Bulgarian Translation and Localization Services
Native Bulgarian linguists translate, localize and test software, games and EU-regulated content for Bulgaria, while our Istanbul team manages each project. Bulgarian datasets for AI teams are part of the same offer.
- Languages
- 19
- Languages
- Vetted Native Linguists
- 700+
- Vetted Native Linguists
- Localization Tasks / Year
- 100K+
- Localization Tasks / Year
- Founded
- 2016
- Founded
Enterprises, language service providers and AI teams use El Turco for Bulgarian translation and localization services delivered by native Bulgarian linguists. Each job has a translator and a separate reviewer under ISO 17100, and machine translation post-editing follows ISO 18587. Projects are run from our Istanbul production office, and El Turco is headquartered in London.
Bulgarian localization starts with the script and the article. Bulgarian is written in Cyrillic, has almost no noun cases and marks definiteness with a suffix, so "the file" and "a file" are different word forms. Bulgarian also differs from Russian in alphabet, letterforms and grammar. Bulgarian work happens in RWS Trados, memoQ, Phrase or XTM. What's Wrong?, our in-house QA tool, checks every Bulgarian file before it is returned.
Dialects and variants
Which Bulgarian standard do we follow?
Standard Bulgarian is the written norm for business, media, software and public administration in Bulgaria. Spelling and grammar follow the official orthographic dictionary of the Institute for Bulgarian Language at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Regional dialects differ mainly in pronunciation, which matters for speech data but not for written business content.
Standard Bulgarian (Bulgaria)
Our default Bulgarian target for software, retail, marketing, legal and technical work. Bulgarian is an official EU language, so EU terminology for it is already fixed in IATE.
Macedonian
Macedonian is a separate standard language with its own Cyrillic alphabet, spelling and vocabulary. El Turco translates Macedonian as its own target, so a Bulgarian file is not a deliverable for North Macedonia.
Script and layout
Writing system and layout notes
Bulgarian is written left to right in the Bulgarian variant of Cyrillic. The Bulgarian alphabet has no ы, э or ё. The letter ъ is a full vowel rather than a silent sign, and щ is pronounced "sht". Bulgarian readers also expect Bulgarian letterforms, which differ from the Russian shapes most fonts show by default.
- Letterforms: fonts that support the OpenType locl feature switch to Bulgarian shapes when text is tagged as bg. Untagged UI text falls back to Russian forms.
- Mixed scripts: Latin a, e, o, p, c and x look identical to Cyrillic letters. A Latin letter inside a Cyrillic word breaks search and spell checking, so our QA scans for mixed-script words.
- Transliteration: Bulgarian names are romanized with the official Streamlined System, where щ becomes "sht" and ъ becomes "a". Russian-style romanization produces mismatched records.
- Numbers and dates: comma as decimal separator, space as thousands separator (12 500,75), dates as 04.11.2026 г. with "г." for година (year) and a 24-hour clock. Since Bulgaria adopted the euro, prices put the sign after the amount (12 500,75 €) and legacy prices in leva (лв.) need updating.
- Punctuation and capitalization: Bulgarian uses „…“ quotation marks. Month and weekday names stay lowercase, and Bulgarian headings take sentence case, not English title case.
- Text expansion: Bulgarian text usually runs longer than English and Cyrillic letters are often wider, so buttons, menus and table headers need room or agreed abbreviations.
Localization pitfalls
What makes Bulgarian localization different?
Concrete issues our Bulgarian linguists and engineers check for on every project.
The article sits on the noun
The article is a suffix such as -ът, -та, -то or -те that changes with gender and number, so "Delete {item}" cannot add the article to a variable. We rewrite such strings with a neutral noun before the placeholder.
Full and short masculine article
Masculine nouns take the full article (-ът) as the subject and the short article (-а) in other positions. Automated checks rarely catch errors here, so these terms are reviewed by hand.
Gender in UI messages
Perfect-tense participles and adjectives agree with gender, so an informal message such as "you have registered" has a masculine and a feminine form. Where the user's gender is unknown, we rephrase with a neutral construction or request gendered variants.
Formality: Вие versus ти
Banking, public services and B2B software address users with formal "Вие", which is often capitalized in direct address. Games and apps for young audiences often use informal "ти". We settle the register at kickoff and record it in the Bulgarian style guide.
Count forms and plurals
CLDR gives Bulgarian two plural categories, "one" and "other", but masculine nouns take a special count form after numbers ("2 файла", while the plain plural is "файлове"). Counts of male persons use personal numerals, as in "двама потребители" (two users).
Bulgarian is not Russian
Vocabulary and grammar differ from Russian and similar-looking words can carry different meanings. We assign native Bulgarian linguists only and review MT output for Russianisms.
Regulated and legal language
Bulgarian terminology for EU legislation, product labeling and medicines information is already fixed. Consumer-facing product information is expected in Bulgarian and personal data wording follows GDPR as applied in Bulgarian law, so legal text goes to a legal-domain linguist.
Industries
Which industries do we serve in Bulgarian?
Industry pages describe the workflows; each one applies to Bulgarian as summarized here.
Industry
Gaming & Esports
PC, console and mobile titles localized by linguists who play the genre, with Bulgarian font checks and in-build LQA.
Industry
E-Commerce & Retail
Catalogs, marketplace listings and checkout flows with euro price formatting and hybrid MT and human workflows.
Industry
Technology & IT
SaaS interfaces, documentation and release notes with article-aware string handling in continuous cycles.
Industry
Finance & Fintech
Banking, payments and insurance content in formal register, with consistent euro changeover terminology.
Industry
Life Sciences
Summaries of product characteristics, package leaflets, labeling and clinical documents built on the Bulgarian EMA QRD templates.
Services
Bulgarian services we offer
Every service below is available in Bulgarian. Pricing is per-word, hourly or project-based, quoted after scoping.
Translation & Localization
TEP translation
Every Bulgarian file is translated by one native linguist and revised by another, under ISO 17100.
Translation & Localization
Software, website and game localization
Resource files, CMS pages and game text tested for article, gender and plural handling.
Translation & Localization
MTPE
ISO 18587 post-editing once an engine has been tested on real Bulgarian samples from your content.
Translation & Localization
Transcreation
Slogans, campaign copy and app store listings recreated for the Bulgarian market.
Translation & Localization
LQA and testing
Native testers check Bulgarian builds for truncation, Russian letterforms and mixed scripts.
Integrations
Continuous localization
Hub, our middleware, connects your TMS or repository and moves Bulgarian strings in both directions.
AI Data Solutions
AI training data
Speech recordings, annotated text, RLHF rankings and parallel data in Bulgarian.
AI training data
Bulgarian AI training data
Multilingual models often carry Russian vocabulary and grammar into Bulgarian output. El Turco builds Bulgarian datasets for teams correcting that: speech collection across regions, age groups and recording conditions, transcription, text annotation for intent, sentiment and named entities, RLHF ranking of Bulgarian model responses, moderation data that covers slang and Bulgarian typed in Latin letters (шльокавица) and parallel corpora for custom MT or LLM fine-tuning. Annotation rules are set with the client before production, inter-annotator agreement is tracked on each Bulgarian delivery and the pilot batch is free.
Related languages
Languages that regularly appear in the same project plan.
Language
Macedonian
Macedonian Cyrillic for software, games, e-commerce and regulated content, with triple articles, clitics and denar formatting handled per string.
Language
Serbian
Native Serbian linguists for software, game, e-commerce and finance content in Cyrillic or Latin script, plus Serbian AI training data.
Language
Russian
Russian Cyrillic for software, games, e-commerce and regulated content, with cases, gender and three plural forms handled in every string.
Language
Romanian
Romanian for Romania and Moldova: software, games, e-commerce and EU-regulated content with correct diacritics, gender agreement and plural forms.
FAQ
Bulgarian translation FAQ
Can El Turco translate into Bulgarian from Turkish or German?
Yes. Bulgarian targets are available at El Turco from six source languages: English, German, French, Chinese, Turkish and Arabic, plus Bulgarian into English. Companies trading between Türkiye and Bulgaria often need Turkish to Bulgarian, and manufacturers often send German technical files. Any other source language is quoted separately once a suitable Bulgarian linguist is confirmed.
Is Bulgarian localization different from Russian localization?
Yes. Bulgarian and Russian both use Cyrillic, but Bulgarian has a different alphabet, its own letterforms, a definite article and almost no noun cases. Vocabulary overlaps in places and diverges in many others, including false friends. A Russian translation cannot be edited into Bulgarian, so El Turco translates Bulgarian directly from the source with native Bulgarian linguists.
How do you handle Bulgarian articles, gender and plurals in software strings?
Bulgarian UI strings are translated only after the linguist has seen how each string is used in the code. Placeholders that would need a definite article or a gendered ending are rewritten so the variable stands alone, or the developer is asked for variants. Counted masculine nouns use the Bulgarian count form, and ICU "one" and "other" messages are tested with real numbers before delivery.
Does machine translation work well for Bulgarian?
Machine translation for Bulgarian is usable for some content but still makes errors with articles, agreement and terminology. Engines also tend to mix in Russian vocabulary. Bulgarian MTPE at El Turco follows ISO 18587: an engine is scored on sample files, a post-editing level is agreed with you and native Bulgarian post-editors do the work. Marketing, legal and UI copy is better served by full human translation.
Can you update Bulgarian content for the euro?
Yes. Bulgaria adopted the euro in 2026, so price strings, invoices, payment flows and help content that still show leva need updating. El Turco formats euro amounts the Bulgarian way, with a decimal comma and the sign after the amount. Our linguists also check legacy lev references across software, catalogs and legal text. Finance clients get a consistent changeover glossary.
Who works on Bulgarian projects at El Turco?
Bulgarian projects at El Turco are staffed with native Bulgarian linguists matched to the subject, from software to pharmaceuticals. Project managers in Istanbul coordinate each job. Under ISO 17100, a second Bulgarian linguist revises every job. NDAs are signed before work starts, and files are handled under our ISO/IEC 27001 certified information security management system.
What happens first in a Bulgarian localization project?
A Bulgarian localization project begins when you send the content type, word volume, source language and deadline through the contact form. Enterprises can request a free pilot, and LSPs receive a free test translation of up to 300 words. The glossary, style guide, euro formatting rules and file formats are agreed next. Pricing is per-word, hourly or project-based, quoted after scoping.
Planning Bulgarian Content?
Tell us what Bulgarian content you have, how much of it and when it is due. We reply with a scoped plan and can start with a free pilot or a free 300-word test translation.