I just want to say this: I don't give up. I'll practice Ukrainian. I don't give up, 'cause I have some Ukrainian friends and I'm not going to stop it and maybe if I have the chance to hire ukrainian professionals. but thanks to inspire me to focus to understand only in this beautiful language. I don't give up. Greetings from Guatemala City, Guatemala, Latin america. 👍✍💪 🇺🇦 🇺🇦 🇬🇹 🇬🇹
Another obstacle that seems pretty unique to learning Ukrainian compared to other languages I have learned- the fact that Ukrainian media, tv shows/radio etc. are very often mixed Ukrainian/Russian in the same program. Like for example, it is very common to see on TV or radio an interview where the host will speak Ukrainian, but the person they are interviewing will reply to all the questions in Russian. Another common thing is for the speakers to switch between the two languages during the same conversation. This can make finding "authentic" materials for learning Ukrainian challenging, because when you start watching a Ukrainian RUclips video for example, you never know if the clip will actually be 100% Ukrainian, or if it will be a combination of the two languages. For most other languages I have learned this situation does not exist, for example, when watching a French or Spanish language TV show, it is impossible that they will speak 2 different languages during the same conversation, the entire show will be in the same language- even if it is not everyone's first language, like for example, if a guest is on a French language radio show, they will speak in French only to reply to the questions even if French isn't their first language, they won't simply reply in their native language because its easier for them, even if they know that the other person would understand them, because it is expected that the entire show will take place in French if it is a French language program. I guess the main difference is that in Ukraine it is probably safe to assume that everyone listening will understand both languages, so it doesn't matter if the participants speak 2 different languages, but it makes it very difficult for people who are not native speakers to follow.
I mean why not learn both languages? Russian is already very influential and Ukrainian will only help. This influence is also obvious when you look at Soviet influence over Ukraine, multiple times the Ukrainian language was banned in Ukraine.
@Buddy Rojek Russian will never become a pariah language...I was born in Severodonetsk (eastern Ukraine) and only Russian is spoken there...in fact many places in Ukraine speak Russian. So this is simply not true. Learn Russian it will be easier trust. And plus, who will you speak Ukrainian with?
@Buddy Rojek I will agree with you though about the negative light Putin is shining on the Russian language. It will lose popularity and be hated but it will become normal again trust me.
@Buddy Rojek No russians will not learn Ukrainian, now you are going too far. Given 73% of Russians in Russia support the war, that is wishful thinking…
I was born in Lviv but never learned Ukrainian growing up because I came to America when I was a baby. I'm finally ready to learn my language and I just found your channel, I can't wait to watch your videos! Дякую! :)
Also, can anyone give me some other great resources for learning Ukrainian? I took Russian in college because they obviously didn't teach Ukrainian, but now I'm trying to find books, movies, tv shows, etc. to help me learn Ukrainian rather than Russian.
@@sophiatailor2453 I grew up in Canada but I went to English elementary school with a Ukrainian program and then learned the grammar at University of Toronto because they actually have a Ukrainian department. Some people I can understand perfectly and other people I can't understand at all speaking Ukrainian! There is an old version of Ukrainian that our grandparents brought before the Soviet Union and then modern Ukrainian is mixed with new words and Russian corruption and I can't understand them at all! I think the even the accent is changed a bit. They mix a lot of Russian words in Ukrainian TV and its frustrating
1 - motivation - current happenings 2 - how to start? - i watched your video "how to read the ukrainian alphabet" and then learnt the alphabet!! 3 - high expectations - yeah. i know i was always bad with languages and i don't have high expectations 4 - time - i make time 5 - i forget everything - i talk to my dog all day in ukrainian. i am slightly mad. я люблю тебе! ти любиш мене??? dog just looks confused.
this isn't a bad idea! I already listen to Ukranian music all day so I may as well teach my brilliant German shepherd Ukranian commands. It's all greek to dogs anyway.
I know it's not the best tool but I started on Duolingo and Ukrainian 287 days ago. I hated languages at school and I have learned more Ukrainian in this time than all my time at high school. I'm very stubborn and if you make me learn something I won't. I thought I was terrible at languages until I started learning Ukrainian. I think it is because it's something I am passionate about. I don't agree with genocide and if a certain country wants to wipe the whole of Ukraine including heretige and language I want to learn about it. I think I have got to the point where I may need other ways of learning. I find I am good at reading and understanding but it is more difficult with listening speaking. I wish I was in a position to visit Ukraine and use only Ukrainian, as I must say this about Duolingo.. although I am a long way from speaking the language. I genuinely believe if the person I speaks to speaks slowly when I ask, I would actually be able to get along pretty much with no English. This being said I would be saying a lot of words wrong for example the masculine and the feminine but speaking with a Ukrainian refugee my friend has taken in. She said she understands me but it's very broken 😂! Hope this makes sense and apologies for the grammar I don't seem to have mastered English after nearly 45 years . Ultimately I would like to volunteer to translate for my local hospital as they are very short of these type of volunteers for a Ukrainian who has little or no English. I will be checking out your videos and Все буде Україні!
I'm half Ukrainian, and didn't grow up in Ukraine. Sadly I wasn't able to learn Ukrainian during my life. I know basic Russian and Ukrainian. (Russian more tbh bc we know how most cartoon and songs are in russian). Anyway, I would love to learn and be fluent in my language. However, it seems to be pretty challenging because I never know where to start from..
This is exactly my situation too. I'm currently learning because I want to be able to speak my heritage language. I already know some Russian but I just find Ukrainian more interesting Most of my Ukrainian relatives are Russian/Ukrainian bilingual but are now choosing to speak Ukrainian more
I want to learn for my lady and myself. I am in Ukraine at least 3 times a year and for me it is very important to learn. I started local Ukrainian classes, but the teacher told me more people speak Russian in Ukraine and I switched... Wrong move completely. I know a little of both Russian and Ukrainian, but I want to learn Ukrainian ) I will be emailing you after typing this comment.
Respect to you, my friend. It's a warm feeling when someone respects our language enough to actually learn it. Stay strong man, you'll get it. Especially if you will practice with your ukrainian partner ✊
Your English sounds very good to me, very clear and well spoken and good grammar and structure. Anyways, thankyou for this! I have just embarked on my journey to learning Ukrainian and this video is very useful.
I am engaged to a wonderful Ukrainian woman who also speaks English. I would like to be able to talk to her in her native language like she talks to me in mine. I guess the reason I want to learn Ukrainian would be simply to put love
I just signed up for lessons with you and am so excited. My brother married a beautiful Ukraine lady and I want to be able to speak with her family while in Ukraine. I also joined a missions group, Last Bell, to help Ukrainian youth. I’ve been learning on my own pretty well but now it is time to get serious!
I love your passion for language teaching. I am an American and I visited Ukraine in 2016 and I stayed with an Inna and her family😊 I just found a Ukrainian church here in Fairview, Oregon and I have decided to start attending when I can. I would like to visit Ukraine again and learn your language for God and for the people. I love Ukraine! Thanks for all your videos!
I've been on DuoLingo for about 3 years now. That seems to be my greatest motivation as I don't know anyone that is Ukranian. I am terrified to try speaking Ukranian to somebody that is actually fluent in Ukranian.
I learned a few Ukrainian phrases, and practiced them till they just rolled off my tongue (at home, alone.) Then I got to meet a Ukrainian refugee family and when I tried those phrases, it's as if I barely knew them. I know how you feel!
@@hovanti After I wrote that message, more than a year ago, I've traveled to Ukraine for a month long tour, engaged in speaking clubs, and I'm marrying a lady native to Odessa. I can't wait to go back to Ukraine with her next time.
@@hovanti I got lucky, but I'll say start learning Ukrainian or Russian is the best place to start. Trolling the numerous websites for foreign ladies is less productive.
I’ve been living in Ukrainian for about 4 years now but my Ukrainian knowledge is still very basic because I don’t get to interact much with locals. I really want to master the Ukrainian language
Just like Johnny FD who is an American You Tuber living in Kyiv. He cannot yet speak much Ukrainian. His vlogs about life in Ukraine now are very good.
I think the obstacles for learning any second language recreationally are more or less the same. You have other things to do, often times don't have anyone close to you to converse with in said language, and it requires a lot of consistency or you start to lose whatever progress you've gained. I found personally some things that help are listening to music in the language you're learning and watching movies with subtitles.
Because of the current crisis (re: Russia invading) I decided to study Ukrainian. I don't have Ukrainian ancestry (the closest is Czech), but I do enjoy learning languages. Up to date, I have studied French and Swedish, and have dabbled in Italian, Irish, Mandarin, and Czech. Irish and Czech are very hard, partly because they use the Latin alphabet but few words are cognates to English. Although the Cyrillic alphabet is radically different, I think it will be beneficial to me because I won't be expecting to make any predictions about words or syntax because I won't have anything to compare it with. Duolingo is my first resource for studying Ukrainian, and they have a whole section of their program devoted to the alphabet (outside of their learning modules). In completing those exercises, it would be helpful if they told me what HOHHA or TOTa meant (for example) or if they're just random phonemes put together for the sake of practice. 🙄 I have also downloaded the Pimsleur method as an audiobook to help learn to speak the language.
Similar for me. I've only just started but I decided that, before I go any further, I want to totally crack the script issue. Some years back I started to lean Greek but never got past the script issue. Having to struggle to work through every word, letter by letter, was such a chore. So this time, I've created my own custom keyboard layout to help with the process. All the characters that have a similar sound to Latin alphabet characters, I put on the keys of their cognates. I have keyboard shortcuts setup so I can easily switch between this custom Ukrainian keyboard and my normal English UK. I then found online Ukrainian newspapers and copy and pasted articles into a text document. Then just typed the text, immediately below the pasted copy. To find the necessary keys for each letter I have to remember how each character is pronounced. Since I'm already a decent touch typist in English, this has helped me greatly to associate the characters with their sound. It took me a few days to fine tune the keyboard layout that works for me but after using it for a few hours, my typing speed in Ukrainian is already becoming quite reasonable and I'm just starting to be able to read whole syllables (even though I don't know what they mean), without having the pain of struggling with every character. I have also dabbled with quite a few other languages and always tend to loose interest after a while. I'm hoping that my time invested in learning the cyrillic script and (having it available at my fingertips) will motivate me to keep focussed.
I am from Ukrainian decent from western Ukraine, born in the USA. My grandparents were Ukrainian and my father never spoke English until he was around 5 or 6. I visited Ukraine in 2021 and went there 2 more times and left 1 month before the war started. I am now married to a Ukrainian woman living in the US. Unfortunately, she is from Kharkiv and has been Russified. We have a new son now and it upsets me that she speaks to him in Russian. Growing up I did learn some words but not enough to have a conversation. I will be watching your videos to try and become more fluent in Ukrainian.
In reality, this horrible war has brought the Ukrainian language to me. In my journey through learning other Slavic languages (as foreign languages), some of my language exchange partners feel uncomfortable speaking in Russian with me. While I experienced something similar during my studies of Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian, I am glad that this opportunity has presented itself. Otherwise, I would have taken for granted that Ukrainians will simply accommodate me in Russian. I’m reminded of the time when I arrived in Prague, hoping to be understood in Russian. It turned out, most locals weren’t impressed with Slavic brotherly Russian. As a man of Pakistani extraction, I welcome the chance to explore through the Slavic languages.
I started learning Ukrainian, on Duolingo, for a few reasons. Firstly I'm 52 and have seen the effects of people around my age (and younger) slowing down and stopping learning so was looking for something challenging to learn. Secondly following the Russian invasion of Ukraine it felt like a way to show solidarity with Ukraine. Finally, the city I live in, Birmingham in the UK, is a designated city of sanctuary for refugees so there's a good chance I'm going to bump into someone fleeing the war and it would be nice to be able to speak at some level with them, even if just to say Привіт. I only started two weeks ago, I think I'm just starting to get my head into it, your video on the alphabet was very helpful. When Duolingo changed their user interface last week they lost about half of my progress which was really off putting, on the other hand it's giving me a chance to review material, although it's a bit frustrating to be hit with a sentence like "Чиє це батки?" or "Але, де моя дружина?" and be left thinking, "When am I going to be using phrases like that?" I found your videos whilst looking for other sources to learn from. In the past I've tried to learn German and Spanish at a local language school but always run into the same issue, over the year the class size reduces due to people losing interest until by the time we come back after Easter break (they follow the regular school year, three terms starting in September and finishing in July with breaks at Christmas and Easter) there's not enough students for the class to be viable. I can never progress onto year two because I can't get to the end of year 1 due to the class closing. German has come in useful a few times including at work where a project hired a Hungarian contractor without first checking that he spoke English, he didn't, not a word, but he did speak German very well so between my limited knowledge of German, and me bringing in my German-English dictionaries and grammar books, we were able to communicate enough that we could work together. I also once had to use it to help out the clerk at a hotel in London who was from somewhere in Eastern Europe, was here to study English, and had gotten so flustered by the American (US) couple shouting at her that her command of English disappeared. You mentioned songs as being part of why you learned English. A number of my friends who grew up in countries where English is not a native language say they got their start in learning English pronunciations because a lot of US TV shows would appear on their national channels, some dubbed and some subtitled with the original soundtrack. Made me wonder if you get that in Ukraine?
I have always wanted to learn Ukrainian because I have always wanted to visit the country one day and to speak with the local and try to have conversations with the people.
Hi Inna, I am 86 years of age , I have been studying Russian for about 5 years , 2 years on Duolingo , and am ( for various reasons ) thinking of switching to Ukrainian . What would you suggest I start working on , and could you help me with the transition? I read Cyrillic reasonably well .
I want to learn Ukrainian so I can visit family in Ukraine. I taught myself Cyrillic. But its hard to learn what words mean. If I read a word slowly, I can sound it out.
Another excellent video! I have been super inspired by your channel to make videos about my experience learning Ukrainian. I actually feature you in one of my videos!! Thank you for sharing your knowledge of this beautiful language 😍.
Thanks so much for the video, it's really great! 😃 My biggest obstacle though is that I understand 80% of Ukrainian but at the same time I am an absolute beginner so when I look at something in Ukrainian it's like "cool, I know it all" and when I try to speak it's just like "привiт... wait, I can't remember a single word" xD I just can't get my brain to switch from native Russian to a different pronounciation and vocabulary 🙈 Do you have any tips how to switch your brain from Russian to Ukrainian and not mix them up? 😃
Bunny Fluff Будь ласка! Good question. If you are fluent in Russian, you will probably understand Ukrainian well. But it doesn’t mean you are able to speak Ukrainian well. You need to learn at least basics of Ukrainian. Firstly, you have to learn Ukrainian phonetics and to master a Ukrainian accent, because your speech will sound bad. Also, you need to understand the difference in grammar, it won't be difficult at all. And don't forget about the basic vocabulary. It is very important too. Take some time to learn Ukrainian. If you are ready to do it by yourself, don't compare it with Russian at all. Just focus on Ukrainian, and remember it is a different language! If you are ready to learn with the teacher, hire a bilingual teacher, who will explain to you everything easily.
This language is HARD. I love learning languages , and want to learn this one to help my new coworker feel less alone (she is a refugee of the war in Ukraine who just arrived in my Country and is all alone here ) , but I struggle less learning conversational Mandarin than I do with Ukrainian for some reason (and Mandarin is very very challenging ) I’ll keep at it though !
I have difficulty adjusting to the alphabet because there are several letters that look very much like the english and european alphabet but sound much different. There are also numerous letters that sound like the European alphabet but look entirely different. Also many words have many letters in them making it challenging to read fluently.
Прівіт! I am a native English speaker in canada who is starting to learn ukrainian. This was an excellent video laying out my obstacles. I don't know anyone who is ukrainian, but the war has put your country into my brain, and my heart aches for your people. I want to help some refugees that make it to Canada with no where to stay, especially with small children. (I have small children and space to fit a small family. So I have enough stuff to share/give away ). I think it would be a nice gesture to learn as much about the language as I can. I tried and failed many times years ago to learn Polish, so I already have a soft spot on my heart for Slavic languages. Hopefully this dreadful war, and the limited capacity I have to help, will be the motivation I need to learn a second language. It will also make tourism easier. When the war is over I want to vacation there and volunteer somehow and help physically and economically , knowing how to speak ukrainian will help with that effort. I'm so glad I found your channel. I'll be buying the book and looking into lessons with a native speaker. Seeing as how I know no one, can someone comment if it's a nice gesture to cook some борщ as a welcome meal? Or any other advice? Thank you 😊❤️
Inna you are very helpful, ever since I started learning Ukrainian 5 days ago, I took notes of phonetics, words, and English meanings. I also wrote a reminder of my goal for learning Ukrainian. And even if I hadn’t written it down I still would’ve remembered that I’m learning because I want to talk to my crush’s friend that I keep running into. She said hi to me today, and she speaks good English she just has a heavy accent, but she speaks Ukrainian around her friends, and I want her to understand what I’m saying. So once I master Ukrainian, I’ll probably be thanking you about 1 million times or Оден мільйон
It is a beautiful thing to observe and listen to you speak. I am striving to learn some Ukrainian as I am growing very close to someone who was forced to join relatives in Kazakhstan because😢of the war. When I see her I wish to express my deep feelings for her in her own language. I am mute from Cancer at the moment but hope to get over that obstacle. I am not understanding how to obtain your book on cases but will keep researching. Thank you Inna, you are beautiful just as my friend from your country.
Your English is so cute and amusing to me Inna It is universally true with exotic languages everyone speaks in a funny style and that is just beautiful. Keep up the good work. I use the example of using both feet to walk to progress grammar and vocabulary step by step simultaneously. I picket out the top 10 commonest spoken languages and I learned them all. Russian was there but not Ukrainian but now to help the refugees I need to quickly pick up some Ukrainian
I can speak English, German, and some Spanish. I am 67 and have been adopted by a Ukrainian family as my caretaker so this is my motivation. I will be living with this family and I think it is wonderful opportunity to expand my language skills. Thank you for your tips.
You forgot the biggest obstacle. The teacher. Often, teachers try to teach what is important to the teacher. This is bad, because they should be teaching what is important to the students. Students will work harder if they are learning what is important to them. Teachers think grammar is important, because teachers want students to learn perfection and be fluent. This is wrong. Students want to communicate. It doesn't matter if the grammar is horrible. You can still communicate. Vocabulary is the most important thing. Grammar is the last thing that should be taught.
My grandma is Ukrainian and she was fluent in the language up until recently she didn't talk to her sister as much so she lost most of the language. My cousin tried learning it too but gave up when my grandma didn't understand what he was saying because she forgot most of it. My great grandfather tried teaching my father and his siblings the language when they were younger but he didn't know English so it was harder. I wanna learn Ukrainian but I find that motivation is hard because my grandma doesn't remember much of it and I don't really have contact with her. I see her three times a year though, and I always wish that my family had shared the language and traditions.
I’m American and I’m planning to learn Ukrainian and Polish cuz I’d love to go to Poland this summer after I graduate and volunteer to help in anyway possible for the refugees. I hope I can pick up some basic conversations in a couple of months.
I took your advice and just purchased your textbook Master Ukrainian Cases. I also subscribed to your channel here, because it is very important that I learn the Ukrainian language as quickly as possible, and I can tell by your videos, by your website, and even on Amazon that you are a master, and I want to learn from the best. I appreciate all of your advice, and will likely contract you about becoming one of your students soon. Thank you for your help and sharing of this very important knowledge! I am very grateful.
Well, I've got some powerful motivation; I love the culture, music, and especially the food. However, now that I know I'm expected to give up eventually, well, now I'll die before I give up on Ukrainian
You're are fully understandable in English, good job it's got some weird rules coming from an English native, but since you gave us tips I'll give you one that will help your English alot if you're trying to think say um ,the u makes the same sound as the word up ,it'll make you sound more native and give you time to think of what you want to say and how you want to say it ,I can't speak for other languages but in English how you say something is usually just as important if not more important than what you're saying ,so we say um alot while thinking of how to word or say something ,also would it be more useful to learn Russian ik alot of Ukrainians already speak Russian too ,and which would you say would be easier to learn for an English speaker
Inna, nice video. One of the problems I have with Ukrainian language is that Ukrainian women speak way too fast...it's very difficult when someone doesn't speak slowly and enunciate...
aandgdesigngroup If you are a beginner in Ukrainian, the speech of all Ukrainians will sound fast for you. Though they speak at normal tempo. You need to practice Ukrainian a lot.
My grandmother was taken out of her village by the Nazi's in 1946. She met my Dutch grandfather in the German camps and after the war she moved with him to the Netherlands. Sadly she past away and I was aware that I still had family in Ukraine. My uncle helped me with an adress of her younger sister and I wrote a letter in cyrillic from google translate. I got a message from a cousin last year in march and now on both sides we are verry happy to be in contact with each other! When covid is under control I want to visit them and be able to communicate with them, besides the fact that I feell the need to come closer to my roots by learning this beautifull language!
Я японець старше 50 років. мої друзі із Західної України розмовляють українською мовою, але можуть писати російську мову. Тож я все одно продовжую вивчати російську мову спочатку перед українською. Я думаю, що українська мова поділяє спільність з японською мовою. ми часто використовуємо голосні. Інша тема... Ми зазвичай вивчаємо російську та українську мову, щоб одружитися з жінками. Моя подруга-українка лінива вивчати англійську мову.Вона сказала мені, що не має талантів у оволодінні англійською майстерністю. Тому я хочу знати, як мотивувати . Слабкість українських жінок - бути лінивим. Я хочу знати, як її мотивувати. Їй 39 років.
Inna- great video, great advice- I’ve been living in Kyiv for years but never learned the language since my Ukrainian wife a) speaks Russian as first language, and b) wanted to speak and improve her English with me...so, now I find I may be working soon with a Ukrainian company and regret my lack of the language. I have hit all 5 of your obstacles! My addition problem is I have picked up a little bit of Russian (чуть-чуть) so it would be easier to continue learning it. If I start Ukrainian seriously it will be extra confusing. What would you recommend?
Peter Tauvers If you know Russain чуть-чуть, it won’t be confusing at all, especially if you are going to focus only on 1 language. I had students who learned Russian and Ukrainian languages at the same time, and they did it great.
@@SpeakUkrainian learning both at the same time would be sooooooo cool. Especially with current situation because I want to understand things better from different perspectives. Thank god people like you exist, so thank you for all you do.
I've started with the alphabet, I want to figure that out then progress from there. Thank you so much for helping me 😊. Btw your English is not bad at all I've never had a difficult time understanding everything you say. I want to try to learn Ukrainian because maybe some day I can take a trip to Ukraine. If I could I would be there now helping and learning😊
Learning perfect language is not typically necessary. Communication is the most important part about learning a new language. Your English is understood perfectly and the accent, which many people try to eliminate from their speaking, is actually very pleasant to the ear! Don’t lose your accent! My personal opinion.😊
i started on duo lingo about a week ago and switched over to primsleur after i got sick of duo lingo. i just felt like i wasn't learning much besides vocab and phonetics on duo lingo. primsleur is great for starting to speak it makes you listen to conversations of real people and just repeat what they are saying. slowly you start to understand how to properly pronounce words and phrases and it seems like you learn super fast i can already have a conversation about my language skills and ask basic questions like what would you like to eat do you speak English where is volodomry street things of that nature and teaches you to start reading after you already have some speaking down but doing duo lingo 100% taught me the alphabet and gave me a huge head start with speaking and pronunciation. i really want to learn cause i want to go and be a medical volunteer and help out i am planning on going after Christmas so i hope i am able to learn a decent amount of Ukrainian i spend about 6-8 hours everyday on primsleur and you can do it while your doing thing around the house which is nice practicing definitely takes more effort though i can not believe how fast you guys speak and the word order messes with my brain lol especially since its different depending on if the sentence is plural or singular at least that's what I've noticed. i love your videos they are super helpful when i get bored of studying
Your talk hit the mark, with humour, thank you :-). I agree with everything you said. My maternal great grandparents were from Ukraine and I am now teaching myself, but I find it very difficult, and not at all like the other languages I speak. But that is the challenge. Hopefully in a year or two I'll be able to greet my Ukrainian neighbours, and have small very simple conversations :-).
No.. Pretty good English. I have no real reason to learn Ukrainian but find it kinda interesting. Speaking of music as a motivation, that Ukrainian song I keep seeing videos of soldiers singing while kicking their feet out with backs against each other. It sounds really fun and interesting. I am super curious as to the lyrics for that song--what exactly are they and what do they mean? Where did this song come from? I am guessing it's some kind of traditional Ukrainian folk song.
Everything that I have learned has been self-taught and through Duolingo. I also do not know what my motivation is. But I started on Duolingo and I loved the language. My issue is lack of resources and time (because I play hockey and am in highschool). Any suggestions on resources?
I would like to learn Ukrainian. My wife is Ukrainian-American. Her father was born in Budaniv a village about 100 miles from Ternopyl. I think Ukrainian is more difficult because of the alphabet. I studied eight years of German in High School and in College. I speak pretty well, but I don't consider myself fluent since I don't get to use that much. I have an Ukrainian University near me,but the course is in English trying to teach you some conversational Ukrainian. I want to learn the alphabet, how to pronounce the words with a decent Ukrainian accent. My wife learned Ukrainian first as that's all they spoke in their home. Her Mother was born in Poland. My wife can help me, but she doesn't think that she speaks it that well. I disagree with her. I think she does fine with speaking it. Also, Inna, you speak English very well. God bless you too with all that is happening there.I wife has family in Ternopyl area.Some female cousins have emigrated to Poland, of course the male cousins are fighting for Ukraine. God bless you all, Slava Ukraine!!!!🙏🙏🇺🇦🇺🇦💛💙
Inna, also here a suggestion to help you speak English better. You have a problem saying the word vowel. Think about adding the Ukrainian letter в in front of word as it will help you with the v sound.. Take care!!!
My problem with Ukrainian is that I can understand the basics but my pronunciation is really bad. I feel like I'd benefit from having a friend to speak with but I don't know anyone who speaks Ukrainian :(
My Grandmother was from Ukraine and my Grandfather was from Belarus. They both spoke Ukrainian. While I can speak and understand some, I am not fluent. I am constantly. trying to learn more. Sorry that you gave up on guitar. I have been playing bass guitar for over 15 years. Yes, your hands will hurt but you will develop callouses and it will get easier. Try practicing for 15-20 minutes per day and learn some simple chords..Most of all, have fun with it.
I am trying to learning Ukrainian, cause I think it will be a ood academic challenge, and my main challenge is time, but I hope after covid 19 ends, I will beable to practice this language with some on the native speakers at my high school
@Jon Ford its coming along, you could say, just a little bit, a couple of time a week. What I am using for apps are youtube, duo lingo, and Amazon audible is great to
I can read the Cyrillic alphabet and I'm good at the phonetics and can read many of the words, but I struggle with learning cases, but I want to persevere in my learning journey.
I’m Dutch and have been learning Russian for 3 years now, but only from friends and google translate in my free time. I’ve been making many friends among the Ukrainian refugees here in Holland and Love these people and so I have just decided that I want to learn Ukrainian aswel, my main obstacle is that some of them speak Russian with eachother (of which I can speak and understand about 60%), but these same people speak Ukrainian with others who prefer to speak Ukrainian only, so if I sit at their table and try to understand the conversation, I recently discovered I’m hearing a mishmash of both languages! 😅
Nice video miss, I've discovered your channel just now and I wanna tell you that I'm learning English because I think it's a very easy language, but I asked myself if I was able to learn another language and I loved the Ukrainian language, I think it sounds very sexy, but I don't know how to start because the structures of the sentences are so different, I know I can learn the cyrilic alphabet but idk how to articulate correct sentences and sound fluent like a native speaker. By the way excellent content and I send u my regards from Mexico!
If you go back far enough, all the languages listed descend from PIE. So, yeah, between Ukrainian and English is a lot of distance, but it's doable with time and dedication. I will never give up. I will keep studying and achieve fluency by the time I get there. Every day I have a reminder that pops up.. не забудьте сьогодні вивчати українську мову Зараз я розумію багато, але я вчуся щодня
I agree with everything here , the only issue I have is the course from Absolute beginner to confident speaker, I've taken this course with you twice now and I'm stuck on cases lesson 7 , I believe there should be a true course on Absolute Beginner. As you said Alphabet and phonetics and basic words at the start is very important I feel I was rushed through this and could have easily spent a full course on this putting it all together is way to daunting and frankly confusing , I was just getting proficient at the the first part and starting to understand stuff and then we moved into and onto cases . Any way would like to see and work with you on a true course for absolute beginners.
the first obstacle for myself as an English speaker is not having lessons to teach a solid foundation in phonology. Found your phonetic videos to short unfortunately. I have yet to find any Ukrainian lessons that do this in a slow, methodical and yes, boring way. ( think old time FSI teaching method as an example) if anyone knows of such lessons could they please direct me to them. thank you. Perhaps my best way is to come to Ukraine and enrol in private language course. I do enjoy this channel and am very motivated because of your love to teach the world about Ukrainian and hope to start using it once I have the foundation of a good phonology. :)
I have Ukrainian roots and want to go to Ukraine. I really enjoy the 30+ minutes a day I devote to Ukrainian. The soft sign and some of the letters give me problems. I learned what the letters look like when typed, now I have to learn how to write.
I was thinking to get another language. When war in Ukraine started I was sure that it will be Ukranian. I start with duolingo lessons and I enjoy it. Alphabet is pretty hard as same letters are different in cyrylics (P- R, H - N) and there are other letters instead of those. But i am improving. There is now abou half milion ukranians in czech republic and I want them to feel welcome. I hope I will find someone eventualy for life conversation when I get better in ukranian. Ah and I have to mention that there is a lot of words in sentence I feel missing - too few words to say a lot:)
One interesting thing I have learned is by Learning Russian you can figure out Ukranian but I find Ukranian easier to pronounce... Actually Music is helping me to learn words and rhythm of the language . So far I have learned Slava Ukraina song Oy U Luzi Chervona Kalyna feat Andriy Khlyvnyuk ...
As a person who learned Latin. I am excited to try learning Ukrainian. I want to try the cases. Latin only has five. The writing system should be easy. Once you learn Japanese any writing system seems easy. 😂
I thought a little conversational Ukrainian would come in handy. My wife has noticed there are more Ukrainian kids being registered in the elementary school where she works. Western Pennsylvania has a growing Ukrainian community.
I can pronounce most words but its the gramma - as in German - I am scandinavian - its very hard for us but I like Ukraine and want to stay there longer tiem next time and be able to speka the most basic phrases -I like the languange
Like all languages, the same rules apply. You have symbols, which connects to sounds. They mean nothing, they are just symbols that represent a sound. Later words, simple words, but break them down to objects, people, colors, numbers, days of week, directions, more if you can. Then try to remove English entirely. Images to words, Ukrainian movies. Yes the road map on this video is really accurate. But most of all, others learning or be around native speakers. If you aren't in the water, you'll never learn to swim and never be motivated to learn. After recognizing the words, sounds and meaning, practice sentences.
I just want to say this: I don't give up. I'll practice Ukrainian. I don't give up, 'cause I have some Ukrainian friends and I'm not going to stop it and maybe if I have the chance to hire ukrainian professionals. but thanks to inspire me to focus to understand only in this beautiful language. I don't give up. Greetings from Guatemala City, Guatemala, Latin america. 👍✍💪 🇺🇦 🇺🇦 🇬🇹 🇬🇹
eres una gran persona y espero que vivas una vida saludable y próspera. saludos desde america
Another obstacle that seems pretty unique to learning Ukrainian compared to other languages I have learned- the fact that Ukrainian media, tv shows/radio etc. are very often mixed Ukrainian/Russian in the same program. Like for example, it is very common to see on TV or radio an interview where the host will speak Ukrainian, but the person they are interviewing will reply to all the questions in Russian. Another common thing is for the speakers to switch between the two languages during the same conversation. This can make finding "authentic" materials for learning Ukrainian challenging, because when you start watching a Ukrainian RUclips video for example, you never know if the clip will actually be 100% Ukrainian, or if it will be a combination of the two languages. For most other languages I have learned this situation does not exist, for example, when watching a French or Spanish language TV show, it is impossible that they will speak 2 different languages during the same conversation, the entire show will be in the same language- even if it is not everyone's first language, like for example, if a guest is on a French language radio show, they will speak in French only to reply to the questions even if French isn't their first language, they won't simply reply in their native language because its easier for them, even if they know that the other person would understand them, because it is expected that the entire show will take place in French if it is a French language program. I guess the main difference is that in Ukraine it is probably safe to assume that everyone listening will understand both languages, so it doesn't matter if the participants speak 2 different languages, but it makes it very difficult for people who are not native speakers to follow.
I mean why not learn both languages? Russian is already very influential and Ukrainian will only help. This influence is also obvious when you look at Soviet influence over Ukraine, multiple times the Ukrainian language was banned in Ukraine.
@Buddy Rojek Just learn Russian
@Buddy Rojek Russian will never become a pariah language...I was born in Severodonetsk (eastern Ukraine) and only Russian is spoken there...in fact many places in Ukraine speak Russian. So this is simply not true. Learn Russian it will be easier trust. And plus, who will you speak Ukrainian with?
@Buddy Rojek I will agree with you though about the negative light Putin is shining on the Russian language. It will lose popularity and be hated but it will become normal again trust me.
@Buddy Rojek No russians will not learn Ukrainian, now you are going too far. Given 73% of Russians in Russia support the war, that is wishful thinking…
I was born in Lviv but never learned Ukrainian growing up because I came to America when I was a baby. I'm finally ready to learn my language and I just found your channel, I can't wait to watch your videos! Дякую! :)
Also, can anyone give me some other great resources for learning Ukrainian? I took Russian in college because they obviously didn't teach Ukrainian, but now I'm trying to find books, movies, tv shows, etc. to help me learn Ukrainian rather than Russian.
@@sophiatailor2453 I grew up in Canada but I went to English elementary school with a Ukrainian program and then learned the grammar at University of Toronto because they actually have a Ukrainian department. Some people I can understand perfectly and other people I can't understand at all speaking Ukrainian! There is an old version of Ukrainian that our grandparents brought before the Soviet Union and then modern Ukrainian is mixed with new words and Russian corruption and I can't understand them at all! I think the even the accent is changed a bit. They mix a lot of Russian words in Ukrainian TV and its frustrating
Congrats sophia....been bilingual will allow you to inter act. directly with new people.
@@sophiatailor2453 Just learn Russian…
My cousins are in Lviv and my grandparents are from Lviv. We shall learn together 😊. Enjoy.
1 - motivation - current happenings
2 - how to start? - i watched your video "how to read the ukrainian alphabet" and then learnt the alphabet!!
3 - high expectations - yeah. i know i was always bad with languages and i don't have high expectations
4 - time - i make time
5 - i forget everything - i talk to my dog all day in ukrainian. i am slightly mad. я люблю тебе! ти любиш мене??? dog just looks confused.
Собака: "Йой, який у мене господар велелюбний ^_^ "
this isn't a bad idea! I already listen to Ukranian music all day so I may as well teach my brilliant German shepherd Ukranian commands. It's all greek to dogs anyway.
POINT NO 5. A DOG UNDERSTANDS YOU NO MATTER WHAT LANGUAGE YOU'RE TALKING, AND HE DEFENATELY WON'T LAUGH AT YOU WHEN YOU MAKE A MISTAKE.
I know it's not the best tool but I started on Duolingo and Ukrainian 287 days ago. I hated languages at school and I have learned more Ukrainian in this time than all my time at high school. I'm very stubborn and if you make me learn something I won't. I thought I was terrible at languages until I started learning Ukrainian. I think it is because it's something I am passionate about. I don't agree with genocide and if a certain country wants to wipe the whole of Ukraine including heretige and language I want to learn about it. I think I have got to the point where I may need other ways of learning. I find I am good at reading and understanding but it is more difficult with listening speaking. I wish I was in a position to visit Ukraine and use only Ukrainian, as I must say this about Duolingo.. although I am a long way from speaking the language. I genuinely believe if the person I speaks to speaks slowly when I ask, I would actually be able to get along pretty much with no English. This being said I would be saying a lot of words wrong for example the masculine and the feminine but speaking with a Ukrainian refugee my friend has taken in. She said she understands me but it's very broken 😂! Hope this makes sense and apologies for the grammar I don't seem to have mastered English after nearly 45 years . Ultimately I would like to volunteer to translate for my local hospital as they are very short of these type of volunteers for a Ukrainian who has little or no English. I will be checking out your videos and Все буде Україні!
I'm half Ukrainian, and didn't grow up in Ukraine. Sadly I wasn't able to learn Ukrainian during my life. I know basic Russian and Ukrainian. (Russian more tbh bc we know how most cartoon and songs are in russian).
Anyway, I would love to learn and be fluent in my language. However, it seems to be pretty challenging because I never know where to start from..
Same as you, except my mother is Belarusian.
Yea I’m part Ukrainian and I never learned Ukrainian or never grew up in Ukraine
And the bad part is I can’t talk to my relatives
This is exactly my situation too. I'm currently learning because I want to be able to speak my heritage language. I already know some Russian but I just find Ukrainian more interesting
Most of my Ukrainian relatives are Russian/Ukrainian bilingual but are now choosing to speak Ukrainian more
I want to learn for my lady and myself. I am in Ukraine at least 3 times a year and for me it is very important to learn. I started local Ukrainian classes, but the teacher told me more people speak Russian in Ukraine and I switched... Wrong move completely. I know a little of both Russian and Ukrainian, but I want to learn Ukrainian )
I will be emailing you after typing this comment.
Made My Own way 2 I will be happy to help you to learn Ukrainian. Email me - learnua.online@gmail.com
Respect to you, my friend. It's a warm feeling when someone respects our language enough to actually learn it. Stay strong man, you'll get it. Especially if you will practice with your ukrainian partner ✊
The next human being to compare Russian to Ukrainian will be rekt by me personally.
Your English sounds very good to me, very clear and well spoken and good grammar and structure. Anyways, thankyou for this! I have just embarked on my journey to learning Ukrainian and this video is very useful.
I am engaged to a wonderful Ukrainian woman who also speaks English. I would like to be able to talk to her in her native language like she talks to me in mine. I guess the reason I want to learn Ukrainian would be simply to put love
It's hard but l'll do my best. Some words are hard to pronounce, It's a struggle but I hope I became a fluent speaker.
Katie Walker I believe in you! Keep learning🙏🏻
Speak Ukrainian I can make it! I have a lot of Ukrainian friends. I love Ukraine I'm going to do my best. ❤ Thanks
Katie Walker Practice speaking skills with me, it will be very useful for you!
Aye so how are you doing right now with Ukrainian
Xto is the worst
I was borned in Belgium. And I speak French, English and Ukrainian 🙂 I have ukrainian roots.
I just signed up for lessons with you and am so excited. My brother married a beautiful Ukraine lady and I want to be able to speak with her family while in Ukraine. I also joined a missions group, Last Bell, to help Ukrainian youth. I’ve been learning on my own pretty well but now it is time to get serious!
Love your channel. Canadian Ukrainian. Born here trying to learn. Your channel helps.
I love your passion for language teaching. I am an American and I visited Ukraine in 2016 and I stayed with an Inna and her family😊 I just found a Ukrainian church here in Fairview, Oregon and I have decided to start attending when I can. I would like to visit Ukraine again and learn your language for God and for the people. I love Ukraine! Thanks for all your videos!
I've been on DuoLingo for about 3 years now. That seems to be my greatest motivation as I don't know anyone that is Ukranian. I am terrified to try speaking Ukranian to somebody that is actually fluent in Ukranian.
Yeah lol. American/russians would be like. Look at this Dude..
I learned a few Ukrainian phrases, and practiced them till they just rolled off my tongue (at home, alone.) Then I got to meet a Ukrainian refugee family and when I tried those phrases, it's as if I barely knew them. I know how you feel!
@@hovanti After I wrote that message, more than a year ago, I've traveled to Ukraine for a month long tour, engaged in speaking clubs, and I'm marrying a lady native to Odessa.
I can't wait to go back to Ukraine with her next time.
@@foodhomedotcom2716 Wow, that's great to know! I'm happy for you, as well as a bit envious. Thanks for sharing your good fortune.
@@hovanti I got lucky, but I'll say start learning Ukrainian or Russian is the best place to start. Trolling the numerous websites for foreign ladies is less productive.
Як приємно бачити що іноземці не здаються і докладають зусиль вивчаючи нашу солов'їну!🥰 Усім Good Luck 🍀 з Тернополя!
I’ve been living in Ukrainian for about 4 years now but my Ukrainian knowledge is still very basic because I don’t get to interact much with locals. I really want to master the Ukrainian language
You are very charming.(Some "language" is un-spoken...like the volumes you speak with your eyes and smile.
Just like Johnny FD who is an American You Tuber living in Kyiv. He cannot yet speak much Ukrainian. His vlogs about life in Ukraine now are very good.
I think the obstacles for learning any second language recreationally are more or less the same. You have other things to do, often times don't have anyone close to you to converse with in said language, and it requires a lot of consistency or you start to lose whatever progress you've gained. I found personally some things that help are listening to music in the language you're learning and watching movies with subtitles.
Because of the current crisis (re: Russia invading) I decided to study Ukrainian. I don't have Ukrainian ancestry (the closest is Czech), but I do enjoy learning languages. Up to date, I have studied French and Swedish, and have dabbled in Italian, Irish, Mandarin, and Czech. Irish and Czech are very hard, partly because they use the Latin alphabet but few words are cognates to English. Although the Cyrillic alphabet is radically different, I think it will be beneficial to me because I won't be expecting to make any predictions about words or syntax because I won't have anything to compare it with.
Duolingo is my first resource for studying Ukrainian, and they have a whole section of their program devoted to the alphabet (outside of their learning modules). In completing those exercises, it would be helpful if they told me what HOHHA or TOTa meant (for example) or if they're just random phonemes put together for the sake of practice. 🙄
I have also downloaded the Pimsleur method as an audiobook to help learn to speak the language.
same for me
Similar for me. I've only just started but I decided that, before I go any further, I want to totally crack the script issue. Some years back I started to lean Greek but never got past the script issue. Having to struggle to work through every word, letter by letter, was such a chore. So this time, I've created my own custom keyboard layout to help with the process. All the characters that have a similar sound to Latin alphabet characters, I put on the keys of their cognates. I have keyboard shortcuts setup so I can easily switch between this custom Ukrainian keyboard and my normal English UK.
I then found online Ukrainian newspapers and copy and pasted articles into a text document. Then just typed the text, immediately below the pasted copy. To find the necessary keys for each letter I have to remember how each character is pronounced. Since I'm already a decent touch typist in English, this has helped me greatly to associate the characters with their sound.
It took me a few days to fine tune the keyboard layout that works for me but after using it for a few hours, my typing speed in Ukrainian is already becoming quite reasonable and I'm just starting to be able to read whole syllables (even though I don't know what they mean), without having the pain of struggling with every character.
I have also dabbled with quite a few other languages and always tend to loose interest after a while. I'm hoping that my time invested in learning the cyrillic script and (having it available at my fingertips) will motivate me to keep focussed.
Me too!
Thank you so much Inna for this video! you keep us (students) motivated by discussing these obstacles!
Blast6926 Будь ласка🙏🏻 I am glad to be your motivation!
I’ve been learning Ukrainian on duolingo for the past three months. 👍
I am from Ukrainian decent from western Ukraine, born in the USA. My grandparents were Ukrainian and my father never spoke English until he was around 5 or 6. I visited Ukraine in 2021 and went there 2 more times and left 1 month before the war started. I am now married to a Ukrainian woman living in the US. Unfortunately, she is from Kharkiv and has been Russified. We have a new son now and it upsets me that she speaks to him in Russian. Growing up I did learn some words but not enough to have a conversation. I will be watching your videos to try and become more fluent in Ukrainian.
Thanks for sharing this. I love all of your Ukrainian lesson videos but it is also nice to get some insight into the whole learning process 🙏
In reality, this horrible war has brought the Ukrainian language to me. In my journey through learning other Slavic languages (as foreign languages), some of my language exchange partners feel uncomfortable speaking in Russian with me. While I experienced something similar during my studies of Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian, I am glad that this opportunity has presented itself. Otherwise, I would have taken for granted that Ukrainians will simply accommodate me in Russian. I’m reminded of the time when I arrived in Prague, hoping to be understood in Russian. It turned out, most locals weren’t impressed with Slavic brotherly Russian. As a man of Pakistani extraction, I welcome the chance to explore through the Slavic languages.
I started learning Ukrainian, on Duolingo, for a few reasons. Firstly I'm 52 and have seen the effects of people around my age (and younger) slowing down and stopping learning so was looking for something challenging to learn. Secondly following the Russian invasion of Ukraine it felt like a way to show solidarity with Ukraine. Finally, the city I live in, Birmingham in the UK, is a designated city of sanctuary for refugees so there's a good chance I'm going to bump into someone fleeing the war and it would be nice to be able to speak at some level with them, even if just to say Привіт.
I only started two weeks ago, I think I'm just starting to get my head into it, your video on the alphabet was very helpful. When Duolingo changed their user interface last week they lost about half of my progress which was really off putting, on the other hand it's giving me a chance to review material, although it's a bit frustrating to be hit with a sentence like "Чиє це батки?" or "Але, де моя дружина?" and be left thinking, "When am I going to be using phrases like that?" I found your videos whilst looking for other sources to learn from.
In the past I've tried to learn German and Spanish at a local language school but always run into the same issue, over the year the class size reduces due to people losing interest until by the time we come back after Easter break (they follow the regular school year, three terms starting in September and finishing in July with breaks at Christmas and Easter) there's not enough students for the class to be viable. I can never progress onto year two because I can't get to the end of year 1 due to the class closing. German has come in useful a few times including at work where a project hired a Hungarian contractor without first checking that he spoke English, he didn't, not a word, but he did speak German very well so between my limited knowledge of German, and me bringing in my German-English dictionaries and grammar books, we were able to communicate enough that we could work together. I also once had to use it to help out the clerk at a hotel in London who was from somewhere in Eastern Europe, was here to study English, and had gotten so flustered by the American (US) couple shouting at her that her command of English disappeared.
You mentioned songs as being part of why you learned English. A number of my friends who grew up in countries where English is not a native language say they got their start in learning English pronunciations because a lot of US TV shows would appear on their national channels, some dubbed and some subtitled with the original soundtrack. Made me wonder if you get that in Ukraine?
I have always wanted to learn Ukrainian because I have always wanted to visit the country one day and to speak with the local and try to have conversations with the people.
Hi Inna, I am 86 years of age , I have been studying Russian for about 5 years , 2 years on Duolingo , and am ( for various reasons ) thinking of switching to Ukrainian . What would you suggest I start working on , and could you help me with the transition? I read Cyrillic reasonably well .
I want to learn Ukrainian so I can visit family in Ukraine. I taught myself Cyrillic. But its hard to learn what words mean. If I read a word slowly, I can sound it out.
Sign up for my free course - www.speakua.com/courses/introduction-to-ukrainian/
Another excellent video! I have been super inspired by your channel to make videos about my experience learning Ukrainian. I actually feature you in one of my videos!! Thank you for sharing your knowledge of this beautiful language 😍.
Polyglot Paradise Будь ласка! Рада бути корисною!
This is the exact video I needed to hear. Thank you.
Thanks so much for the video, it's really great! 😃
My biggest obstacle though is that I understand 80% of Ukrainian but at the same time I am an absolute beginner so when I look at something in Ukrainian it's like "cool, I know it all" and when I try to speak it's just like "привiт... wait, I can't remember a single word" xD I just can't get my brain to switch from native Russian to a different pronounciation and vocabulary 🙈 Do you have any tips how to switch your brain from Russian to Ukrainian and not mix them up? 😃
Bunny Fluff Будь ласка! Good question. If you are fluent in Russian, you will probably understand Ukrainian well. But it doesn’t mean you are able to speak Ukrainian well. You need to learn at least basics of Ukrainian. Firstly, you have to learn Ukrainian phonetics and to master a Ukrainian accent, because your speech will sound bad. Also, you need to understand the difference in grammar, it won't be difficult at all. And don't forget about the basic vocabulary. It is very important too. Take some time to learn Ukrainian. If you are ready to do it by yourself, don't compare it with Russian at all. Just focus on Ukrainian, and remember it is a different language! If you are ready to learn with the teacher, hire a bilingual teacher, who will explain to you everything easily.
This language is HARD. I love learning languages , and want to learn this one to help my new coworker feel less alone (she is a refugee of the war in Ukraine who just arrived in my Country and is all alone here ) , but I struggle less learning conversational Mandarin than I do with Ukrainian for some reason (and Mandarin is very very challenging ) I’ll keep at it though !
I have difficulty adjusting to the alphabet because there are several letters that look very much like the english and european alphabet but sound much different. There are also numerous letters that sound like the European alphabet but look entirely different. Also many words have many letters in them making it challenging to read fluently.
lovely Channel. Thank You! CheerZZ from Hungary ❤❤❤
Your English is great. If you can understand people speaking English, and people who speak English can understand you, then you are definitely great!
Thank you !
Прівіт!
I am a native English speaker in canada who is starting to learn ukrainian. This was an excellent video laying out my obstacles.
I don't know anyone who is ukrainian, but the war has put your country into my brain, and my heart aches for your people. I want to help some refugees that make it to Canada with no where to stay, especially with small children. (I have small children and space to fit a small family. So I have enough stuff to share/give away ). I think it would be a nice gesture to learn as much about the language as I can. I tried and failed many times years ago to learn Polish, so I already have a soft spot on my heart for Slavic languages.
Hopefully this dreadful war, and the limited capacity I have to help, will be the motivation I need to learn a second language. It will also make tourism easier. When the war is over I want to vacation there and volunteer somehow and help physically and economically , knowing how to speak ukrainian will help with that effort. I'm so glad I found your channel. I'll be buying the book and looking into lessons with a native speaker.
Seeing as how I know no one, can someone comment if it's a nice gesture to cook some борщ as a welcome meal? Or any other advice?
Thank you 😊❤️
Дякую за відео!💗
Особисто мені, як українці, воно було корисним для вивчення англійської ✨☺️
+
Inna you are very helpful, ever since I started learning Ukrainian 5 days ago, I took notes of phonetics, words, and English meanings. I also wrote a reminder of my goal for learning Ukrainian. And even if I hadn’t written it down I still would’ve remembered that I’m learning because I want to talk to my crush’s friend that I keep running into. She said hi to me today, and she speaks good English she just has a heavy accent, but she speaks Ukrainian around her friends, and I want her to understand what I’m saying. So once I master Ukrainian, I’ll probably be thanking you about 1 million times or Оден мільйон
Один мільйон*
Дякую lol
@@bellamarieeeee510 Прошу :,,>
It is a beautiful thing to observe and listen to you speak. I am striving to learn some Ukrainian as I am growing very close to someone who was forced to join relatives in Kazakhstan because😢of the war. When I see her I wish to express my deep feelings for her in her own language. I am mute from Cancer at the moment but hope to get over that obstacle. I am not understanding how to obtain your book on cases but will keep researching. Thank you Inna, you are beautiful just as my friend from your country.
Your English is so cute and amusing to me Inna It is universally true with exotic languages everyone speaks in a funny style and that is just beautiful. Keep up the good work. I use the example of using both feet to walk to progress grammar and vocabulary step by step simultaneously. I picket out the top 10 commonest spoken languages and I learned them all. Russian was there but not Ukrainian but now to help the refugees I need to quickly pick up some Ukrainian
I can speak English, German, and some Spanish. I am 67 and have been adopted by a Ukrainian family as my caretaker so this is my motivation. I will be living with this family and I think it is wonderful opportunity to expand my language skills. Thank you for your tips.
You forgot the biggest obstacle. The teacher. Often, teachers try to teach what is important to the teacher. This is bad, because they should be teaching what is important to the students. Students will work harder if they are learning what is important to them.
Teachers think grammar is important, because teachers want students to learn perfection and be fluent. This is wrong. Students want to communicate. It doesn't matter if the grammar is horrible. You can still communicate. Vocabulary is the most important thing.
Grammar is the last thing that should be taught.
My grandma is Ukrainian and she was fluent in the language up until recently she didn't talk to her sister as much so she lost most of the language. My cousin tried learning it too but gave up when my grandma didn't understand what he was saying because she forgot most of it. My great grandfather tried teaching my father and his siblings the language when they were younger but he didn't know English so it was harder. I wanna learn Ukrainian but I find that motivation is hard because my grandma doesn't remember much of it and I don't really have contact with her. I see her three times a year though, and I always wish that my family had shared the language and traditions.
I’m American and I’m planning to learn Ukrainian and Polish cuz I’d love to go to Poland this summer after I graduate and volunteer to help in anyway possible for the refugees. I hope I can pick up some basic conversations in a couple of months.
I took your advice and just purchased your textbook Master Ukrainian Cases. I also subscribed to your channel here, because it is very important that I learn the Ukrainian language as quickly as possible, and I can tell by your videos, by your website, and even on Amazon that you are a master, and I want to learn from the best. I appreciate all of your advice, and will likely contract you about becoming one of your students soon. Thank you for your help and sharing of this very important knowledge! I am very grateful.
Well, I've got some powerful motivation; I love the culture, music, and especially the food. However, now that I know I'm expected to give up eventually, well, now I'll die before I give up on Ukrainian
You punctuate so beautifully and quite unique. Very attractive. Lots of charisma! Well done.
You're are fully understandable in English, good job it's got some weird rules coming from an English native, but since you gave us tips I'll give you one that will help your English alot if you're trying to think say um ,the u makes the same sound as the word up ,it'll make you sound more native and give you time to think of what you want to say and how you want to say it ,I can't speak for other languages but in English how you say something is usually just as important if not more important than what you're saying ,so we say um alot while thinking of how to word or say something ,also would it be more useful to learn Russian ik alot of Ukrainians already speak Russian too ,and which would you say would be easier to learn for an English speaker
Inna, nice video. One of the problems I have with Ukrainian language is that Ukrainian women speak way too fast...it's very difficult when someone doesn't speak slowly and enunciate...
aandgdesigngroup If you are a beginner in Ukrainian, the speech of all Ukrainians will sound fast for you. Though they speak at normal tempo. You need to practice Ukrainian a lot.
My grandmother was taken out of her village by the Nazi's in 1946. She met my Dutch grandfather in the German camps and after the war she moved with him to the Netherlands. Sadly she past away and I was aware that I still had family in Ukraine. My uncle helped me with an adress of her younger sister and I wrote a letter in cyrillic from google translate. I got a message from a cousin last year in march and now on both sides we are verry happy to be in contact with each other! When covid is under control I want to visit them and be able to communicate with them, besides the fact that I feell the need to come closer to my roots by learning this beautifull language!
Your grandmother was taken out of her village by the Nazis a year after WW2? Wow!
Я японець старше 50 років. мої друзі із Західної України розмовляють українською мовою, але можуть писати російську мову. Тож я все одно продовжую вивчати російську мову спочатку перед українською. Я думаю, що українська мова поділяє спільність з японською мовою. ми часто використовуємо голосні. Інша тема... Ми зазвичай вивчаємо російську та українську мову, щоб одружитися з жінками. Моя подруга-українка лінива вивчати англійську мову.Вона сказала мені, що не має талантів у оволодінні англійською майстерністю. Тому я хочу знати, як мотивувати . Слабкість українських жінок - бути лінивим. Я хочу знати, як її мотивувати. Їй 39 років.
Inna- great video, great advice- I’ve been living in Kyiv for years but never learned the language since my Ukrainian wife a) speaks Russian as first language, and b) wanted to speak and improve her English with me...so, now I find I may be working soon with a Ukrainian company and regret my lack of the language. I have hit all 5 of your obstacles! My addition problem is I have picked up a little bit of Russian (чуть-чуть) so it would be easier to continue learning it. If I start Ukrainian seriously it will be extra confusing. What would you recommend?
Peter Tauvers If you know Russain чуть-чуть, it won’t be confusing at all, especially if you are going to focus only on 1 language. I had students who learned Russian and Ukrainian languages at the same time, and they did it great.
@@SpeakUkrainian learning both at the same time would be sooooooo cool. Especially with current situation because I want to understand things better from different perspectives. Thank god people like you exist, so thank you for all you do.
I would like to learn, and was thinking about using Babble. I can already read Cyrillic but don't speak the language.😁
I've started with the alphabet, I want to figure that out then progress from there. Thank you so much for helping me 😊. Btw your English is not bad at all I've never had a difficult time understanding everything you say. I want to try to learn Ukrainian because maybe some day I can take a trip to Ukraine. If I could I would be there now helping and learning😊
Learning perfect language is not typically necessary. Communication is the most important part about learning a new language. Your English is understood perfectly and the accent, which many people try to eliminate from their speaking, is actually very pleasant to the ear! Don’t lose your accent! My personal opinion.😊
i started on duo lingo about a week ago and switched over to primsleur after i got sick of duo lingo. i just felt like i wasn't learning much besides vocab and phonetics on duo lingo. primsleur is great for starting to speak it makes you listen to conversations of real people and just repeat what they are saying. slowly you start to understand how to properly pronounce words and phrases and it seems like you learn super fast i can already have a conversation about my language skills and ask basic questions like what would you like to eat do you speak English where is volodomry street things of that nature and teaches you to start reading after you already have some speaking down but doing duo lingo 100% taught me the alphabet and gave me a huge head start with speaking and pronunciation. i really want to learn cause i want to go and be a medical volunteer and help out i am planning on going after Christmas so i hope i am able to learn a decent amount of Ukrainian i spend about 6-8 hours everyday on primsleur and you can do it while your doing thing around the house which is nice practicing definitely takes more effort though i can not believe how fast you guys speak and the word order messes with my brain lol especially since its different depending on if the sentence is plural or singular at least that's what I've noticed. i love your videos they are super helpful when i get bored of studying
A very good video. Realistic and optimistic at the same time!
Your talk hit the mark, with humour, thank you :-). I agree with everything you said. My maternal great grandparents were from Ukraine and I am now teaching myself, but I find it very difficult, and not at all like the other languages I speak. But that is the challenge. Hopefully in a year or two I'll be able to greet my Ukrainian neighbours, and have small very simple conversations :-).
Excellent comparison between cases and notes
No.. Pretty good English. I have no real reason to learn Ukrainian but find it kinda interesting. Speaking of music as a motivation, that Ukrainian song I keep seeing videos of soldiers singing while kicking their feet out with backs against each other. It sounds really fun and interesting. I am super curious as to the lyrics for that song--what exactly are they and what do they mean? Where did this song come from? I am guessing it's some kind of traditional Ukrainian folk song.
you are so wonderful teacher
Your English is great. I discovered a few days ago. I listen to you and like very much your passion. I will buy Bykvar and cases books. Dyakuyu 😊
Thanks for your tips, very helpfull.
You have too much patience!!! Thank you!!
Everything that I have learned has been self-taught and through Duolingo. I also do not know what my motivation is. But I started on Duolingo and I loved the language. My issue is lack of resources and time (because I play hockey and am in highschool). Any suggestions on resources?
Олександр Тревіно Write to me on email, I will send you a list of resources.
@@SpeakUkrainian дякую!
Олександр Тревіно Нема за що!
Can i have a list of resources as well?
@@Laura-cr5ee Так - www.speakua.com/product/150-free-online-resources/
I would like to learn Ukrainian. My wife is Ukrainian-American. Her father was born in Budaniv a village about 100 miles from Ternopyl. I think Ukrainian is more difficult because of the alphabet. I studied eight years of German in High School and in College. I speak pretty well, but I don't consider myself fluent since I don't get to use that much. I have an Ukrainian University near me,but the course is in English trying to teach you some conversational Ukrainian. I want to learn the alphabet, how to pronounce the words with a decent Ukrainian accent. My wife learned Ukrainian first as that's all they spoke in their home. Her Mother was born in Poland. My wife can help me, but she doesn't think that she speaks it that well. I disagree with her. I think she does fine with speaking it. Also, Inna, you speak English very well. God bless you too with all that is happening there.I wife has family in Ternopyl area.Some female cousins have emigrated to Poland, of course the male cousins are fighting for Ukraine. God bless you all, Slava Ukraine!!!!🙏🙏🇺🇦🇺🇦💛💙
Inna, also here a suggestion to help you speak English better. You have a problem saying the word vowel. Think about adding the Ukrainian letter в in front of word as it will help you with the v sound.. Take care!!!
My problem with Ukrainian is that I can understand the basics but my pronunciation is really bad. I feel like I'd benefit from having a friend to speak with but I don't know anyone who speaks Ukrainian :(
My Grandmother was from Ukraine and my Grandfather was from Belarus. They both spoke Ukrainian. While I can speak and understand some, I am not fluent. I am constantly. trying to learn more. Sorry that you gave up on guitar. I have been playing bass guitar for over 15 years. Yes, your hands will hurt but you will develop callouses and it will get easier. Try practicing for 15-20 minutes per day and learn some simple chords..Most of all, have fun with it.
Lol you are so cute! I play guitar and yes your fingers will hurt. I love the way you put things into perspective! Great job!!!
I am trying to learning Ukrainian, cause I think it will be a ood academic challenge, and my main challenge is time, but I hope after covid 19 ends, I will beable to practice this language with some on the native speakers at my high school
@Jon Ford its coming along, you could say, just a little bit, a couple of time a week. What I am using for apps are youtube, duo lingo, and Amazon audible is great to
@Jon Ford i think it is a good project, but it will take time, so be patient
Thank You Thank You Thank You Inna. I have my alphabet flashcards I use by myself. Not many Ukrainians here in Oregon USA I can practice with.
I can read the Cyrillic alphabet and I'm good at the phonetics and can read many of the words, but I struggle with learning cases, but I want to persevere in my learning journey.
Slava Ukraini!
I’m Dutch and have been learning Russian for 3 years now, but only from friends and google translate in my free time. I’ve been making many friends among the Ukrainian refugees here in Holland and Love these people and so I have just decided that I want to learn Ukrainian aswel, my main obstacle is that some of them speak Russian with eachother (of which I can speak and understand about 60%), but these same people speak Ukrainian with others who prefer to speak Ukrainian only, so if I sit at their table and try to understand the conversation, I recently discovered I’m hearing a mishmash of both languages! 😅
Nice video miss, I've discovered your channel just now and I wanna tell you that I'm learning English because I think it's a very easy language, but I asked myself if I was able to learn another language and I loved the Ukrainian language, I think it sounds very sexy, but I don't know how to start because the structures of the sentences are so different, I know I can learn the cyrilic alphabet but idk how to articulate correct sentences and sound fluent like a native speaker.
By the way excellent content and I send u my regards from Mexico!
Very interesting video 👍
Very well spoken
Thanks for spreading of mova. :)
I just started learning Ukrainian about a month ago. My goal is to be at an intermediate level in 3-4 years. ♡
If you go back far enough, all the languages listed descend from PIE. So, yeah, between Ukrainian and English is a lot of distance, but it's doable with time and dedication.
I will never give up. I will keep studying and achieve fluency by the time I get there.
Every day I have a reminder that pops up.. не забудьте сьогодні вивчати українську мову
Зараз я розумію багато, але я вчуся щодня
Its one of my goal to learn ukrainian ❤️ ! Even though its not quite easy thoo :”)
I agree with everything here , the only issue I have is the course from Absolute beginner to confident speaker, I've taken this course with you twice now and I'm stuck on cases lesson 7 , I believe there should be a true course on Absolute Beginner. As you said Alphabet and phonetics and basic words at the start is very important I feel I was rushed through this and could have easily spent a full course on this putting it all together is way to daunting and frankly confusing , I was just getting proficient at the the first part and starting to understand stuff and then we moved into and onto cases . Any way would like to see and work with you on a true course for absolute beginners.
the first obstacle for myself as an English speaker is not having lessons to teach a solid foundation in phonology. Found your phonetic videos to short unfortunately. I have yet to find any Ukrainian lessons that do this in a slow, methodical and yes, boring way. ( think old time FSI teaching method as an example) if anyone knows of such lessons could they please direct me to them. thank you. Perhaps my best way is to come to Ukraine and enrol in private language course. I do enjoy this channel and am very motivated because of your love to teach the world about Ukrainian and hope to start using it once I have the foundation of a good phonology. :)
I have Ukrainian roots and want to go to Ukraine. I really enjoy the 30+ minutes a day I devote to Ukrainian. The soft sign and some of the letters give me problems. I learned what the letters look like when typed, now I have to learn how to write.
I was thinking to get another language. When war in Ukraine started I was sure that it will be Ukranian. I start with duolingo lessons and I enjoy it. Alphabet is pretty hard as same letters are different in cyrylics (P- R, H - N) and there are other letters instead of those. But i am improving. There is now abou half milion ukranians in czech republic and I want them to feel welcome. I hope I will find someone eventualy for life conversation when I get better in ukranian. Ah and I have to mention that there is a lot of words in sentence I feel missing - too few words to say a lot:)
One interesting thing I have learned is by Learning Russian you can figure out Ukranian but I find Ukranian easier to pronounce... Actually Music is helping me to learn words and rhythm of the language . So far I have learned Slava Ukraina song Oy U Luzi Chervona Kalyna feat Andriy Khlyvnyuk ...
Totally fine!
Thanks for the advice i want to learn
Is there a digital version of "mastering Ukrainian cases"? I couldn't find it in the apple book store.
As a person who learned Latin. I am excited to try learning Ukrainian. I want to try the cases. Latin only has five. The writing system should be easy. Once you learn Japanese any writing system seems easy. 😂
Лайк, якщо ти українець, і вирішив загуглити, як іноземці вчать українську мову.
Я заходжу сюди щоб англійську вивчати
I thought a little conversational Ukrainian would come in handy. My wife has noticed there are more Ukrainian kids being registered in the elementary school where she works. Western Pennsylvania has a growing Ukrainian community.
I can pronounce most words but its the gramma - as in German - I am scandinavian - its very hard for us but I like Ukraine and want to stay there longer tiem next time and be able to speka the most basic phrases -I like the languange
Like all languages, the same rules apply. You have symbols, which connects to sounds. They mean nothing, they are just symbols that represent a sound. Later words, simple words, but break them down to objects, people, colors, numbers, days of week, directions, more if you can.
Then try to remove English entirely. Images to words, Ukrainian movies. Yes the road map on this video is really accurate. But most of all, others learning or be around native speakers. If you aren't in the water, you'll never learn to swim and never be motivated to learn. After recognizing the words, sounds and meaning, practice sentences.
Thank you ❤️
Hi from Brasil. Thanks a lot
Thanks!
Привіт! Мене звати Адріан. Я з Бухареста. Я хочу вивчати українську мову. Я можу розмовляти трохи. Ти можеш допомогти мене?
У мене немає книг. Я вчився з Інтернету
Adrian Ispas Привіт, Адріане. Приємно познайомитися. Напиши мені на мій імейл, я тобі розповім як я можу допомогти тобі вивчити українську.
My motivation is to be able to welcome and assist the refugees who will inevitably come to Ireland soon.
U r good teacher 4 me thank u helped us to learning UK