This post looks at how to form the plurals of masculine nouns in Bulgarian. There are broadly three ways to do this, depending on the ending of the noun in question. You might have clocked I said “broadly”. This is because in Bulgarian when a masculine noun is used after a number it takes a different form. If you haven’t already, you might want to read my post on the gender of Bulgarian nouns.

The below doesn’t cover exceptions to the rules. I’ll leave those for a future post.

Polysyllabic masculine nouns

To form the plural of a masculine noun consisting of two or more syllables, we attach –и to the nouns ending in a consonant. If the noun ends in –й or –а we change it to –и. Check out the examples below:

• Морков (carrot) becomes моркови (carrots)
• Музей (museum) becomes музеи (museums)
• Баща (father) becomes Бащи (fathers)

Masculine nouns ending in -к, -г, or -х

Nouns ending in -к, -г, or -х lose these endings and are replaced with –ци, –зи and –си respectively, as you can see here:

• Хамак (hammock) becomes хамаци (hammocks)
• Белег (scar) becomes белези (scars)
• Монах (monk) becomes монаси (monks)

Monosyllabic masculine nouns

This is where things change the most. Up until now, all the plurals of masculine nouns have ended with the и sound. However, for words consisting of just one syllable, we add –ове to the end.

• Сок (juice) becomes сокове (juices)
• Грам (gram) becomes грамове (grams)
• Стол (chair) becomes столове (chairs)

Masculine nouns after numbers

As I mentioned above, when you want to use a plural (and impersonal) noun after a number, it takes a slightly different form. This is also the case when asking “колко…” (or “how many…”). We simply add –а to nouns ending in a consonant and for nouns ending in –й we replace the final letter with –я. Here are some examples:

• Два грама (two grams)
• Пет моркова (five carrots)
• Три музея (three museums)