LingoflyUkrainian
Ukrainian — Indo-European family, between 33 and 41 million speakers — the count depends on how you ask (estimate, Ethnologue). Script: Cyrillic, 33 letters — a new alphabet to learn, but a fully phonetic one.
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Demo language: Ukrainian
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добрий день
dobryi den
good day
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добрий день
dobryi den
- good morning
- please (polite)
- hi
- good day
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добрий день
good day
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___, як справи?
Good day, how are you?
- дякую · diakuiu
- Добрий день · Dobryi den
- доброго · dobroho
- будь · bud
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добрий день
good day
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добрий день
good day
This is a choice based on text. Conversation and remembering over time still need practice and checking.
How answers are counted
Answers stay on this page. Statistics include the demo stage, overall result, interface language and saved counter consent choice, without answer text or a profile.
Where to start
A young course: the words, the lessons and the recordings are all here, but a native speaker has not read it end to end yet. Spot a rough edge? Tell us and we will fix it.
- →Ukrainian alphabetAll letters and how they are read
- →Ukrainian wordsBy topic and alphabetically
- →PhrasebookPhrases ready to use
- →GrammarRules without jargon
- →Reading textsShort texts with translation
- →How to readThe writing course from zero
- →TransliterationThe table, both ways
- →PronunciationWhat you hear and what is hard
- →From scratchWhere to start, and in what order
- →How long to studyAn honest estimate, with caveats
First words
Every conversation starts with them — and so does the first impression: one greeting in the local language and you stop being a stranger within a second.
- привітpryvithiAn easy start: privit sounds friendly and informal, exactly like "hi". Save it for people you already know.
- добрий деньdobryi dengood dayThe neutral, polite greeting for strangers, shops and offices. Literally "good day" — dobyi den has no surprises in it.
- доброго ранкуdobroho rankugood morningLiterally "of good morning" — a wish in the "of" form, like wishing someone "a good morning's worth". Ranku is morning.
- дякуюdiakuiuthank youFrom diakuvaty, "to thank". The intensifier is duzhe diakuiu — "thank you very much" — literally "very much I thank".
- будь ласкаbud laskaplease (polite)Literally "be kindness" — bud "be" plus laska "kindness". Works both in a request and as the reply to diakuiu, like "you are welcome".
- як справи?yak spravy?how are you?Literally "how are the affairs?" — sprava is "matter, business". With a stranger, add the polite you: yak u vas spravy?
- до побаченняdo pobachenniagoodbyeLiterally "until seeing" — do "until" plus pobachennia "seeing". The formal, safe goodbye for any stranger.
- бувайbuvaibyeFrom buvaty, "to be, hang around" — literally "carry on being". Casual, for friends; with strangers use do pobachennia.
About the language
| Native name | Українська (ukrainska) · ukrainska |
| Official in | Ukraine |
| Also spoken in | Poland, Canada, the USA, Brazil and Moldova |
| How many speakers | between 33 and 41 million speakers — the count depends on how you ask (estimate, Ethnologue) |
| Family | Indo-European family, East Slavic group |
| Script | Cyrillic, 33 letters — a new alphabet to learn, but a fully phonetic one |
| Writing direction | left to right |
Hard: seven cases, three genders, and consonants that come in hard and soft pairs.
Easy: spelling matches pronunciation almost everywhere, and stress is marked in dictionaries.
What people most often take it up for: family, friends and work in Ukraine, paperwork, songs and culture.
Curiosities in Ukrainian
In 1876 the Ems Ukaz banned printing Ukrainian books and importing them from abroad, and limited theatre productions to everyday scenes. For half a century the language lived mostly orally — and survived all the same: the modern norm rests on writers of the mid-nineteenth century, older than the ban itself.
Alexander II’s Ems Ukaz, 1876; the article “Ukrainian language” in the Encyclopaedia Britannica
How lessons work
A lesson is up to half an hour a day, split into three to five short sessions. A word comes back not on the course's schedule but at the moment you are about to forget it: the interval is computed by an algorithm from your own answers.
- The longer you want to keep a word, the longer the gap before reviewing it can be. To hold it for a week, review it after a day or two; to hold it for a year, after about three or four weeks.checked many timesCepeda et al., 2008, Psychological Science 19(11) · Over 1,350 participants, tested after delays of up to a year. The best gap is about 20–40% of the target interval when you need to remember for a week, and 5–10% when for a year.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- A material reward promised for doing a task lowers the wish to take it up of your own accord once the reward is gone. Praise for what was done, on the contrary, keeps that wish alive.checked many timesDeci, Koestner & Ryan, 1999, Psychological Bulletin 125(6) · 128 experiments. A material reward promised in advance and the time later spent on the task by free choice: d = −0.44 for finishing, −0.40 for taking part, −0.28 for performance; a reward unrelated to the task, −0.14, not significant. Praise: +0.33.
Frequently asked
Where to start learning Ukrainian?
With the script: 33 letters are worked through in a week or two, and after that words stop being pictures.
How many people speak Ukrainian?
Between 33 and 41 million speakers — the count depends on how you ask — an estimate; source: Ethnologue. Nobody runs an exact census of languages, and sources disagree by noticeable amounts.
Is Ukrainian hard?
Seven cases, three genders, and consonants that come in hard and soft pairs. At the same time, spelling matches pronunciation almost everywhere, and stress is marked in dictionaries.
Where is Ukrainian spoken?
An official language in: Ukraine. Noticeable communities: Poland, Canada, the USA, Brazil and Moldova.