це негарно

In short

Why it looks that way

The most common family verdict: tse neharno z tvoho boku, that is not nice of you. Literally "not-pretty" — the same word judges an act and an object.

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.

• Так робити це негарно

  That is not nice of you

Nearby words: people and family

Mum, friend, child, neighbour. The first thing people ask you about, and the first thing you tell about yourself.

• сімʼя

  family

  Written with an apostrophe: sim-ya, two sounds, not "si-mya". The everyday word is exactly this one — five people, one simya.
• батько

  father

  Batky are parents, both of them — not a plural of one dad. The cozy word for dad is tato, a small child word like "dad".
• матуся

  mom

  A warm, affectionate word. Calling her you use the special calling form: mamo! — Ukrainian has a whole case just for addressing people.
• дитина

  child

  The plural is completely its own word: dity, "children". Same ancient root as the English "tyke"-sounding dity — you just have to learn the pair together.
• хлопець

  guy

  Both "a boy" and "a boyfriend" — context decides. Khloptsi, the plural, is what a group of friends calls itself, like "the guys".
• друг

  friend

  Calling a friend by name, Ukrainian uses a special addressing form: druzhe! It is the same "calling case" you met with mamo.
• людина

  person

  The big pair of the lesson: liudyna is "a person, a human", cholovik is "a man". Plural: liudy — people.
• чоловік

  man

  Both "man" and "husband" — and never just "person". On toilet doors this is exactly the word you will read.
• жінка

  woman

  A wife is a separate word: druzhyna. Zhinka is any woman — the same root, a wider job.
• юнак

  young man

  Bookish and a little solemn; in live speech people say khlopets — the guy from an earlier lesson. Both point to the same lad.

Test yourself

Five questions from the same set — “people and family”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.

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 times
  Kim & 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 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.
• An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many times
  Bertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.

Next

• People and family11 words on the topic
• він не зі зла — he meant no harmphrase
• довіра — trustnoun
• заздрість — envynoun
• жалість — pitynoun
• All Ukrainian wordsIndex by topic
• Why a word list doesn't sticka note