1. Grammar and Spelling
2. Punctuation
3. Measurements and Abbreviations
4. Hyphenation
5. Geographic Distribution
6. Character Set

Section One - Grammar and Spelling

1. Gender: Macedonian has three noun genders: Masculine, Feminine and Neuter.

2. Articles: there are articles for each gender which are attached to the end of the nouns or to the end of the adjectives, if the adjectives precede the nouns.

There are 3 articles for each gender with different forms for singular and plural, one article is commonly used, while the others indicate distance of an object from the speaker.
e.g.

3. Plurals: there is an easy way to identify the plural. 'a' is a rather common ending for words in the plural. Some words change their inner structure then take the ending "и" or other endings.

4. Problem spellings: there are some spellings which might look like mistakes to anyone unfamiliar with Macedonian:

5. Capitalisation: In headings, titles and bullet points generally only the first letter is capitalised, although proper nouns within a heading are also capitalised.

Section Two – Punctuation

1. Speech marks: In Macedonian, speech marks should be written as low then high, e.g. „ ... “.

2. Full stops: Full stops are not used at the end of headings, titles or bullet points.

Section Three – Measurements and Abbreviations

1. Measurements: all measurements should be given in metric.

Technical or trade documents should use metric measurements (miles, inches and pounds may be used in translations of novels or newspaper articles just to give an idea of the original work).

Dates should be written in this format: 25th August 2004 - 25.8.04

Time can be written as: [am]: 10 чacoт пpeтплaднe; [pm]: 3 чacoт пoплaднe

A decimal comma is used to denote decimals, e.g.: 3,7%

Numbers over 9999 use a comma as a thousands separator e.g. 16,000

A space is normally left between measurements and the abbreviation, e.g. 25 cm (except for the % symbol where there is no space).

Currency: with the exception of the dollar sign ($) and German Marks (DEM), currencies are generally written out in full without an abbreviation.

2. Abbreviations:

No. = No.
e.g. = нa пp.
Mr. / Mrs. = г. / г-ѓа
Messrs = господа
Miss = г-ца
Dear Sir / Madam = Драги господине / госпоѓо
m (for metre) = м
cm (for centimetre) = см
g (for gram) = гр
km (for kilometre) = км
yr (for year) = г. or год.

Days of the week: Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun = понеделник, вторник, среда, четврток, петок, сабота, недела

Months: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec = јануари, февруари, март, април, мај, јуни, јули, август, септември, октомври, ноември, декември

Seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter (not normally abbreviated in English) = пролет, лето, есен, зима

Section Four – Hyphenation

Hyphenation is common both within words, in linking different words together and in splitting words over a line.

Hyphens are broken down by syllabic structure. End-of-line hyphenation needs to be checked with a native speaker in order to establish where to insert the hyphen.

Section Five – Geographic Distribution

Macedonian is the official language of the Republic of Macedonia, which is located between Serbia and Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece, and Albania. It is spoken by about 70 percent of the country's population, approx. 1½ million people. The alphabet contains the unique ѓ and ќ characters which are not found in other languages.

Macedonian is also spoken in the following countries:
Albania, Bulgaria, Greece

Language Family
Family: Indo-European
Subgroup: Slavic
Branch: southern

Sources:
KATZNER, K. The Languages of the World. Routledge. Available from: http://www.worldlanguage.com (accessed 1 June 2004).

Section Six – Character Set