It has come to my attention that Bulgarian and English have different systems for writing, different syntaxes and different – albeit both correct in the proper context – grammatical codices. This, of course, is applicable when comparing almost any language with another, though some are more alike, say, Spanish and Portuguese, or Bulgarian and Macedonian. Bulgarian and English, though, have little in way of grammatical similarity.

Take, for example, the use of quotation marks (“i”). Called kavichki („ и “), in Bulgarian, they are used to indicate names of firms [„ Sofia Echo Media “, „ Bor chvor “, „ Christie’s “, „ Logodaj “], for administrative units and educational institutions, including competitions and facilities like concert halls [Sofia university „ Saint Kliment Ohridski “, department of „ Marketing and face control “, „ Medicine “ faculty, „ Bulgaria “ hall, International competition „ Schubert “], and for names of streets/boulevards and residential neighbourhoods [ulitsa „ Shipka “, boulevard „ Tsarigradsko chaussee “, zhilishten kvartal/residential quarter „ Durvenitsa “].

Please note that I have used Bulgarian rules of capitalisation and usage of kavichki in the above examples, all of which are incorrect in English!

Like in English, kavichki/quotation marks are used to indicate irony in writing, along with providing quoted text (though even in this latter case, the usage is different). For example (in correct Bulgarian):
He said “Little Igor longingly indicated the store window and said „ I want! “

Note that there is no use of closing quotes apart from the internally quoted text. In English, this would be correctly written as:
He said: “Little Igor longingly indicated the store window and said, ‘I want!’”

For some reason, there are no kavichki around the names of villages, cities, settled areas, rivers or mountain peaks (but around the names of the lodges on the peaks, there are kavichki, for example, hizha „ Bezbog “).
There are also no kavichki around acronyms or combinations of letters and figures (ie, Tu-144).

Perhaps needless to say, the only time that usages of quotation marks in English and in Bulgarian are in accord are in indicating irony, and in quoting text or speech.

In English quotes are also used around the names of short fiction, poetry, book chapters, articles in books, magazines, journals, album tracks and music singles. In these cases, the Bulgarian use is unclear to me.

In English, every clause is not separated by a comma. This is correct: 1) He said that he would e-mail me because he wanted to see how I had liked Amsterdam. 2) I would not be surprised if no one reads this article.

This is incorrect in English, but the correct format in Bulgarian: 1) He said, that he would e-mail me, because he wanted to see how I had liked Amsterdam. 2) I would not be surprised, if no one reads this article.

The past tense.

In Bulgarian, if you were not present when something took place (and this extends to your own birth), you use the present perfect tense. For example, 1) Ivailo has moved to Cambodia three years ago. 2) When have you travelled to Vienna? 3) Predrag has read the book before I read it. 4) At the news conference, Lada has said that everyone should eat chocolate.

In English, there is no distinction between being present at a given event in the past or being absent. It happened, et c’est tout. Though, the Bulgarian form is useful, because you can tell just how reliable the information is.

Thus, the correct English would be: 1) Ivailo moved to Cambodia three years ago. 2) When did you travel to Vienna? 3) Predrag read the book before I read it. 4) At the news conference, Lada said that everyone should eat chocolate.

Money.

“Money” is singular in English (whereas in Bulgarian, “pari” is a plural noun). Yes: My money is in the bank. No: My money are in the bank.

Gentle reader, there is, yes, more on this topic, but if you only adhere to these simple distinctions between languages that have been mentioned above, you will make some of us very happy.