Bulgarian to Cantonese: completed events, experience and personal reference differ
A past Bulgarian event is not automatically a Cantonese experience
Bulgarian expresses tense and distinguishes perfective from imperfective verbs. Cantonese instead uses aspect particles and time expressions to describe how an event relates to time. A source account of one completed event and a source question about someone’s previous experience should therefore not receive the same particle merely because both concern the past.
The Chinese University of Hong Kong illustrates 出咗 for having gone out in a completed-event description, and 食過 in a question about ever having eaten a particular dish. For Bulgarian input, decide whether the writer reports the occasion itself or asks whether such an occasion has occurred at any time. The distinction belongs to the message, not just to a tense label.
Progress also needs its own interpretation. The university gives a progressive construction describing a building still being built at an earlier time. A Cantonese progressive is consequently not limited to the present. Keep a Bulgarian past-time expression when it establishes when an unfinished activity was under way.
Cantonese can retain a person without repeating Bulgarian gender
Bulgarian distinguishes gender in singular personal reference. Cantonese 佢 covers he, she or it, while 佢哋 is plural. A target pronoun that does not repeat masculine or feminine information has not necessarily confused the source participant. It uses a different personal-reference system.
However, two Bulgarian participants distinguished by gender may become ambiguous if the same Cantonese pronoun refers to both. Preserve a name or role at a necessary switch. The source’s singular-versus-plural distinction also remains meaningful: gender neutrality does not justify turning one person into a group or removing a group reference.
Reflexive reference is another separate issue. The university’s examples show that a Cantonese self expression can have more than one possible antecedent in an embedded sentence. Bulgarian свой or a reflexive construction may identify the intended person more narrowly. Carry that source interpretation into the whole target clause rather than assume the reflexive word alone settles it.
A location phrase need not contain a separate equivalent of be
The Cantonese location lesson describes a car being outside with a classifier, the car noun and a locative expression. Bulgarian commonly expresses such a state with a copular form as well as the place phrase. A Cantonese result can therefore describe the same location through a different arrangement of words.
Keep location distinct from travel direction. Bulgarian prepositions can distinguish where something is from where someone is going, and Cantonese uses its own combinations of location and motion expressions. A correct place name beside the wrong relation can still give the reader the wrong route.
Traditional characters do not replace Cantonese grammar
This target requests Cantonese written in traditional characters. The Cantonese pronouns and aspect forms above are part of that language choice; a text using traditional characters is not automatically Cantonese simply because the script looks appropriate. For Bulgarian-to-Cantonese translation, assess the actual participant references, event interpretation and location construction together. Correct character style cannot repair a result assembled with the wrong target language’s grammar.
Language references