Lingoflyпо літерах, будь ласка
- по літерах, будь ласкаpo literakh, bud laskaspell it out, please
“по літерах, будь ласка” (po literakh, bud laska) — spell it out, please in Ukrainian. Phrase, level B1. One by one, over the of-form: po literakh. The letter-word is litera again, and "to dictate" is the international borrowed verb. In a live sentence: “Прізвище по літерах, будь ласка” (Prizvyshche po literakh, bud laska) — Spell your surname out, please. Written with the characters п, о (o), л, і (i), т, е, р, а (a), х, б (b), у (U), д… A word from the everyday Ukrainian course, level B1.
In short
| Written in Ukrainian | по літерах, будь ласка (po literakh, bud laska) |
| Read in Latin letters | po literakh, bud laska |
| Translation | spell it out, please |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | B1 |
Why it looks that way
One by one, over the of-form: po literakh. The letter-word is litera again, and "to dictate" is the international borrowed verb.
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.
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 “spell it out, please” in Ukrainian?
«по літерах, будь ласка» (po literakh, bud laska), read “po literakh, bud laska”. In a live sentence: “Прізвище по літерах, будь ласка” (Prizvyshche po literakh, bud laska) — Spell your surname out, please. Phrase, level B1; written with the characters п, о (o), л, і (i), т, е, р, а (a), х, б (b), у (U), д…
How is “по літерах, будь ласка” (po literakh, bud laska) written in Latin letters?
po literakh, bud laska. This is a practical spelling — you need it to read aloud and be understood, not to meet an academic standard.
Why does this word look the way it does?
One by one, over the of-form: po literakh. The letter-word is litera again, and "to dictate" is the international borrowed verb. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.