гальма
“гальма” — brakes in Ukrainian. Noun, level A2. Said in the plural even for one car, like "scissors". The verb "to brake" is built straight on this noun — learn one, get both. In a live sentence: “Гальма спрацювали вчасно” — The brakes worked just in time. A word from the everyday Ukrainian course, level A2.
In short
| Written in Ukrainian | гальма |
| Translation | brakes |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | A2 |
Why it looks that way
Said in the plural even for one car, like "scissors". The verb "to brake" is built straight on this noun — learn one, get both.
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- Гальма спрацювали вчасноThe brakes worked just in time
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- 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.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “brakes” in Ukrainian?
«гальма». In a live sentence: “Гальма спрацювали вчасно” — The brakes worked just in time. Noun, level A2.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Said in the plural even for one car, like "scissors". The verb "to brake" is built straight on this noun — learn one, get both. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.