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Question about Ukrainian language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6541 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 17 of 39 24 March 2014 at 1:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
Very true. I found that having a more distant reference point helped; namely, when comparing them with Polish I see how Belarusian and Ukrainian aren't as similar to Russian as it might seem. As for polyglots, it's not that they ignore Ukrainian, they just tend to learn Russian to a higher level. For example, Katò Lomb worked with Ukrainian as a translator, but was modest about her speaking skills. Prof Argüelles has spent some time on Ukrainian, though it appears that nowadays he doesn't have any slots for new languages - he's had to more or less give up Mandarin afaiu. I'm under the impression that it was something similar in Erik Gunnemark's case, except that he was European and travelled a lot, and reading with a 99,99% understanding wasn't such a high priority for him. It seems that he never stopped aiming to improve all his languages. I'd say in the modern world the "one language at a time" thing has become more common. Things like Youtube and Skype have contributed to this for sure - the "youtube polyglots" are not taken seriously if they want to demonstrate mostly intermediate skills; on the other hand, now that we have Skype, the percentage of "European travellers" has lessened among polyglots. (that's not a bad thing - those who wouldn't dream of becoming polyglots due to limited travel opportunities can now go for it!) And while most of us don't study languages to make videos, we still watch them, and we constantly hear the "one language at a time" advice. Also, the easier we can travel, the more likely we are to delay this or that language until we speak another language better. For a European, almost nothing in Europe is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity anymore. (and I'm afraid Russia being high on the "difficult to visit" scale also contributes to focusing on Russian and delaying Ukrainian) But I expect the popularity of Ukrainian to go up in the near future. Some are already learning it, some will get their Russian (and other languages!) to a level where they feel ready for the new challenge, some will have a desire to find more about your country's history and culture following the infamous political events, the European integration will lead to an increase of the amount of non-Russian based materials for learning Ukrainian, etc etc etc. (In fact this has already started prior to Euro-2012) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7100 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 18 of 39 24 March 2014 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm no polyglot but I'm very interested in Ukrainian, and have been learning it for about a couple of years now. I'm probably in the minority but I am minimally interested in Russian. Unless I had a pressing need to learn Russian seriously, I'd much prefer to improve my ability in Ukrainian (or Polish, or Slovak, or Finnish, or Turkish or...). As to the language being forgotten, I guess that in a relative sense it can be distressing for a native speaker to come across enough natives of Ukraine who can't use Ukrainian or have no desire to learn it. On the other hand, and for the sake of the language's survival, it does help that not only is the language used as much as if not more than Russian west of the Dnipro, but there's a big enough diaspora that's keen to maintain the language even if they have (in my mind, at least) a somewhat idealized view of Ukraine (some of these people whom I've met were or are members of Plast or emigré Ukrainian folk dance groups). I'm not worried about the language's viability yet. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| shedl Tetraglot Newbie Ukraine Joined 3878 days ago 20 posts - 30 votes Speaks: Russian, Ukrainian*, Finnish, EnglishC1 Studies: Italian, Spanish, Polish | Message 19 of 39 24 March 2014 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks for your reply! It's very pleasant to hear such words from foreigner! I mean your willing to improve your Ukrainian. I'm becoming more confident in my thoughts about position of Ukrainian among other languages. I just hope that one day it will become as popular as many other european languages! And if I can help you with your Ukrainian or Russian I'll do it with pleasure! I just fell in love with this forum and I can see here lots of people that help each other with joy! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| shedl Tetraglot Newbie Ukraine Joined 3878 days ago 20 posts - 30 votes Speaks: Russian, Ukrainian*, Finnish, EnglishC1 Studies: Italian, Spanish, Polish | Message 20 of 39 24 March 2014 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm really sure that even not learning Ukrainian hard you can surprise your grandfather. I'd do it this way: I'd learn some Ukrainian poems by such greatest poets like Taras Shevchenko or Ivan Franko. If he likes such things he will value your efforts! That's just my opinion. (I can understand you because for me motivation in learning languages means a lot). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| shedl Tetraglot Newbie Ukraine Joined 3878 days ago 20 posts - 30 votes Speaks: Russian, Ukrainian*, Finnish, EnglishC1 Studies: Italian, Spanish, Polish | Message 21 of 39 24 March 2014 at 8:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
Really similar situation! I feel that soon I'll have to begin learning Polish (if we move to Poland). And this language is very similar to Ukrainian (as I maybe mentioned above). But it's a bit scaring for me as it's the first foreign Slavonic language for me. But I hope it will not be a problem! =) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5000 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 22 of 39 29 March 2014 at 4:44am | IP Logged | |||||
On the opposite they want to show that Russian is a language of Ukraine as well as Ukrainian. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Thor1987 Groupie Canada Joined 4678 days ago 65 posts - 84 votes Studies: German | Message 23 of 39 30 March 2014 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Ironically I started working with a speaker of ukrainian in the past few weeks. He
speaks a small amount of English. So it's very useful for me to learn the most basic of ukrainian. I originally wanted him to teach me polish, as everyone else I work with speaks polish. However giving the timing it seemed more proper to learn a bit of his language. I'm not gonna lie at first I hated the language, just sounded needlessly strange and unorganized. However after a few weeks I've started to believe its the best sounding slavic language, as it's more dynamic than the others. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ivan1989 Triglot Newbie Ukraine Joined 4469 days ago 10 posts - 30 votes Speaks: Ukrainian*, English, Russian Studies: Polish, Spanish | Message 24 of 39 30 March 2014 at 9:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Sorry for the late response, але ласкаво просимо на форум, Shedl! In my view, Ukrainian is not as endangered as Byelorussian, but it's still somehow underestimated, even by some Ukrainians themselves. But I actually know some foreigners (Americans, Poles and Russians) who live in Ukraine and speak relatively good Ukrainian. Also, certain polygolts (like Chung and Serpent) and people who study Slavistics are interested in it. But, it's destined to remain in the shadow of bigger and stronger Russian language.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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