Lingoflyспівати
- співатиspivatyto sing
“співати” (spivaty) — to sing in Ukrainian. Verb, level A1. From spiv, singing — a family you may recognize from choir words. The present is regular: spivaiu, spivaesh, spivae — nothing like the dictionary shape suggests. In a live sentence: “Вона гарно співає” (Vona harno spivaie) — She sings in the shower. Written with the characters с, п, і (i), в (v), а (a), т, и. A word from the everyday Ukrainian course, level A1.
In short
| Written in Ukrainian | співати (spivaty) |
| Read in Latin letters | spivaty |
| Translation | to sing |
| Part of speech | verb |
| Level | A1 |
Why it looks that way
From spiv, singing — a family you may recognize from choir words. The present is regular: spivaiu, spivaesh, spivae — nothing like the dictionary shape suggests.
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 “to sing” in Ukrainian?
«співати» (spivaty), read “spivaty”. In a live sentence: “Вона гарно співає” (Vona harno spivaie) — She sings in the shower. Verb, level A1; written with the characters с, п, і (i), в (v), а (a), т, и.
How is “співати” (spivaty) written in Latin letters?
spivaty. 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?
From spiv, singing — a family you may recognize from choir words. The present is regular: spivaiu, spivaesh, spivae — nothing like the dictionary shape suggests. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.