теща
“теща” — mother-in-law (wife's mother) in Ukrainian. Noun, level A1. Sounds almost like the familiar word for the same relative, minus one soft sign. The mother of the wife; her of-form is teshchi. In a live sentence: “Теща пече найкращі пироги” — The mother-in-law cooks deliciously. A word from the everyday Ukrainian course, level A1.
In short
| Written in Ukrainian | теща |
| Translation | mother-in-law (wife's mother) |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | A1 |
Why it looks that way
Sounds almost like the familiar word for the same relative, minus one soft sign. The mother of the wife; her of-form is teshchi.
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.
- Теща пече найкращі пирогиThe mother-in-law cooks deliciously
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 “mother-in-law (wife's mother)” in Ukrainian?
«теща». In a live sentence: “Теща пече найкращі пироги” — The mother-in-law cooks deliciously. Noun, level A1.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Sounds almost like the familiar word for the same relative, minus one soft sign. The mother of the wife; her of-form is teshchi. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.