Bulgarian to French: restore subjects, reposition articles and preserve duration
A French finite clause usually names its subject
Bulgarian verb forms can identify the person without a repeated independent subject pronoun. French ordinarily requires an explicit subject with a finite verb, except in constructions such as commands. A French translation containing je or nous where the Bulgarian input has no separate pronoun can therefore be correctly expressing information already carried by the source verb.
Do not supply that subject by guessing from the closest name alone. Bulgarian object clitics may refer to someone other than the actor. Resolve whether a short source reference belongs to the person acting or to a recipient before choosing the French subject. Otherwise, a smooth French clause may make the person receiving a message appear to be the person sending it.
The French distinction between tu and vous also needs to retain the source address relationship. Bulgarian ти and polite or plural Вие provide useful evidence. French vous can address one person politely or several people, so its plural verb form does not by itself imply that the Bulgarian individual has become a group.
French articles are separate words with their own distribution
Bulgarian definite articles attach within a noun phrase. French places le, la or les before the relevant noun phrase, with l’ before many vowel-initial words. This visible separation requires a grammatical rebuild: the Bulgarian article ending should not survive as though it were part of the noun’s lexical stem.
French masculine and feminine agreement follows the target noun. Bulgarian also has a neuter gender, which has no matching third noun-gender category in French. When replacing a Bulgarian neuter noun with its French equivalent, choose the French article and later pronoun from the French word’s gender rather than inventing a neuter equivalent.
Articles can also distinguish repeated occasions. The university grammar contrasts le lundi, on Mondays, with lundi for a particular Monday. A Bulgarian schedule describing a recurring weekly event must retain recurrence; a target article is therefore potentially meaningful scheduling information, not harmless decoration that can be added or removed without checking the source.
A duration still continuing belongs to the present situation
The University of Texas explains depuis with a continuing action or situation. Depuis un an expresses a one-year duration, while depuis septembre gives a starting point in September. For Bulgarian input, determine whether a stated period measures an ongoing situation or describes a finished episode before selecting the French tense and time expression.
This distinction matters when translating employment, residence or a continuing difficulty. A Bulgarian message saying a situation has lasted a certain time should not be rewritten as though the situation ended. Likewise, a finished event in the source should not acquire an ongoing interpretation simply because a familiar French depuis phrase is available.
Negative sentences need particular attention: the French reference distinguishes being somewhere for only a short time from not having gone somewhere since a past date. Retain what the Bulgarian negation denies. Is it the current state, the length of that state, or the occurrence of a visit? Those alternatives require different French wording even when the same place and date appear.
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