риба
“риба” — fish in Ukrainian. Noun, level A1, topic — food and drink. At the market they sort it two ways: richkova ryba, "river fish", and morska, "sea fish" — the adjectives do the sorting. In a live sentence: “Риба тут свіжа” — The fish here is fresh. One of 175 words in the set “food and drink” in the Ukrainian course.
In short
| Written in Ukrainian | риба |
| Translation | fish |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | A1 |
Why it looks that way
At the market they sort it two ways: richkova ryba, "river fish", and morska, "sea fish" — the adjectives do the sorting.
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.
- Риба тут свіжаThe fish here is fresh
Nearby words: food and drink
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.
- каваcoffeeFeminine, like "la cafe" would be. The cafe itself is kavyarnya — a word hanging on every second door in Kyiv.
- чайteaA word shared across half the planet. With tea is z chayem — the instrumental case does the "with".
- водаwaterStress on the first syllable: VO-da. Sparkling is hazovana voda, still is bez hazu — "without gas".
- хлібbreadSaid "khlib" — the i is the tight vowel. A bakery is pekarnya, from "to bake", and fresh bread is svizhiy khlib.
- молокоmilkStress on the last syllable this time: moloKO. At the market fresh-from-the-cow milk is sold as sire — "gray" milk, unchilled and unstirred.
- питиto drinkThe present tense wears an apostrophe at every step: piyu, piyesh, piye. Vypity is "to drink up, finish" — the completed counterpart.
- сирcheeseSpelled and sounded the way you would guess — one of the rare zero-effort words. Cheese and bread is the classic quick dinner.
- мʼясоmeatThe apostrophe between m and ya marks that little glide: m-yaso. Writing it without the apostrophe is simply a spelling error.
- салатsaladThe summer salad of tomatoes and cucumbers is just salat — no fancy name. The word and the dish are both everyday items.
- супsoupThe famous borscht is technically a sup too — and it is the first line of most menus. Said exactly as spelled.
Test yourself
Five questions from the same set — “food and drink”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.
- How do you say “fish” in Ukrainian?
At the market they sort it two ways: richkova ryba, "river fish", and morska, "sea fish" — the adjectives do the sorting.
- How do you say “cheese” in Ukrainian?
Spelled and sounded the way you would guess — one of the rare zero-effort words. Cheese and bread is the classic quick dinner.
- How do you say “water” in Ukrainian?
Stress on the first syllable: VO-da. Sparkling is hazovana voda, still is bez hazu — "without gas".
- How do you say “soup” in Ukrainian?
The famous borscht is technically a sup too — and it is the first line of most menus. Said exactly as spelled.
- How do you say “to drink” in Ukrainian?
The present tense wears an apostrophe at every step: piyu, piyesh, piye. Vypity is "to drink up, finish" — the completed counterpart.
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 “fish” in Ukrainian?
«риба». In a live sentence: “Риба тут свіжа” — The fish here is fresh. Noun, level A1, from the set “food and drink”.
Why does this word look the way it does?
At the market they sort it two ways: richkova ryba, "river fish", and morska, "sea fish" — the adjectives do the sorting. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.