1 comments about Hippocrene Standard Dictionary Ukrainian-English English-Ukrainian (Hippocrene Standard Dictionaries).

1. This dictionary is exceptional. Communication is simple, even without knowledge of Ukrainian. We recently hired a Ukainian nanny who has been in the States less than 6 mos. With this dictionary, we are able to communicate clearly. My only question surrounds the absence of some baby-related words, like diaper, rattle, penis (for care following circumcision), etc. Otherwise, the dictionary works great!

No comments about The Ukranian Language in the First Half of the Twentieth Century (1900-1941): Its State and Status (Harvard Series in Ukrainian Studies).

2 comments about Ukrainian-English / English-Ukrainian Dictionary.

1. This dictionary is the best I could find for the price. To get the same quality of Ukrainian-English dictionary as this would cost well over $60. It has 679 pages of definitions and a very good notes for Ukrainian grammar. The Ukrainian grammar in the front is helpful while learning the language because it gives a quick reference to declensions and verb conjugation while writing or talking. I also love the size. It is very portable in size and paperback makes it easy to transport.



2. There aren't many English-language resources for Ukrainian, but this dictionary is about as good as you can get. I can recommend it.

No comments about Ukrainian: A Comprehensive Grammar (Routledge Grammars).

No comments about Conversational Ukrainian: Learn to Speak and Understand Ukrainian with Pimsleur Language Programs (Conversational).

No comments about Basic Ukrainian: Learn to Speak and Understand Ukrainian with Pimsleur Language Programs (Basic).

4 comments about Ukrainian: Phrasebook and Dictionary (Hippocrene Language Studies).

1. Hipprocrene's UKRAINIAN PHRASEBOOK AND DICTIONARY is unfortunately a phrasebook to stay away from for travellers to Ukraine. While it was one of the only Ukrainian phrasebooks on the market in the earlier 90's, better phrasebooks have appeared in the years since.

   The book's greatest weaknesses are its size and layout. The book is a trade paperback, very inconvenient for travelling. Because it will not fit in a pocket, one may be forced to carry it, which will instantly identify one as a tourist. The book's layout is atrocious, apparently set on a personal computer, with a typeface that is not pleasing to the eye and section changes that are not well marked. And instead of simply typing an accented character in each word, the authors went and used a pen to mark the accent in each word, which looks extremely amateurish.

   As for the content, the Ukrainian phrases are accurate and reliable. However, the tourist information included in each section is mostly out-of-date now. There are references to Soviet institutions that disappeared a few years after independence, and Ukrainian modernization means that, for example, Western film can be developed with no problem in Kyiv.

   Incidentally, the traveller to Ukraine cannot rely on a Ukrainian phrasebook, as in Kyiv and the eastern half of the country (as well as the Crimean), most people speak Russian. Thus, the traveller should ideally have a Russian phrasebook in addition to a Ukrainian one, unless he or she will be spending the entire trip in the western half of the country.

   I cannot recommend Hippocrene's UKRAINIAN PHRASEBOOK AND DICTIONARY. The traveller to Ukraine is better off with a phrasebook that isn't so outdated and poorly produced. I think that the Lonely Planet Ukrainian phrasebook is the one to get.




2. My review is based on the 14 sample pages available for viewing on this Web site, which was enough for me to decide that I would not recommend this book to anyone who is serious about learning the basics of the Ukrainian language. The book could probably serve its purpose as a phrasebook for tourists, because a foreigner cannot be expected to have a correct pronunciation. Like any phrasebook, this book teaches the readers to approximate Ukrainian sounds with English equivalents. However, some approximations could be better (for example, using 'h' instead of 'g').
   
   What's more important is that the authors make a few inaccurate statements about the Ukrainian language and pronunciation. In fact, the book looks like a Russian phrasebook that was adapted for Ukrainian. These are a few examples:
   
   On page 2 (sample page 9), the authors claim that voiced consonants become voiceless at the end of a word. It's true for Russian, but not Ukrainian.
   
   On page 2 (sample page 9), the letter transcribed as 'g' is said to be pronounced like the 'g' in 'goat'. In Russian, yes; but in Ukrainian it's pronounced like a voiced English 'h' in "aha" or "hey".
   
   On page 4 (sample page 11), the apostrophe is said to separate a prefix from a stem. Not necessarily. It's true of the Russian 'hard sign', but in Ukrainian an apostrophe can occur anywhere in the word.
   
   On page 4 (sample page 11), the authors talk about the reduction of vowels in Ukrainian. In contrast to Russian, there is no reduction of vowels in Ukrainian. All vowels are always pronounced clearly.
   
   On page 4 (sample page 11), it says Ukrainian nouns have six cases. It would be true for Russian nouns, but Ukrainian nouns have seven cases. There's also the vocative case, which is missing in modern Russian.
   
   On page 6 (sample page 13), the masculine suffix for patronymics is shown as "-ovich". It is a Russian suffix; the Ukrainian is "-ovych".
   
   There are also other inaccuracies:
   
   On page 2 (sample page 9), it says that consonants are palatalized when followed by a '¿'. It's not true because consonants are never followed by a '¿' in modern Ukrainian.
   
   On page 6 (sample page 13), the Ukrainian translation for "Goodbye" is misspelled. It should be spelled as two words.
   
   I don't know if there is a Ukrainian dialect that fits the language described in the book, but it's definitely not the standard Ukrainian spoken in the Ukraine.
   
   Again, the book could reasonably be used to get by in the Ukraine, but I could not recommend it as a resource for students of Ukrainian.



3. I have few associations to Ukrainian language and culture, except that, oddly enough, I had the opportunity to eat in a Ukrainian restaurant in the Canadian town of Jaspar once, in the Canadian Rockies. The food was quite good (I had the Ukrainian potato dumplings, a traditional dish) and I'd be happy to eat there again if I ever return for a visit.

   I note the two very negative reviews of this book by the two previous reviewers, citing many phonetic mistakes and even some grammatical ones, such as the author stating that Ukrainian has six cases, like Russian, whereas it actually has seven, which is the vocative case. I'm not as knowledgeable as these two people, so I defer to them here, but I would point out that technically Latin has the vocative case also, but it's hardly ever used. If you look in Latin texts, you'll only see the six cases mentioned.

   Appropos of the grammar, I would have liked to verify if the verbal system has directive and non-directive verbs also, like Russian, but there's no mention of this, but that's perhaps a minor technical point.

   Since this is the only book on the language I've ever seen, I picked it up to see what it was like, having had some previous background in Russian. Had it not been for the problems cited, this might have been a decent book. It's divided into 15 chapters of useful phrases in practical and dynamic situations, using the now very familiar and successful Berlitz strategy, pioneered by the great Maximilian Berlitz back in the late 19th century as an alternative to the traditional rote memorization of languages. So there are chapters on Transportation, Shopping, Food and Drink, At the Restaurant, etc. There is a 5-page section on essential phrases, and a phonetic and pronunciation guide. Finally, there is a 3000 word mini-dictionary in the back.

   The book uses phonetic equivalents to aid in pronunciation, and the book is quite readable being in the large, trade paperback size with a good-size font. The book also includes the Cyrillic alphabet and a transliteration for the words. At just over 200 pages it would be a lot of information for the price, since it's only 12 dollars, had it not been for the problems cited by the two previous reviewers. Despite those, I give it a slightly better rating at 2 stars for being the only book I've ever seen on the subject, which will still be useful to you if you keep in mind the corrections in the two earlier reviews. And the price is a consideration too since Hippocrene's books are usually cheaper than the competition.

   In that sense, I guess you get what you pay for. The quality of Hippocrene's books can be uneven, it's true, but they're also capable of putting out very good language books for a realtively modest price, so they can offer a lot of value for the money, such as their concise of grammar of Spanish, which I thought excellent. You just have to pick and choose a little bit. And sometimes, as in this book, they're often just about the only books available on the subject in a typical bookstore, without access to a university library with an extensive language and linguistics section, such as their Beginner's Assyrian and Beginner's Armenian books.




4. this book is great for beginners to learn Ukrainian i wish there were more like this with more advance learning

5 comments about Ukrainian Phrasebook.

1. I bought this to give to a friend. However, at work I was working with some Ukrainian ladies who didn't speak English. I brought this in, and it was very useful.



2. This pocket guide to Ukrainian was indispensible to me during my two week visit to this country. I carried it with me everywhere I went and consulted it almost constantly. In all that time it was always helpful and accurate. The only time it let me down was in drawing a distinction between a wild rabbit and a domestic one. Each word is given in the Ukrainian Cyrillic spelling and then in a phonetic transliteration with accented syllables in bold. Each section has an introductory piece that gives general background information. Useful phrases and sentences followed by a list of major relevant words complete each section. The end of the book has an English-Ukrainian vocabulary. A Ukrainian-English vocabulary would also have been useful, but would have repeated the vocabularies in each section. I can't recommend this book highly enough. Truly invaluable to the clueless traveler.



3. My trip to Ukraine wouldn't have been the same without this wonderful little book. And Ukrainians were flattered that a foreigner tried speaking Ukrainian to them instead of Russian. It contains the phrases you need and easy to understand pronounciation guide. It really helped break the language barrier and I made new friends in a new country. The entire Lonely Planet series is the best among travel guides, and I've travelled a lot using various guides.



4. This little book is terrific for anyone interested in the Ukrainian language. It has very good explanations of the alphabet and grammatical rules of Ukrainian. It also teaches MANY useful phrases and words for the traveler, and it gives phonetic pronunciations of every word and phrase (as well as the actual Cyrillic spelling).
   I have a close friend in Ukraine who has told me that my pronunciation of the Ukrainian words (as they appear in this book) are perfect.
   However, be certain of your purpose for using this book. If you want to learn to speak the Ukrainian language somewhat fluently, it will take a lot more than this book (but this book is an excellent starting point).
   If you are simply planning to travel to one of the major Ukrainian cities (Kiev, Odessa, etc.) in the near future, you would probably be better off with the Russian version of this book instead of Ukrainian. Everybody in the major cities still speaks Russian as their primary language. Most of them understand Ukrainian, but Russian is still the first language for most people. I understand that this is slowly changing (universities, etc. are changing EVERYTHING over to Ukrainian). And if you plan to visit a small town in Ukraine, many of them speak ONLY Ukrainian. My suggestion is to get both the Ukrainian and the Russian versions, so you will be able to communicate clearly no matter where you are.



5. I visited Kiev were they really only speak Russian. They do speak Ukranian but only in the area that is furthest away from the Russian border. Other than that the book was very good and I really enjoyed the tidbits of information in the book.

3 comments about Ukrainian English/English Ukrainian Practical Dictionary With Menu Terms (Hippocrene Practical Dictionaries).

1. As a source of many words, this is an okay book.
   My issues?
   The book provides tranlations of words, without context for their use, thereby requiring you to lookup the translated word. Many translation dictionaries make such mistakes, but what makes this so difficult with this book is that many of the words provided in one language, are NOT in the other language! Thereby effectivly making you GUESS as which word to use for any given situation.



2. more words are needed but this is a great reference book for words to translate to english



3. I need to buy something for my husband who does not speak a word of Ukrainian. Looked at the firt page of this book and it was enough for me to know it's not good. The words are not the words regular Ukrainians speak with actually IN Ukraine. Those are the words that 2nd and 3rd generation Ukrainian immigrants from US and Canada use, and this author living in New York tries to pass them as authentic Ukrainian. Sure, you will be understood if you visit the country, but you will sound funny using those words.

5 comments about Teach Yourself Ukrainian Complete Course Package (Book + 2CDs) (Teach Yourself . . . Complete Courses).

1. I wouldn't suggest this if this is your first stab at any sort of russian block language. It's not exactly user friendly unless you have a teacher handy.This would be good if finding yourself further down the road in the language itself. But to become comfortable with the language first would help and this is a bit daunting.



2. This course (Teach Yourself Ukrainian) is not a good buy for the average learner. It begins by trying to teach the cyrillic alphabet first, then introduces conversations, which are presented in writing as well as on the discs. The conversations are not broken down well, so they are difficult to learn.
   How do we learn to speak as a child? We learn basic words, then how to combine words, then (much later) how to spell and write.
   I would recommend finding a program that takes the above approach, not the one offered in this course.



3. I bought this book when I was an exchange student in Ukraine... I did not have any previous experience with the language. I found the book to be immensely helpful, but gave up on the cds. I found the reader spoke too quickly to comprehend, I couldn't keep up. Just so you know, another exchange student (to Czech Republic) had the same problem with the Czech cds. Otherwise, a good (although your only) choice.



4. I found by following the book & cd together is too hard it does not take enough time on learning the language before going into dialogue. You have to keep rewinding to learn letters etc.



5. It's content was obviously prepared well however:
   
   1. the type size is too small, especially for the Cyrillic characters that are boldfaced; this suggests that...
   
   2. the book dimensions are too small; although it's obviously intended for portability, still...
   
   3. the authors should've been more helpful with tips and such about the learned ability of reading Cyrillic, and...
   
   3. the explanation of the grammatical terms are insufficient (e.g., how many people know what "instrumental case" means without consulting reference material?), and finally...
   
   4. the index is too brief.
   
   It still gets four stars though simply because of its excellent and comprehensive content.