Adding up the totals in Ukrainian

How the whole thing sounds

The situation: two people check the figures before the report. The conversation is short and predictable — which is exactly what makes it good for a first try: few lines, and almost all of them repeat from one exchange to the next.

• Яка загальна кількість заявок за місяць?

  Yaka zahalna kilkist zaiavok za misiats?

  What's the total number of applications for the month?
• Сто двадцять. Приріст майже на третину.

  Sto dvadtsiat. Pryrist maizhe na tretynu.

  A hundred and twenty. Growth of almost a third.
• А витрати? Вони не перевищують план?

  A vytraty? Vony ne perevyshchuiut plan?

  And the expenses? They don't exceed the plan?
• Перевищують, але на порядок менше, ніж торік.

  Perevyshchuiut, ale na poriadok menshe, nizh torik.

  They do, but by an order of magnitude less than last year.
• Округли суми до сотні, так буде видніше.

  Okruhly sumy do sotni, tak bude vydnishe.

  Round the sums to the nearest hundred; it will be clearer.
• Зроблю. Решту підрахую з точністю до гривні.

  Zrobliu. Reshtu pidrakhuiu z tochnistiu do hryvni.

  I will. I'll count the rest to the nearest hryvnia.

Lines one by one

How to prepare for a conversation like this

Memorizing the lines is not enough: the other person will say their own thing, not what is written. What helps more is catching the key words by ear and keeping three rescue phrases ready: “I don't understand”, “repeat, please”, “slower”.

And one more thing phrasebooks do not mention: awkwardness gets in the way more than not knowing the words.

• Fear of making mistakes gets in the way of learning a language, and noticeably so. The link turns up study after study, and together those studies cover almost twenty thousand people.checked many times
  Teimouri, Goetze & Plonsky, 2019, Studies in Second Language Acquisition 41(2) · 19,933 participants from 23 countries; correlation with results r = −0.36.
• That fear can be dealt with — the methods have been tested and they work.checked many times
  Xiong et al., 2024, Journal of Language and Social Psychology · 37 studies, anxiety reduced by −0.61. Of the seven conditions examined, only age turned out to matter.

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