Food and drink in Ukrainian

175 words on the topic

• кава

  coffee

  Feminine, like "la cafe" would be. The cafe itself is kavyarnya — a word hanging on every second door in Kyiv.
• чай

  tea

  A word shared across half the planet. With tea is z chayem — the instrumental case does the "with".
• вода

  water

  Stress on the first syllable: VO-da. Sparkling is hazovana voda, still is bez hazu — "without gas".
• хліб

  bread

  Said "khlib" — the i is the tight vowel. A bakery is pekarnya, from "to bake", and fresh bread is svizhiy khlib.
• молоко

  milk

  Stress on the last syllable this time: moloKO. At the market fresh-from-the-cow milk is sold as sire — "gray" milk, unchilled and unstirred.
• пити

  to drink

  The present tense wears an apostrophe at every step: piyu, piyesh, piye. Vypity is "to drink up, finish" — the completed counterpart.
• сир

  cheese

  Spelled and sounded the way you would guess — one of the rare zero-effort words. Cheese and bread is the classic quick dinner.
• мʼясо

  meat

  The apostrophe between m and ya marks that little glide: m-yaso. Writing it without the apostrophe is simply a spelling error.
• риба

  fish

  At the market they sort it two ways: richkova ryba, "river fish", and morska, "sea fish" — the adjectives do the sorting.
• салат

  salad

  The summer salad of tomatoes and cucumbers is just salat — no fancy name. The word and the dish are both everyday items.
• суп

  soup

  The famous borscht is technically a sup too — and it is the first line of most menus. Said exactly as spelled.
• сіль

  salt

  Said "sil" — one tight syllable. The soft sign at the end is real and written, marking a gentle finish.
• їсти

  to eat

  The letter yi is a two-sound "yee": "yees-ty". Present: yim, yisy, yist. And "there is" in the sense of existing is a different word entirely — ye.
• яблуко

  apple

  Stress on the first syllable: YA-bluko. The apple tree is yablunya — the fruit and the tree share a root, as in English.
• цукор

  sugar

  Bez tsukru, "without sugar", is the most-used phrase in any kavyarnya. A candy is tsukerka — same root, smaller thing.
• смачно

  tasty

  From smak, "taste, flavor" — a cousin of "smack" and "smacking one's lips". Duzhe smachno is what you tell the host after dinner.
• сніданок

  breakfast

  Morning food is usually bread and milk — simple. Na snidanok, "for breakfast", is the phrase the menus use.
• обід

  lunch

  The main meal of the day, around one or two, soup first. One letter shorter than anything you might guess — obid.
• вечеря

  supper

  The false friend beside a word you know: vechir is the evening, vecherya is the meal. One ending moves dinner an hour later.
• жувати

  to chew

  Zhuvaty looks and sounds like its job — chewing gum is zuvalna humka, built from the same root.
• ковтати

  to swallow

  Cousin of English "gullet" — the gulping word. Vazhko kovtaty, "it is hard to swallow", is the sentence you say to a doctor.
• апетит

  appetite

  The international word. At the table people wish you Smachnoho! — "tasty!" — and appetite stays quietly off the menu.
• шматок

  a piece

  Shmatok khliba — a piece of bread — the pair you will say most. Its small cousin shmatochok shrinks it to a bite.
• запах

  smell, scent

  Zapakh kavy — the smell of coffee — reaches you before the cup does. The word is its own; anchor it on that morning.
• масло

  oil

  Covers any oil, including sunflower. For butter you specify "vershkove maslo" — from "vershky", cream. Bread with butter...
• картопля

  potato

  Not recognizable at first glance — learn it whole. "Kartoplia fri" is fries, and the borrowing settled in comfortably.
• борошно

  flour

  Learn the pair "boroshno — khlib", flour and bread: once the pair stands together, the logic shows itself.
• мед

  honey

  Real honey, sold at every market here. Tea with honey: "chai z medom" — a phrase for cold season.
• горіхи

  nuts

  One nut is a "horikh", many are "horikhy" — a regular plural. Bread with nuts, as in the example.
• цибуля

  onion

  Learn the kitchen pair "tsybulia — chasnyk", onion and garlic — they walk through every recipe together.
• морква

  carrot

  The root "mork-" is shared with its English cousin — one consonant apart. Carrots in the soup.
• перець

  pepper

  Soft sign in the middle: perets. Black pepper is "chornyi perets" — the spice, not the vegetable.
• квасоля

  beans

  Root kin to "kvashenyi", fermented — beans as the thing that gets soured. An old food word with its own logic.
• спеції

  spices

  Always plural, sitting on the shelf above the stove. Spices in the cupboard, "spetsii v shafi".
• готувати

  to cook

  Works exactly as expected: "hotuvaty vecheriu" — to cook supper. "Hotuvsia!" — get ready! — same verb.
• мити

  to wash

  "Myty posud" — wash the dishes; "myty ruky" — wash your hands. Same verb, same construction, no surprises.
• ніж

  knife

  The plural is regular: "nozhi". The knife is dull, "nizh tupyi" — a kitchen complaint in one phrase.
• варити

  to boil

  "Zavaryty kavy" — to brew coffee — the prefix works just like English. I am boiling soup.
• смажити

  to fry

  Frying potatoes: "smazhyty kartopliu". The word looks like an old relative you forgot you had.
• пекти

  to bake

  Present tense: "pechu, pechesh" — the vowel shifts mid-word, just where you would guess. She bakes bread.
• різати

  to cut

  Present: "rizhu, rizhesh" — the middle consonant softens, same trick as in plakaty. Cut the onion!
• каструля

  pot (cooking)

  The everyday pot on the stove, one word for every size. A big one is a "velyka kastrulia".
• сковорода

  frying pan

  The diminutive skovoridka is the everyday form at home. In the western regions the same pan answers to patelnia — accents differ even in the kitchen.
• плита

  stove

  The same word serves for the kitchen stove and a concrete slab — context does all the work, like English "range/slab".
• тарілка

  plate

  A deep plate is a "hlyboka tarilka" — and that word, deep, is transparent too. A clean plate.
• чашка

  cup

  A cup of tea: "chashka chaiu" — the tea takes its little case after it. Otherwise as expected.
• склянка

  glass

  "Sklianka vody" — a glass of water — an everyday phrase of the household. Related to "sklo", glass the material.
• ложка

  spoon

  A teaspoon is a "chaina lozhka" — same build as English. The spoon is in the cup.
• виделка

  fork

  Its own word — nothing in it resembles anything you know, so learn it whole. The pair "nizh i vydelka" lives in one drawer.
• пляшка

  bottle

  "Pliashka vody", a bottle of water — the shop phrase. The shape of the word even suggests a plump little bottle.
• серветка

  napkin

  A paper napkin is a "paperova servetka". Traveled the same route through the same languages as its English cousin.
• чайник

  kettle

  Electric or stovetop, one word covers both. The kettle is on the stove, "chainyk na plyti".
• таця

  tray

  A short borrowing that traveled through Polish from a German cup-word. Flat, with handles, and nothing like its English cousin in sound.
• гарячий

  hot

  The h is a voiced throaty sound, deeper than English h. The soup is hot — "sup hariachyi".
• холодний

  cold

  The perfect partner of hariachyi — one pair, two words, the whole temperature story. The water is cold.
• голодний

  hungry

  One vowel away from cold — listen closely. "Ya holodnyi", I am hungry, is a perfectly polite thing to say in a cafe.
• смак

  taste

  You know "smachno", tasty — smak is its parent noun. "Smakota" is the warm word for deliciousness.
• солоний

  salty

  From "sil", salt, which you know from the cafe. The soup is salty — "sup solonyi".
• кислий

  sour

  You have met it before: "yabluka tut kysli" from the very first food lesson. A lemon is sour, naturally.
• гіркий

  bitter

  Coffee without sugar is "hirka" — you have already tasted this word. The h is the deep throaty one.
• гострий

  spicy

  One word for a sharp knife and a hot sauce — exactly the double duty of "sharp", and the same mix-ups happen.
• ситий

  full (having eaten)

  The polite refusal of seconds: "Diakuiu, ya sytyi" — thank you, I am full. Works at every table.
• куштувати

  to taste (food)

  Food gets kushtuvaty, attempts get probuvaty: the mouth and the endeavor go by different verbs here. Kushtyk, a little taste, is the noun.
• меню

  menu

  Neuter and international. Ask "Mozhna menu?" — may I have the menu? — and you already know every word of it.
• офіціант

  waiter

  Call politely with "Vybachte!" — excuse me — and the waiter comes. The word itself is the same international one.
• замовлення

  order

  From "zamovliaty", to order — the order is the ordering, a built noun. Same logic in ordering a taxi.
• замовити

  to order

  One verb for a dish and a taxi: "zamovyty stravu", "zamovyty taksy". I want to order a taxi.
• страва

  dish (food)

  Its own word — covers a dish and food in general. A potato dish: "strava z kartopli".
• порція

  portion

  Ends in iia, like komisiia and other Latin arrivals. Half of it is pivportsii — the little piv- prefix halves anything edible.
• столик на двох

  table for two

  Literally "little table for two" — "dvokh" is a form of two you know. A table for two, please.
• десерт

  dessert

  The same borrowed word, same sweet meaning. Dessert after the soup, as in the example.
• без мʼяса

  without meat

  After "bez", without, the noun takes the "of" form — the same pattern as its English cousin phrase. A salad without meat.
• торт

  cake

  The international word, and a neuter one: tse tort. A slice is a shmatok torta — a chunk of cake, and shmatok is a livelier word than its English cousin.
• макарони

  pasta

  Plural-only like the Italian original, and it covers pasta generally, not just macaroni. A single strand is makaronyna — a word people actually joke with.
• йогурт

  yogurt

  Spelled with yo at the start and stressed on the last syllable: yohUrt. A drinking yogurt is pitnyi yohurt — "drinkable yogurt", the label says it straight.
• вершки

  cream (for coffee)

  The main dairy-counter trap: cream is vershky, from "top" — what you skim off the top of the milk. Sour cream stays smetana, unmoved.
• морозиво

  ice cream

  From moroz, "frost": ice cream is "the frosted thing". A scoop is a kulka morozyva — a little ball of it — and the noun is neuter.
• шоколад

  chocolate

  One l, stress on the end: shokolAd. Dark chocolate is temnyi shokolad — the phrase on every wrapper reads almost like English.
• печиво

  cookies

  From pekty, "to bake": pechyvo is "the baked stuff", neuter, and it gathers everything small and baked — from fancy cookies to plain crackers.
• яловичина

  beef

  The meat-counter trap: yalovychyna is beef, from an old word for a young cow. Meats are built with the same -yna suffix all down the counter.
• баранина

  mutton

  The meat pattern is animal plus -yna: baran, "a ram", gives baranyna. Pork and chicken words are built the same way — the counter reads itself.
• креветки

  shrimps

  On the menu like you expect, but grammatically feminine: krevetka, krevetky. Gender matters the moment an adjective has to agree with dinner.
• виноград

  grapes

  Collective singular — "the grapes" as one substance. A single berry is a vynohradyna, a bunch is a hrono, and both live next door in the same market stall.
• огірок

  cucumber

  The plural is transparent: ohirky. A pickled cucumber is a solonyi ohirok — "salty cucumber", no special word, because the jar speaks for itself.
• капуста

  cabbage

  Sauerkraut is kvashena kapusta — "fermented cabbage" — winter food of the region. Cauliflower splits it literally: tsvitna kapusta, "flower cabbage".
• часник

  garlic

  A clove is a zubchyk chasnyku — a "little tooth of garlic", the same toothy image as English "clove". Add two of them to the pot and the kitchen announces dinner.
• гарбуз

  pumpkin

  The great vegetable false friend: harbuz is pumpkin, and the similar-sounding tykva here is a melon. Swap them and your autumn soup becomes a summer dessert.
• баклажан

  eggplant

  Masculine, almost the international word. In casual speech people also call it synenkyi — "the little blue one" — after its color, the affectionate nickname of the vegetable.
• лимон

  lemon

  Stress on the second syllable: limOn. Lemonade is limonad — an international pair that asks nothing of you.
• кавун

  watermelon

  A word with no cousin in Western Europe — it comes, like the berry itself, from further east. Melon stays dynia; the two split the summer fruit stand peacefully.
• полуниця

  strawberry

  From pole, "field": the strawberry is the field berry. Wild woodland strawberries are sunytsia — the boundary between garden and forest matters here.
• груша

  pear

  Same word for the fruit and the tree. The pear is sweeter than the apple — solodsha za iabluko — and that comparison pattern will follow you everywhere.
• персик

  peach

  One s, masculine. The plural persyky is what you will actually need at the market stall: a kilogram of peaches, please.
• рецепт страви

  recipe

  Strava is the dish; retsept is the same word a doctor uses for a prescription. The second noun sits in the of-form: retsept stravy.
• почистити овочі

  to peel vegetables

  From chystyty, "to clean", with the po- prefix wrapping it up. Vegetables here are ovochi — short, frequent, and worth knowing before the first salad.
• кипʼятити

  to bring to a boil

  The apostrophe after p is not decoration: it snaps the syllables apart, ky-pYA-ty. The liquid boils on its own — kipyty — you bring it to the boil.
• перемішати

  to stir

  From mishaty, "to mix", with pere- as the finisher. A mixer is a mIKser — the borrowed word slots right into the family.
• посолити

  to add salt

  From sil, "salt" — note the vowel trade: i inside the noun, o inside the verb. To oversalt is the same verb with peres- bolted on front.
• розігріти

  to heat up

  Roz- in front and an i inside the root — both visible if you know hrity, "to warm". For a gentle reheat the prefix switches to pidi-.
• остудити

  to cool

  Built on studyty, "to chill" — the same root that hides in zastuda, "a common cold". When food cools by itself, a different verb shows up.
• збити яйця

  to beat eggs

  From_byty, "to beat or hit": eggs are literally beaten, the same kitchen violence as English. The process is zbyvaty, the finished fluffy result is zbyty.
• додати води

  to add water

  A case trap: not "add the water" but "add of-water" — the "of" form means "some". Same trick with salt: dodai soli. A little of, not the whole thing.
• смажити на грилі

  to grill

  To fry is smazhyty — and the beloved toast "smachnoho" is its cousin: what is fried right is tasty. The grill itself is a hryl, borrowed and proud.
• термін придатності

  expiration date

  Literally "term of suitability": termin is a time limit, pridatnist is fitness for use. On packaging look for "Pridatne do" — "good until".
• зіпсувався

  went bad

  From psuvaty, "to spoil", with zi- bolted on front. The same verb ruins a mood — spoilage, of cheese or of a day, is one word.
• банка

  jar

  A jar of jam is a banka varennia — glass, with a lid. A tin can is a bliashanka, different word, different material, same shelf.
• добавка

  second helping

  From dohavaty, "to add": a second helping is an addition. In a cafeteria you ask "MoZHna dohavku?" — can I have some more — and it always works.
• із собою

  to take away (food)

  Literally "with yourself": the cafe asks "Here or to take?" — Na mistsi chy z soboiu? The takeaway answer is two small words and a gesture toward the door.
• без цукру

  without sugar

  After bez comes the "of" form, always: bez tsukru, bez moloka, bez miasa. Tsukr is sugar — a word that traveled far to get here, like the sweetness did.
• я вегетаріанець

  I am a vegetarian

  The person suffix -ets marks the man of the species; a woman switches the tail and says vehetarianka. Note the plain i mid-word.
• смачного

  enjoy your meal

  One word instead of a whole sentence: Smachnoho! — literally "may it be tasty" — from smak, "taste". Said before every meal, even to strangers at the next table.
• жирна їжа

  fatty food

  From zhyr, "fat". Zhyrnyi about food is fatty; about a person you say tovstyi — and it sounds blunter than it does in careful English. Izha, "food", starts with the yi vowel.
• цукерка

  candy

  From tsukor, "sugar": a little sugar-thing. A chocolate candy is shokoladna tsukerka, and sweets in general are solodoshchi — one word for the whole candy dish.
• національна страва

  national dish

  Strava is a dish both in a restaurant and at a feast. The national classics are borsch and varenyky, and salo is never eaten without bread — that too is the cuisine.
• вулична їжа

  street food

  From vulytsia, "street". A stall is kiosk, and at a fair the offer is varenyky and shashlyk — names that travel from language to language untranslated.
• свинина

  pork

  Built with the -yna suffix from the animal, exactly like its cousins baranyna and yalovychyna in this course. Feminine noun.
• курятина

  chicken (meat)

  The bird on the farm is kurka; what lands on the plate gets its own meat-word, kuriatyna. The -tyna tail is the regular marker for "meat of".
• качатина

  duck (meat)

  Built with the same -tyna tail as the chicken word: the bird is kachka, the dish is kachatyna. Animal on the farm, meat-word on the menu.
• фарш

  ground meat

  A borrowed word in both languages, from German — the sound is a touch harder, the meaning identical: meat run through the grinder.
• шинка

  ham

  Arrived through Polish from German — no recognizable anchor for an English speaker, so memorize it. Next to it on the counter sits kovbasa, "salami, sausage".
• сосиска

  small sausage

  A word-shaped freebie: it means exactly the small boiled sausage you think, and the plural is sosysky, no surprises in the ending.
• тунець

  tuna

  Said "tunets" — the -ets tail does the naming. In a can it is tunets u bantsi, the beloved salad-tuna of every kitchen.
• лосось

  salmon

  Spelled about as expected, with stress on the end: losoS. The fish stays masculine in this word, whatever other fish do.
• креветка

  shrimp

  A warm-sea word that traveled north unchanged. The plural is krevetky — one shrimp, many krevetky, like the English pair.
• морепродукти

  seafood

  Written solid, from more, "sea", plus produkty, "products". Always plural, never a singular item on the plate — the menu lists it as a set.
• слива

  plum

  The plural is slyvy — the tight i-vowel where you might expect another letter. Otherwise the word is a freebie.
• малина

  raspberry

  The word for the berry and the plant is one — and Ukrainian tea cabinets always have a jar of malyna for colds.
• диня

  melon

  Do not mix it up with kavun, "watermelon" — dynia is the orange-fleshed melon. Both are feminine.
• гранат

  pomegranate (fruit)

  The same shape as the word for the garnet gemstone — both named for their matching red. The juice is hranatovyi sik, and the seeds have a small word of their own, zerniata.
• ананас

  pineapple

  The world seems to agree on this word — masculine here too. A rare case of full agreement everywhere at once.
• мандарин

  tangerine

  Masculine, the winter fruit — vzymku, "in winter", from the weather lesson, fits right into its company.
• ківі

  kiwi

  Foreign and unchangeable: smak kivi, dva kivi — the word never takes an ending. Two i-letters in a row is normal here, not a typo.
• авокадо

  avocado

  Neuter and unchangeable: stygle avokado, bez avokado — one frozen shape whatever the sentence does around it.
• родзинки

  raisins

  Plural only — Ukrainian counts the little grapes one by one, rodzynka by rodzynka. No relation to any English word; memorize it.
• інжир

  fig

  Masculine. In southern dialects the same fruit goes by smokva, but the standard word is inzhyr — the one on labels and in shops.
• солодкий перець

  bell pepper

  The vegetable is called "sweet" — and often "Bulgarian" — to keep it apart from perets the spice. Order by the adjective and you will not get chili.
• кабачок

  zucchini

  The same word once also named a small tavern — same root, different door. In the kitchen it is the green summer squash.
• буряк

  beet

  A word of its own, sharing nothing with English. No borscht happens without it — the deep red base of the national soup is this humble root.
• редиска

  radish

  A freebie word. The joke "what a redyska you are" for a rude person works here too — the vegetable moonlights as an insult.
• зелень

  fresh herbs

  Zelenyy is the color green, but the market herb bunch — dill and parsley together — is zelen, a noun of its own.
• кріп

  dill

  A short word with no English relative — dill is krip, full stop. Do not confuse it with skrip, which is about staples and clips.
• петрушка

  parsley

  Sounds like a name, and the name is a coincidence — in the kitchen it is just the soup herb. No apostrophe needed.
• імбир

  ginger

  Masculine, with the tight i-vowel in the first syllable. In tea: chay z imblyurom — the ending slides as usual.
• кукурудза

  corn

  Longer than expected by one dz in the middle: kukurudza. Drop it and the word falls apart — keep the buzz.
• шпинат

  spinach

  Letter for letter the international word; masculine here. Sorrel is a different plant entirely — shchav — do not merge them.
• булка

  bread roll

  The everyday single roll bought fresh by the piece: odna bulka. The o in its endings never flees, unlike some o's you will meet.
• пиріг

  pie

  With i in the closed syllable: pyrih, but the of-form gives the vowel back — pyroha. A small pie is a pyrizhok, the diminutive you will meet in bakeries.
• тістечко

  pastry

  A diminutive of tisto, "dough" — the little individual pastry in the display case is exactly this sweet little word.
• пампушка

  garlic bun

  A round little bun, classically rubbed with garlic and served beside borscht. The sweet ring-shaped kind you know from fairs is a different story — this one is savory.
• випічка

  baked goods

  From pekty, "to bake" — a collective word for everything in the bakery case, rolls and cookies together. A category, not a single thing.
• джем

  jam (thick)

  A borrowing for the firm, spreadable kind. Ukrainian varenya is the looser home-cooked fruit in syrup — a different jar altogether.
• сироп

  syrup

  Masculine, spelled as expected. The same word covers drink concentrate — the stuff you dilute with water at a cafe.
• попкорн

  popcorn

  The English word, settled in comfortably. A native description exists — smazhena kukurudza, "fried corn" — but nobody orders it that way.
• чипси

  chips

  Plural only, like the snack itself. The "of" plural is chypsiv — with the tight i where you might pencil in another vowel.
• жуйка

  chewing gum

  From zhuvaty, to chew — the action is right in the noun. Say it at a kiosk and you get gum; the wrapper may print a longer, more official version.
• лимонад

  lemonade

  For Ukrainians this is first of all the homemade lemon drink of summer, not a bottle from a factory. Same word, cozier meaning.
• мінеральна вода

  mineral water

  Two n-letters in mineralna — its partner hazovana has only one. Learn the pair as a unit and the spelling takes care of itself.
• газована вода

  sparkling water

  One n only: hazovana. Still water is nehazovana — plain ne- turns the fizz off. The water lesson in two prefixes.
• коктейль

  cocktail

  Borrowed from English with a soft tail on the end and only one spelling to remember. A milk one is molochnyi kokteil — the sweet, nonalcoholic order.
• какао

  cocoa

  Unchangeable, like its English twin: kakao ye, bez kakao. Brewed on milk, it is the evening drink of children everywhere.
• розчинна кава

  instant coffee

  Rozchynna is "dissolvable", from rozchynyty, "to dissolve" — the honest adjective for instant coffee. It stands before the noun and agrees with it.
• чайний пакетик

  tea bag

  Paketyk is the small cousin of paket, "bag", with an affectionate tail. The brew itself is zavarka and the pot is chainyk — the whole tea kit in three words.
• окріп

  boiling water

  No relative of "boil" here — okrip must be learned whole. It scalds exactly like boiling water; haryacha voda is merely hot.
• алкоголь

  alcohol

  Masculine, as international as words get. Without it is bezalkoholniy — the same prefix family doing the negating.
• напій

  beverage

  With i in the closed syllable: napii, but the plural gives the vowel room — napiyi. Built on the verb pyty, "to drink", so the family resemblance is easy to see.
• шматочок

  a little piece

  Shmatok is "a piece"; the double-ch diminutive shrinks it to a bite. The first word you will hear at the cake counter.
• скибка

  a slice

  A word of its own: skybka is a thin slice cut off bread or a melon. The bigger unhurried slab has a shorter name, skyba — slice and slab, one family.
• часточка

  a clove (segment)

  The small form of chastka, "a share, a portion": a clove of garlic is literally a little share of the head. Lemons and garlic both come apart into them.
• дрібка

  a pinch

  From driibnyi, "fine, small": a pinch is by definition a small thing. English builds its word from the pinching fingers; this one from smallness itself.
• жменя

  a handful

  A word of its own, sharing no letters with English. A double handful is pryhorshtia — the hand itself, horst, sits inside the bigger word.
• ковток

  a mouthful

  From kovtaty, "to swallow". Kovtok vody, kovtok chaiu — a swallow of water, of tea — always with the "of" form.
• пучок

  a bunch (of herbs)

  The same shape as the English word for a small bundle of stalks tied together. Puchok kropu — a bunch of dill — is the standard green-grocer order.
• півкіло

  half a kilo

  Written solid, from piv, "half", plus kilo. Neither half bends: pivkilo stays in one rigid shape, just like the kilo it halves.
• півлітра

  half a liter

  Recognizable in parts: piv, "half", plus the borrowed "liter". Written solid and with no hyphen, unlike the English habit; litra is the of-form the borrowed word takes.
• вистачить

  that is enough

  From stachyty, to suffice, with the vy- prefix on top. Its neighbor dosyt says "enough" as a quantity — this one says stop, the measure has been met.

How it sounds in a sentence

A word list is a blank. Conversation is made of sentences, and these are the ones the words fit into most often.

• Одну каву без цукру, будь ласка

  One coffee without sugar, please
• Я пʼю чай увечері

  I drink tea in the evening
• Я хочу воду

  I want water
• Хліб і вода тут

  Bread and water are here
• Молоко і хліб — сніданок

  Milk and bread are breakfast
• Я пʼю каву щоранку

  I drink coffee every morning

What is worth knowing about these words

кава — coffee. Feminine, like "la cafe" would be. The cafe itself is kavyarnya — a word hanging on every second door in Kyiv.

чай — tea. A word shared across half the planet. With tea is z chayem — the instrumental case does the "with".

вода — water. Stress on the first syllable: VO-da. Sparkling is hazovana voda, still is bez hazu — "without gas".

хліб — bread. Said "khlib" — the i is the tight vowel. A bakery is pekarnya, from "to bake", and fresh bread is svizhiy khlib.

Test yourself

Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than recognizing a familiar word — and therefore more useful.

How to learn the set instead of just reading it

A menu, a market, a shop sign, the question “what is this?”. Food is the most frequent subject of the first weeks and the safest excuse to start talking.

A list is read in a minute and forgotten in a day. What works: hide the translation, try to recall, get it wrong — and come back to the same words tomorrow.

• Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many times
  Adesope, 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.
• This holds not only in experiments but in ordinary classrooms, with real students.checked many times
  Mawson & Kang, 2025, Behavioral Sciences 15(6):771 · 22 studies, d = 0.54 (confidence interval 0.31–0.77). The authors warn that individual studies disagree widely.

Next

• All topics of the Ukrainian language3964 words by topic and letter
• Greetings and goodbyes9 words
• Numbers and counting10 words
• Shopping and money85 words
• Asking the way19 words
• Transport16 words
• Why a word list doesn't sticka note