*Answering some commonly asked questions*. Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian are the Eastern Slavic languages. Obviously, they have a high level of mutual intelligibility, similar to Spanish-Portuguese-Italian or Swedish-Norwegian-Danish. If every East Slavic nation were speaking only their state language following grammar rules and using proper vocabulary, still, we would have no problem understanding each other with a tad of ear training. However, the speaking skill is another aspect. In reality, most of Ukrainians are bilingual (fluent in Ukrainian and Russian); some speak their local dialects. *People in this video* are speaking decent, grammatically correct Ukrainian that you can use as a reference. Unfortunately, many people _think_ they speak Ukrainian, but in fact, they verbally produce a hard mix of Ukrainian and Russian (also known as _surzhyk_ ‒ “soor-zhyk”). I would not recommend learning surzhyk, because it’s like learning English in a ghetto.
So stupid! Ukrainian and belorusian are different from russian. You compares it with spanish and Portuguese but even ukrainian and belorusian are not so mutually inteligible. The russians don't understand ukrainian and belorusian. The ukrainians understand belorusian without learning. Actually russian is artificial language and it's based on a dialect of bulgarian language so there is no place for russian in east slavic group. It must be in some far east slavic group.
I really enjoyed watching your video. Please keep making them. They really make a big difference in how I imagine Ukraine. Some of the sentences I would like to have written on a poster or on a wall, like: You want another universe - learn another language. This is so much true.
Is nice that easy language has started with the ukranian language too. Nice country and best people. Walk in the center of Kiev in Winter is a good therapy for me.
I'd like to visit the Ukraine. It looks interesting. The Ukrainian language reminds me of my native tongue, Romanian. In the video, I've noticed some phonetic similarities between both languages, which is due to Ukrainian influence on Romanian historically. Romanian also contains loanwords from it too. So I can thank that to Ukrainian! XD
My friend is Ukrainian but doesn't speak Ukrainian frequently, his mother tongue is Russian and he only uses Ukrainian when he visits his grandparents in Ukraine. How common is that and if I have understood correctly this also varies in different parts of Ukraine ?
In most of central and western Ukraine the mother tongue is Ukrainian, while in the eastern regions Russian is a bit more common. Recently, Ukrainian has become much more popular throughout the country
I like the sound of this language. I speak some Russian and would like to learn another Slavic language one day; maybe I'll go with this one :) Do many people in Ukraine know English?
Eowyn of Rohan Hello :) Well, I live in Ukraine and I know English (I hope)) ). My job is connected with English, as I work as a translator/interpreter. I must say, that most of the people here know at least some phrases in English, like "My name is.." "London is the capital of Great Britain.." and "I am ... years old", because we learn English at school (well, maybe "learn" is not the right word for this, the problem is - a lack of motivation for students/pupils and kind of boring classes, and incorrect pronunciation, which comes from a lot of teachers.) And the biggest problem that even if someone knows English he/she is too shy to answer a foreigner, because of lack of practicing. And it is very hard to find a person, working in supermarket or anywhere else (especially at the hospital) (but except some restaurants and hotels) speaking English! But, maybe the situation is different in rather bigger cities, like Kiev, Kharkiv or even Dnipropetrovsk. In conclusion, I must say that people here are very hospitable, even if they don't know language, they will try to help you anyway :)
Thanks very much for your answer. I was actually sort of hoping for an answer like that, because I much prefer not to use English if I don't have to. I don't speak Ukrainian (yet?) but I understand that many Ukrainian people speak Russian, which I speak as well. I'd love to go there and use Russian while knowing it's my only option :)
Eowyn of Rohan Thanks for your question! It's so nice and interesting to hear, that people want to know Ukraine - its language, culture, places to visit... :) yes, a lot of people in Ukraine speak/understand/know Russian language. And some of the words of Russian are similar to Ukrainian or the difference is too small. For example, "сегодня" in Russian and "сьогоднi" in Ukrainian (means "today") If you want to visit Ukraine, my advice is to visit Ternopil - it's a very beautiful city, with amazing nature and awesome historical buildings. Actually, the whole western part of the country is veeeery beautiful and full of forests, lakes, temples/monastery/churches; gardens - just take a look at this beautiful picture! Sofiyivsky Park - ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%BE%D1%84%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B0_(%D0%BF%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BA)#/media/File:Sofievka_ionicheskoe_more.JPG
+Eowyn of Rohan Hi, i'm from the western city - Lviv. I would say that the young generation (people below 20-25) mostly speak some basic English. As for the older people, they mostly dont, because when they were at school it was either Soviet Union (till 1990) or the time of reconstruction of Ukraine (1990-1997), so there was no reason or motivation to learn foreign languages. For example my parents learned French (dad) and German (mom) and no English! But frankly speaking they dont know any of the mentioned languages neither. They were taught at school at a low level, because it would be almost impossible to use them in the real life (people were not allowed to go abroad). Now times have changed and young people are really motivated to learn more languages. Every Ukrainian friend of mine speaks English fluently (or at least on a quite high level), but unfortunately that is not the case for everyone else..so far :)
PythonGames yes, I live in Ukraine and understand both languages. I think, nearly 90-95% of ukrainian people know these 2 languages. At least, these both languages we study/learn in kindergarten and at school. Also, a school program includes studying of English+French or German :) But the knowledge of foreign languages depends on a lot of aspects) but, what is really important - it's when your parents can speak both languages at home, so you can understand them both when you are veeeeery young :)
Irina Braunshtein please correct me if i'm wrong, but i was under the impression that ukranian and russian are very similar, possibly to the point of being mutually intelligible. am i wrong?
flatulentcelebration Well, that's quite a difficult question! I'll show you some examples. So, i.e. in English "The weather is wonderful today"; in Ukrainian "Сьогоднi чудова погода" (siogodni chudova pogoda); in Russian - "Сегодня чудесная погода" (sevodnia chudesnaya pagoda). There are a lot of words in Ukrainian language similar to Russian, but I must say that Ukrainian is close as to Russian language, so to Polish and Belorussian. I mean, if you are good in Ukrainian, it's not so diffucult to understand (at least a couple of words in) Polish/Belorussian. If you're ukrainian and live in Ukraine you can or will understand Ukrainian and Russian. (The former USSR influences a lot.) But if you're Russian and live your whole life in Russia (and didn't hear any Ukrainian word) - it will be hard to understand the whole sentences in Ukrainian language, even if the words sometimes sound similar. The same with Belorussian - if you're Russian and live your whole life in Russia (and didn't hear any Belorussian word) - it will be hard to understand Belorussian language, even if the words sometimes sound similar (and despite of using cyrillic script for these languages). And also dialects! In western part Ukrainian language is not the same as in Central or Eastern part. I know Ukrainian literature and language of poets and writers, but it was very difficult for me to understand people in Ternopil', Lviv, Uzhgorod (western part) even if they speak Ukrainian! They're talking so fast :) and it's kind of a mix of Polish-Hungarian-Ukrainian language. But you get used to it in some days Ah.. yeah.. it's really difficult to explain ... :) Maybe it's like British-American-Canadian English I suppose :)
nice! I see the interest of learning Ukrainian is growing, but I still have so many questions... I´ve read in Kiev the russian is dominant, the ukranian is dominant in the northern rural areas and on the southern part russian is dominant and most of the inhabintats does not speak ukranian, is that true? and also, speaking russian is a must in Ukraine?
Almost.Most of ukrainians speak two languages,but ua language are main.I could speak three languages(ua,russian and poland) and poland and that's so goog to me.
+Fabian Hiragisawa Hi, i live in the western part of Ukraine, in the city Lviv (you should Google it, it's one of the most beautiful, romantic and pro-ukrainian cities of Ukraine). And i have NEVER in my life ever spoken in Russian, thought i have traveled a lot in Ukraine everyone always understands me and speaking Ukrainian is no problem. I understand Russian very well, but as i have lack of practice , i have a very strong accent speaking in it. Russian speakers in Lviv usually start speaking Ukrainian when you address to them in it. Hope i've helped you lil bit!
Fabián F. Vega in west and center speak mostly ukrainian, in east and south russian ( big city’s ) . In Ukraine 65%speak ukrainian and 35% russian but people’s understand and can speak both languages.
Вот это народ. Посмотришь - все полиглоты. Ну, не знаю, любой язык очень сложен, ну просто очень. Невозможно выучить все, всегда что-то новое открываешь, чуть ли ни в каждом диалоге. Я никогда не заявлю, что знаю хоть какой-то язык, кроме русского. Разговаривать умею - да, но чтобы знаю...
***** One more guy, who like western propagand. I will say you a trusth. Russia is not in this conflict. Ukrainians kill ukrainians. I'm from Crimea :)
ddd7386 One more guy, who like russian propagand. I have friends in Russia, and they tell me that part of they friends, that serve in russian army, are fighting on the Donbas right now against Ukraine. Part of them also were in Crimea, when Russia started to annexe Crimea. They were dressed on uniform of ukrainian poliсеman's, and were guarding the fake "referendum process". Also, these soldiers admit that it was just shameless annexation. P.S. One of these guys already died in Donbas. P.P.S. That's not a stories from TV-news or something like that. Common, tell me now that it's all lies.
Антон Дудченко I don't like russian or western propagand, I don't like propagand at all. But I have to tell you that the world is wider than you think. I don't want to say you are lying, because somewhere maybe it was really fake, but also my grandma lives in Crimea near Alushta and she says that there WAS referendum and that she and her neighbors from all nearby houses were happy, it was real holiday when they become russians. So it is not so simple...
+natax shub I understand what you mean, but I thing that if even some part of referendum was just a fake, it means that all referendum was one big fake. If you lie just a littlebit, that's also a lie. It's a basic things, you can't take from 10% ot 20% of all people their votes, and to tell that it's okay. Everybody have his personal opinion, and your grandma can be happy from that, but anyone really asked the ukrainian and tatarian people what they think about it. I know many people that just leaved their job and home, escaping from crimea. You told that there "WAS" referendum, but it it's normal, when one country makes thing like that on territory of another country?? Did you think about it ever? Also, Hitler did the same things with countries, that where near Germany.
*Answering some commonly asked questions*.
Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian are the Eastern Slavic languages. Obviously, they have a high level of mutual intelligibility, similar to Spanish-Portuguese-Italian or Swedish-Norwegian-Danish. If every East Slavic nation were speaking only their state language following grammar rules and using proper vocabulary, still, we would have no problem understanding each other with a tad of ear training. However, the speaking skill is another aspect.
In reality, most of Ukrainians are bilingual (fluent in Ukrainian and Russian); some speak their local dialects.
*People in this video* are speaking decent, grammatically correct Ukrainian that you can use as a reference. Unfortunately, many people _think_ they speak Ukrainian, but in fact, they verbally produce a hard mix of Ukrainian and Russian (also known as _surzhyk_ ‒ “soor-zhyk”). I would not recommend learning surzhyk, because it’s like learning English in a ghetto.
So stupid! Ukrainian and belorusian are different from russian. You compares it with spanish and Portuguese but even ukrainian and belorusian are not so mutually inteligible. The russians don't understand ukrainian and belorusian. The ukrainians understand belorusian without learning. Actually russian is artificial language and it's based on a dialect of bulgarian language so there is no place for russian in east slavic group. It must be in some far east slavic group.
I really enjoyed watching your video. Please keep making them. They really make a big difference in how I imagine Ukraine. Some of the sentences I would like to have written on a poster or on a wall, like: You want another universe - learn another language. This is so much true.
Дуже дякую за відео! Завдяки вам можу вивчати вашу мову швидше
Looks like a beautiful place with very friendly people! I'd love to visit soon.
Is nice that easy language has started with the ukranian language too. Nice country and best people. Walk in the center of Kiev in Winter is a good therapy for me.
Оце вже випуск як треба. Нарешті опитувані розмовляють людською українською. Цікаво дивитись - продовжуйте в тому ж дусі!
Прекрасний епізод, колеги!
Дуже хороші запитання та хороші відповіді!)
I'd like to visit the Ukraine. It looks interesting. The Ukrainian language reminds me of my native tongue, Romanian. In the video, I've noticed some phonetic similarities between both languages, which is due to Ukrainian influence on Romanian historically. Romanian also contains loanwords from it too. So I can thank that to Ukrainian! XD
Ukraine looks like a photographer's dream. quite beautiful.
I want more videos like that!
не знала, що і про українську теж є ця серія відеоблогів, цікаво слухати відповіді, з перспективи теперішнього контексту
Good video, thank you!
Keep up with the great work, and thanks for the video. Ukraine is the country that I will visit next...
Дякую за цiкаве вiдео! Thanks for the interesting video! :)
Обожнюю українську мову!:)
Could you do "Easy Chinese" too? Although it's okay if you can't, you're already doing so much! Thank you:) And I really enjoyed this video!
Chinese is not easy. 😄
This is beautiful, thank you
My friend is Ukrainian but doesn't speak Ukrainian frequently, his mother tongue is Russian and he only uses Ukrainian when he visits his grandparents in Ukraine. How common is that and if I have understood correctly this also varies in different parts of Ukraine ?
In most of central and western Ukraine the mother tongue is Ukrainian, while in the eastern regions Russian is a bit more common. Recently, Ukrainian has become much more popular throughout the country
Do you have language clubs or meeting in Kiev/Lviv ? i'm going there soon
I like the sound of this language. I speak some Russian and would like to learn another Slavic language one day; maybe I'll go with this one :)
Do many people in Ukraine know English?
Eowyn of Rohan Hello :) Well, I live in Ukraine and I know English (I hope)) ). My job is connected with English, as I work as a translator/interpreter. I must say, that most of the people here know at least some phrases in English, like "My name is.." "London is the capital of Great Britain.." and "I am ... years old", because we learn English at school (well, maybe "learn" is not the right word for this, the problem is - a lack of motivation for students/pupils and kind of boring classes, and incorrect pronunciation, which comes from a lot of teachers.) And the biggest problem that even if someone knows English he/she is too shy to answer a foreigner, because of lack of practicing. And it is very hard to find a person, working in supermarket or anywhere else (especially at the hospital) (but except some restaurants and hotels) speaking English! But, maybe the situation is different in rather bigger cities, like Kiev, Kharkiv or even Dnipropetrovsk. In conclusion, I must say that people here are very hospitable, even if they don't know language, they will try to help you anyway :)
Thanks very much for your answer. I was actually sort of hoping for an answer like that, because I much prefer not to use English if I don't have to. I don't speak Ukrainian (yet?) but I understand that many Ukrainian people speak Russian, which I speak as well. I'd love to go there and use Russian while knowing it's my only option :)
Also, we have a similar problem with language learning here in the United States.
Eowyn of Rohan Thanks for your question! It's so nice and interesting to hear, that people want to know Ukraine - its language, culture, places to visit... :) yes, a lot of people in Ukraine speak/understand/know Russian language. And some of the words of Russian are similar to Ukrainian or the difference is too small. For example, "сегодня" in Russian and "сьогоднi" in Ukrainian (means "today") If you want to visit Ukraine, my advice is to visit Ternopil - it's a very beautiful city, with amazing nature and awesome historical buildings. Actually, the whole western part of the country is veeeery beautiful and full of forests, lakes, temples/monastery/churches; gardens - just take a look at this beautiful picture! Sofiyivsky Park -
ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%BE%D1%84%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B0_(%D0%BF%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BA)#/media/File:Sofievka_ionicheskoe_more.JPG
+Eowyn of Rohan Hi, i'm from the western city - Lviv. I would say that the young generation (people below 20-25) mostly speak some basic English. As for the older people, they mostly dont, because when they were at school it was either Soviet Union (till 1990) or the time of reconstruction of Ukraine (1990-1997), so there was no reason or motivation to learn foreign languages. For example my parents learned French (dad) and German (mom) and no English! But frankly speaking they dont know any of the mentioned languages neither. They were taught at school at a low level, because it would be almost impossible to use them in the real life (people were not allowed to go abroad).
Now times have changed and young people are really motivated to learn more languages. Every Ukrainian friend of mine speaks English fluently (or at least on a quite high level), but unfortunately that is not the case for everyone else..so far :)
at last the first proper video about our language
Так гарно! це в якому мiстi?
Islam Benfifi Київ
I know Russian already and I'm wondering do people in Ukraine understand both Ukrainian and Russian?
PythonGames yes, I live in Ukraine and understand both languages. I think, nearly 90-95% of ukrainian people know these 2 languages. At least, these both languages we study/learn in kindergarten and at school. Also, a school program includes studying of English+French or German :) But the knowledge of foreign languages depends on a lot of aspects) but, what is really important - it's when your parents can speak both languages at home, so you can understand them both when you are veeeeery young :)
Irina Braunshtein please correct me if i'm wrong, but i was under the impression that ukranian and russian are very similar, possibly to the point of being mutually intelligible. am i wrong?
flatulentcelebration Well, that's quite a difficult question! I'll show you some examples. So, i.e. in English "The weather is wonderful today"; in Ukrainian "Сьогоднi чудова погода" (siogodni chudova pogoda); in Russian - "Сегодня чудесная погода" (sevodnia chudesnaya pagoda). There are a lot of words in Ukrainian language similar to Russian, but I must say that Ukrainian is close as to Russian language, so to Polish and Belorussian. I mean, if you are good in Ukrainian, it's not so diffucult to understand (at least a couple of words in) Polish/Belorussian. If you're ukrainian and live in Ukraine you can or will understand Ukrainian and Russian. (The former USSR influences a lot.) But if you're Russian and live your whole life in Russia (and didn't hear any Ukrainian word) - it will be hard to understand the whole sentences in Ukrainian language, even if the words sometimes sound similar. The same with Belorussian - if you're Russian and live your whole life in Russia (and didn't hear any Belorussian word) - it will be hard to understand Belorussian language, even if the words sometimes sound similar (and despite of using cyrillic script for these languages). And also dialects! In western part Ukrainian language is not the same as in Central or Eastern part. I know Ukrainian literature and language of poets and writers, but it was very difficult for me to understand people in Ternopil', Lviv, Uzhgorod (western part) even if they speak Ukrainian! They're talking so fast :) and it's kind of a mix of Polish-Hungarian-Ukrainian language. But you get used to it in some days Ah.. yeah.. it's really difficult to explain ... :) Maybe it's like British-American-Canadian English I suppose :)
Irina Braunshtein wow, that explained a lot! Спасибі!
flatulentcelebration You're welcome! Будь ласка / Нема за що! :)
Love it! Thank you!
More Ukrainian please
Дiдько. Обожнюю українську мову. Не те, що у нас, у южан вона трiшки ломана, та й акцент не зовсiм природний.
Чудове відео!
Украинский звучит так красиво. Я хочу его изучать!
nice! I see the interest of learning Ukrainian is growing, but I still have so many questions... I´ve read in Kiev the russian is dominant, the ukranian is dominant in the northern rural areas and on the southern part russian is dominant and most of the inhabintats does not speak ukranian, is that true? and also, speaking russian is a must in Ukraine?
Almost.Most of ukrainians speak two languages,but ua language are main.I could speak three languages(ua,russian and poland) and poland and that's so goog to me.
+Fabian Hiragisawa Hi, i live in the western part of Ukraine, in the city Lviv (you should Google it, it's one of the most beautiful, romantic and pro-ukrainian cities of Ukraine). And i have NEVER in my life ever spoken in Russian, thought i have traveled a lot in Ukraine everyone always understands me and speaking Ukrainian is no problem. I understand Russian very well, but as i have lack of practice , i have a very strong accent speaking in it. Russian speakers in Lviv usually start speaking Ukrainian when you address to them in it. Hope i've helped you lil bit!
Fabián F. Vega in west and center speak mostly ukrainian, in east and south russian ( big city’s ) . In Ukraine 65%speak ukrainian and 35% russian but people’s understand and can speak both languages.
It was but now most of people begin to speak ukrainian instead of russian.
Одразу зрозумів що чоловік на лавці коло могилянки)) класний випуск
Am I the only who feels that voice is a bit low
Вот это народ. Посмотришь - все полиглоты.
Ну, не знаю, любой язык очень сложен, ну просто очень. Невозможно выучить все, всегда что-то новое открываешь, чуть ли ни в каждом диалоге. Я никогда не заявлю, что знаю хоть какой-то язык, кроме русского. Разговаривать умею - да, но чтобы знаю...
Russians! Let Ukrainians alone!
***** do you mean simple russian citizens? they can't influence on propaganda... if you mean Putin, then blame just him, not all russians
***** One more guy, who like western propagand. I will say you a trusth. Russia is not in this conflict. Ukrainians kill ukrainians.
I'm from Crimea :)
ddd7386 One more guy, who like russian propagand. I have friends in Russia, and they tell me that part of they friends, that serve in russian army, are fighting on the Donbas right now against Ukraine. Part of them also were in Crimea, when Russia started to annexe Crimea. They were dressed on uniform of ukrainian poliсеman's, and were guarding the fake "referendum process". Also, these soldiers admit that it was just shameless annexation.
P.S. One of these guys already died in Donbas.
P.P.S. That's not a stories from TV-news or something like that. Common, tell me now that it's all lies.
Антон Дудченко I don't like russian or western propagand, I don't like propagand at all. But I have to tell you that the world is wider than you think. I don't want to say you are lying, because somewhere maybe it was really fake, but also my grandma lives in Crimea near Alushta and she says that there WAS referendum and that she and her neighbors from all nearby houses were happy, it was real holiday when they become russians. So it is not so simple...
+natax shub I understand what you mean, but I thing that if even some part of referendum was just a fake, it means that all referendum was one big fake. If you lie just a littlebit, that's also a lie. It's a basic things, you can't take from 10% ot 20% of all people their votes, and to tell that it's okay. Everybody have his personal opinion, and your grandma can be happy from that, but anyone really asked the ukrainian and tatarian people what they think about it. I know many people that just leaved their job and home, escaping from crimea.
You told that there "WAS" referendum, but it it's normal, when one country makes thing like that on territory of another country?? Did you think about it ever?
Also, Hitler did the same things with countries, that where near Germany.
I think the photographer is the only person who speaks Ukrainian on daily basis, while others have difficulties explaining what they want to say.
Які ж в нас красиві дівчата
Sounds Russian, but you don't understand what is said.
Sounds "softer" than Russian for me.
Back when there's no war against Russia and Ukraine
Кар'єра та вивчення англійської то не є аргумент. Те саме і про рос кажуть, однак тре свою просувати, інакше так і будемо чужі вивчати.
Мову в Европе никто не вразумляет. Учите English: How mach for an hour? Cheap ukranian girls and boys for your pleasure, european friends😅
Ну, вашу білосруську, то точно ніхто вчити не буде