Question about Ukrainian language (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Question about Ukrainian language
Tags: Ukrainian
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

39 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5

Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 5000 days ago
2096 posts - 2972 votes

Speaks: Russian*

Message 33 of 39

03 April 2014 at 10:25am | IP Logged

Serpent wrote:

like the h and I think no vowel reduction?

Vowel reduction certainly exists in Ukrainian, although it's not that strong as in Russian.
1 person has voted this message useful

shedl
Tetraglot
Newbie
Ukraine
Joined 3878 days ago
20 posts - 30 votes
Speaks: Russian, Ukrainian*, Finnish, English^C1
Studies: Italian, Spanish, Polish

Message 34 of 39

03 April 2014 at 12:02pm | IP Logged

hribecek wrote:

I'm not a Polyglot but I also started learning Ukrainian without any
real reason. I was attracted to it initially because it seemed like a very neglected
language among language lovers and because I wanted to expand my knowledge of Slavic
languages. I'm similar to Chung in that Russian just doesn't do it for me, I guess
it's just too popular.

I'm planning to go to Ukraine in the Summer, but the choice of language came before the
choice of travel destination in my case.

I've been learning it for 3 months now and am really enjoying every aspect of it. I
was surprised to see how similar it is to Czech, I expected it to be a lot closer to
Russian than it is. Czech has really helped me to get lots of Ukrainian words and
grammar for free.

I've noticed a similar trend to Pesahson regarding Ukrainians' ability in other Slavic
languages; the best foreign Czech speakers I know are Ukrainians.

I'm in the very beginning of learning Polish. And one of the first things I did was to
read an article in Polish. And the very beautiful thing I noticed was that I can
understand no less than 50% of the text even not knowing any single word! I understand
that all I need is to get used to read Polish and to learn basic Polish vocabulary that
is very similar to Ukrainian.
And also I saw in my beloved Swadesh list that all these three languages - Polish,
Czech and Ukrainian are very alike. So I hope that it won't be a problem for me to
learn Czech and Slovak after learning Polish.
1 person has voted this message useful

hribecek
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5293 days ago
1243 posts - 1458 votes

Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish
Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian

Message 35 of 39

03 April 2014 at 4:12pm | IP Logged

Serpent wrote:

I assume you don't count Slovaks? :D

And hm, how much experience with Russian do you have? Coming from the other side I can't say it's far from Russian and Belarusian. Ukrainian does have some interesting similarities with Czech though, like the h and I think no vowel reduction?

Yes, I do count Slovaks, because almost all of them I know just speak Slovak when speaking to Czechs. I've met or seen a few Slovaks who have been here for so long that their Slovak has morphed into Czech with Slovak flavour, but that's not the same.

You're right that my Russian knowledge and experience is pretty minimal, but it seems to me that Ukrainian is somewhere halfway between Slovak and Russian, which I wasn't expecting. I'd be interested to hear other views on this??
1 person has voted this message useful

pesahson
Diglot
Senior Member
Poland
Joined 5672 days ago
448 posts - 840 votes

Speaks: Polish*, English
Studies: French, Portuguese, Norwegian

Message 36 of 39

03 April 2014 at 6:25pm | IP Logged

I'd be interested what Ukrainians think of Slovak. Because it is closer to Polish then Czech. So Polish/Ukrainian/Slovak are all very close from my perspective. Then a bit further Czech and Russian.
1 person has voted this message useful

shedl
Tetraglot
Newbie
Ukraine
Joined 3878 days ago
20 posts - 30 votes
Speaks: Russian, Ukrainian*, Finnish, English^C1
Studies: Italian, Spanish, Polish

Message 37 of 39

05 April 2014 at 2:32pm | IP Logged

pesahson wrote:

I'd be interested what Ukrainians think of Slovak. Because it is closer
to Polish then Czech. So Polish/Ukrainian/Slovak are all very close from my perspective.
Then a bit further Czech and Russian.

Unfortunately, I know very little about Slovak. But again I'd like to emphasize the
beautiful moment of similarity of these three languages. I was comparing them due to
Swadesh list and I noticed that lots of words from this list are so alike!

And also I made an experiment that I maybe mentioned about. I turned on one of Polish
channels and listened a bit to it. And I can say that knowing Ukrainian I understood more
than 60% of the speach. Hope to notice the same while listening to Slovak! But currently
I'm interested in learning Polish.
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 38 of 39

05 April 2014 at 6:08pm | IP Logged

Try out this news clip from Tisa 1.

As a tangent, there's also a beginners' textbook of Rusyn for speakers of Slovak. For me, Rusyn comes off as a mix of Slovak and Ukrainian with the occasional Russianism.
1 person has voted this message useful

shedl
Tetraglot
Newbie
Ukraine
Joined 3878 days ago
20 posts - 30 votes
Speaks: Russian, Ukrainian*, Finnish, English^C1
Studies: Italian, Spanish, Polish

Message 39 of 39

06 April 2014 at 8:05pm | IP Logged

Chung wrote:

Try out this news clip from v=FxJ9TZ6ZsTs">Tisa 1.

As a tangent, there's also a
%8Dn%C3%ADkov.pdf">beginners' textbook of Rusyn for speakers of Slovak. For me,
Rusyn comes off as a mix of Slovak and Ukrainian with the occasional Russianism.

What I can say is that I understood more than 60% of the speach in this video. So I
can conclude that Slovak is also understandable enough for me. Maybe one day I'll begin
learning it =)

Edited by shedl on 06 April 2014 at 8:06pm

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