Vocabulary
- mother: майка
- father: баща (m)
- mom: мама
- dad: татко (m)
- parent: родител
- daughter: дъщеря
- son: син
- child: дете
- brother: брат
- sister: сестра
- husband: съпруг
- wife: съпруга
- cousin (male): братовчед
- cousin (female): братовчедка
- uncle: чичо (m)
- aunt: леля
- family: семейство
- grandfather: дядо (m)
- grandmother: баба
- baby: бебе
Grammatical gender exceptions have been noted in red.
Exceptions
There are a lot of exceptions in this group. Apart from родител (parent, masculine), the genders of these words match those of the person being referred to, rather than the word ending.
Other exceptions in plurals and definite forms:
- татко (dad) - plural: татковци
- дете (child) - plural: деца
- брат (brother) - plural: братя
- съпруг (husband) - plural: съпрузи
- чичо (uncle) - plural: чичовци
- дядо (grandfather) - plural: дядовци
- родител (parent) - definite form: родителят*
* the -ят definite article is very common for nouns that represent people and end in -ел
Notes
The words for man (мъж) and woman (жена) can also be used informally to mean husband and wife.
The word "cousin" translates to either братовчед (male) or братовчедка (female) depending on the gender of the person.
There is no gender-neutral word for "sibling", you have to use either брат (brother) or сестра (sister). Similary, there is also no word for "grandparent", you have to use either дядо (grandfather) or баба (grandmother).
Counting people
We use a slightly different form of the numbers 2 to 6 when counting masculine words representing people:
2 | двама |
3 | трима |
4 | четирима |
5 | петима |
6 | шестима |
There are also similar forms for numbers 7 to 10 but those are now considered archaic.
Examples
"един брат, двама братя" - one brother, two brothers
"трима съпрузи" - three husbands
"две сестри" - two sisters
Family members and possessive pronouns
Most nouns that represent family members do not take a definite article in the singular form when used with a short possessive pronoun:
"майка ми" - my mother
"баща ми" - my father
"брат ми" - my brother
"сестра ми" - my sister
etc.
Exceptions:
"синът/сина ми" - my son
"детето ми" - my child
"бебето ми" - my baby
"съпругът/съпруга ми" - my husband
"мъжът/мъжа ми" - my husband
"съпругата ми" - my wife
The plural forms always take the definite article:
"братята ми" - my brothers