostly because it's so long and somewhat convoluted. "Благодаря" has 4 syllables while "мерси" only has 2. It's similar to saying "thanks" instead of "thank you" but that comparison is lost because the two words in Bulgarian are so different.
ajuc 11y ago
In Polish before 90s the French "pardon" was used for casual "I'm sorry" (for example when you bump into someone) as opposed to native (and more intense) "przepraszam" used when you really mean it. Since 90s (and all the American movies) most people switched to English "sorry" instead of the French "pardon" for casual "I'm sorry". The original "przepraszam" is still mostly used for more meaningful apologies. And "pardon" is still there if you want to sound old-style casual. And yes, part of it is - "przepraszam" is longer and sounds more "dignified". The thinking goes "if you're really sorry you should work for it".
- scotty79 11y ago
  Funny thing happened to me when I came back to Poland from prolong stay in Italy. Italy seemed a lot denser to me so I bumped into people a lot. I quickly got habituated to say "scusi" which is Italian quick apology. There isn't really good formal quick apology in Poland. Pardon or sorry sounds disrespectful if you are apologizing to older person. You need to go with full "przepraszam". As a Pole you probably know where I'm going with all this... When I came back to Poland and bumped into older lady in the shop I quickly said "sku..!...przepraszam" In polish "sku.." is how some of the expletives start.

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psykovsky 11y ago
He wasn't saying merci is yes in french, he was saying that it is indeed the french word merci they use in Bulgaria.
mrcarrot 11y ago
I think the parent meant "Yes, we use the french word 'merci'", not that he thought 'merci' meant 'yes'.

bolaft 11y ago

> ("merci" - the French word, yes) Do you know why?

vlasev 11y ago
French had a large influence on Bulgarian. A lot of bulgarian words are borrowed from French.

vlasev 11y ago

I think it's mostly because it's so long and somewhat convoluted. "Благодаря" has 4 syllables while "мерси" only has 2. It's similar to saying "thanks" instead of "thank you" but that comparison is lost because the two words in Bulgarian are so different.

ajuc 11y ago

In Polish before 90s the French "pardon" was used for casual "I'm sorry" (for example when you bump into someone) as opposed to native (and more intense) "przepraszam" used when you really mean it. Since 90s (and all the American movies) most people switched to English "sorry" instead of the French "pardon" for casual "I'm sorry". The original "przepraszam" is still mostly used for more meaningful apologies. And "pardon" is still there if you want to sound old-style casual. And yes, part of it is - "przepraszam" is longer and sounds more "dignified". The thinking goes "if you're really sorry you should work for it".

scotty79 11y ago
Funny thing happened to me when I came back to Poland from prolong stay in Italy. Italy seemed a lot denser to me so I bumped into people a lot. I quickly got habituated to say "scusi" which is Italian quick apology. There isn't really good formal quick apology in Poland. Pardon or sorry sounds disrespectful if you are apologizing to older person. You need to go with full "przepraszam". As a Pole you probably know where I'm going with all this... When I came back to Poland and bumped into older lady in the shop I quickly said "sku..!...przepraszam" In polish "sku.." is how some of the expletives start.