Teach Bulgarian online in English

Bulgarian looks familiar to anyone who has met a Slavic language, then behaves like none of its neighbours. It is written in Cyrillic, the alphabet that took shape in medieval Bulgaria, yet its nouns have shed almost all their case endings. The definite article sits on the end of the word, so kniga, a book, becomes knigata, the book. There is no infinitive at all. The verbs make up for it: nine tenses in the traditional count, two aspects, and a set of forms for events the speaker only heard about.

For an English speaker that is a mixed blessing. There are no six cases to memorise, but the verbs, the placement of small pronouns such as go and ya, and a stress that can land on any syllable and is never written down all need a patient teacher. People rarely learn Bulgarian on a whim. Many have a Bulgarian partner and a family that switches languages at the dinner table. Some have moved to Sofia or Plovdiv for work, or bought a house near the Black Sea. International medical students at Bulgarian universities need it to speak with patients. And heritage learners, who grew up abroad hearing Bulgarian at home, often understand their grandmother perfectly and could not write her a birthday card.

Why we are looking for Bulgarian tutors who teach in English

Clasora shows students the tutors who teach in the language they use the site in. Someone browsing Clasora in English is shown tutors who teach in English, so if you explain Bulgarian in English, you are the tutor those students find.

With Bulgarian, the language you explain in matters. A beginner cannot follow a grammar explanation given in Bulgarian, and the ideas that trouble English speakers most are the ones that need English to explain them. Aspect is far easier to grasp when you set a Bulgarian verb pair next to “I wrote the letter” and “I was writing letters all morning”. The article makes more sense once a student sees that English keeps “the” as a separate word where Bulgarian glues it to the end.

Clasora does not employ tutors, and this is an opening rather than a job. You work independently: you set your own prices and hours, and teach as much or as little as you like. For some tutors it is a few evenings a week alongside other work. Others teach enough hours for it to take the place of a job.

What teaching Bulgarian online on Clasora looks like

The opening is fully remote. Every lesson happens online, and you teach from wherever you live, whether that is Burgas or Bristol.

Students book from your calendar. They only see the times you have marked as free, shown in their own time zone, so a student in Toronto never has to work out what time it is in Sofia. You choose your working days and days off, how much notice you need and how far ahead people can book. Google Calendar can sync with your Clasora calendar.

Each session is with one student and runs in the browser, so neither of you installs anything. Screen sharing does much of the work: put a short text on screen and read through it together, show a table of verb endings, or open a shared document where the student writes and you correct as they type. The in-call chat is the place to spell out a word the student has just misheard, with the stressed vowel marked. Background blur keeps your room to yourself.

Between sessions, each student has a conversation with you. Messages, files and shared links sit next to the session they belong to, so Tuesday's vocabulary list is easy to find a month later. You also have a personal file area for material you reuse, and documents can come across from Google Drive.

What students usually want help with

Reading and writing Cyrillic. Print comes quickly. Handwriting takes longer, because the cursive t looks like an English m and the cursive d like a g.

Stress and pronunciation. Stress moves between forms of the same word, and unstressed vowels weaken in ordinary speech, so what students hear often differs from what they read.

The definite article. Which ending a noun takes, when to use it, and the long and short forms on masculine nouns, a rule even native speakers get wrong on paper.

Verbs. Aspect pairs, the future with shte, the aorist against the imperfect, and life without an infinitive, where “I want to go” is built as “I want that I go”.

Renarrative forms, used for things the speaker did not witness, from news reports to family gossip.

Short pronouns and word order, including why the object sometimes appears twice, as in Knigata ya prochetoh, roughly “The book, I read it”.

Everyday conversation for family visits, the doctor, the landlord and the office.

Formal writing and exam preparation: emails to colleagues, official forms, or a language exam needed for study or work.

Spelling for heritage speakers who talk fluently but never learned to write.

Who we are looking for

People who speak Bulgarian very well: native speakers, or learners who have reached a near-native level.

The ability to explain Bulgarian clearly in English, including grammar a native speaker uses without thinking.

A good ear for the mistakes English speakers make, and the patience to correct the same sound for the fifth time.

Teachers of Bulgarian, translators, graduates and students of Slavic studies, and Bulgarians abroad who like explaining their language.

A computer with a camera, a microphone and a steady internet connection.

Being 18 or older.

Teaching experience helps, but it is not required.

What you get

No commission. Clasora takes nothing from the price you set.

Free to join and publish. There is no subscription and no listing fee.

Your own prices. You set a price for each session length, and you can offer a free first session.

Your own schedule. Weekly hours, days off, notice and how far ahead students may book are yours to decide.

A public page for your listing, found in search engines and shown in the language each visitor reads, with your photo, an intro video, what you teach, the languages you speak and your price for each session length.

Reviews that rate you on knowledge, clarity and engagement.

Checked qualifications. Add your qualifications to your profile and a moderator checks them.

Card payments are not switched on yet. For now, a booking is confirmed without a card, and you and your student settle payment directly.

How to start

Create an account with the button on this page.

Publish a listing for Bulgarian: say what you teach and who it is for, and set your prices.

Open your calendar and mark the times you are free.

It takes a few minutes. A moderator checks your listing before it goes live. You need to be 18 or older and accept the terms when you become a tutor.

Questions tutors ask

Do I need to be a native speaker of Bulgarian?

No. You need to speak it very well and explain it clearly. Some of the best Bulgarian teachers learned the language as adults and remember exactly which parts were hard. Say honestly in your listing where your Bulgarian comes from.

Can I teach complete beginners who cannot read Cyrillic yet?

Yes. Share your screen, show a word, say it, and ask the student to type it back in the chat. The printed alphabet is usually the quickest part of the language to learn.

Can I teach only conversation, or only heritage speakers?

Yes. Your listing says what you teach and who it is for, and students read it before they book.

How do students pay me?

Card payments are not switched on yet, so a booking is confirmed without a card and you and the student settle payment directly. You set the price for each session length, and Clasora takes no commission on it.