Stress and transliteration

Where Ukrainian word stress falls, how this site marks it, and how the official 2010 system writes Ukrainian names in Latin letters, with its limits.

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On this page

What you will learn

This page covers two things that sit around the alphabet. Stress: Ukrainian stress can fall on any syllable, it can move, and ordinary text does not show it, so you need to learn it with each word. Transliteration: Ukraine has an official way of writing Ukrainian in Latin letters. It is useful for names, but it is not a pronunciation guide and it does not replace Cyrillic.

Before you start

Read The Ukrainian alphabet and Pronunciation basics first. This page assumes you can read the letters and know what the vowels sound like.

Stress can fall on any syllable

Every Ukrainian word of more than one syllable has one stressed syllable. Ukrainian stress is free: there is no fixed position such as “always the first syllable” or “always the second-to-last”. The 2017 phonetic study shows that it can fall on any syllable of a word. Shevelov’s encyclopedia entry adds that a stressed vowel is marked mainly by being longer, not by being much louder.

Stress in different positions

мо́ва

language

First syllable.

вода́

water

Second syllable.

авто́бус

bus

Second of three syllables.

Украї́на

Ukraine

Third of four syllables.

о́зеро

lake

First of three syllables.

Stress can move

Stress is also mobile: it can move to a different syllable in another form of the same word. You have to learn the forms, not just the dictionary form.

Stress moving inside one word

Form	Example	Meaning
singular	рука́	hand, arm
plural	ру́ки	hands, arms
singular	вода́	water
plural	во́ди	waters
infinitive	роби́ти	to do, to make
I do	роблю́	I do, I make
you do (informal)	ро́биш	you do, you make (informal, one person)

Stress can change the meaning

Some words are spelled the same and differ only in stress:

Same spelling, different stress

за́мок

castle

замо́к

lock

доро́га

road

дорога́

dear, expensive (feminine)

сім’я́

family

сі́м’я

seed (collective)

In ordinary writing these pairs look identical. Context tells a reader which word is meant.

How this site marks stress

Ukrainian books, newspapers, signs and websites normally do not mark stress. Dictionaries and learning materials do. On this site:

The stressed vowel is marked with an acute accent placed over it: мо́ва, вода́. Technically this is the combining acute accent (Unicode U+0301), added after the vowel letter. The Горох dictionary uses the same character.
Stress is marked in examples, tables and word lists. In English sentences a word may appear without the mark if it is marked in a nearby example.
Words of one syllable are not marked, because there is only one vowel that could be stressed: дім, п’ять, так.
Headings never carry stress marks.
Every marked word on these pages has been checked in the Горох dictionary and, where it lists the word, in «Словники України» from the Ukrainian Lingua-Information Fund.

Remember

The stress mark is a learning aid, not part of the spelling. When you write Ukrainian yourself, leave it out, just as Ukrainians do.

Common mistake

Do not guess stress from English or from another language. A word such as авто́бус may not be stressed where you expect. When you learn a new word, check its stress in a dictionary that marks it.

The official transliteration

Transliteration means writing a language in another alphabet, letter by letter. Ukraine has an official system, approved by Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 55 of 27 January 2010 «Про впорядкування транслітерації українського алфавіту латиницею» (“On regulating the transliteration of the Ukrainian alphabet into Latin script”). It sets how surnames, first names and place names are spelled in Latin letters. In 2012 the United Nations recommended the same system for Ukrainian geographical names.

This site uses this system whenever it shows Latin letters, and applies it exactly.

The official transliteration (Resolution No. 55, 2010)

Ukrainian	Latin	Position rule
А а	A a
Б б	B b
В в	V v
Г г	H h	gh in the combination зг
Ґ ґ	G g
Д д	D d
Е е	E e
Є є	Ye / ie	Ye at the start of a word, ie elsewhere
Ж ж	Zh zh
З з	Z z
И и	Y y
І і	I i
Ї ї	Yi / i	Yi at the start of a word, i elsewhere
Й й	Y / i	Y at the start of a word, i elsewhere
К к	K k
Л л	L l
М м	M m
Н н	N n
О о	O o
П п	P p
Р р	R r
С с	S s
Т т	T t
У у	U u
Ф ф	F f
Х х	Kh kh
Ц ц	Ts ts
Ч ч	Ch ch
Ш ш	Sh sh
Щ щ	Shch shch
Ь ь	(not written)
Ю ю	Yu / iu	Yu at the start of a word, iu elsewhere
Я я	Ya / ia	Ya at the start of a word, ia elsewhere
’ (apostrophe)	(not written)

The resolution adds three notes. The combination зг is written zgh, so that it is not confused with zh (ж). The soft sign and the apostrophe are left out. Names are transliterated letter by letter.

Examples from the resolution

Ukrainian	Official Latin	What it shows
Ки́їв	Kyiv	и becomes y; ї in the middle becomes i
Ха́рків	Kharkiv	х becomes kh
У́жгород	Uzhhorod	ж becomes zh and г becomes h, so zhh
Згора́ни	Zghorany	зг becomes zgh
Щербу́хи	Shcherbukhy	щ becomes shch
Ві́нниця	Vinnytsia	ц becomes ts; я in the middle becomes ia
Яготи́н	Yahotyn	я at the start becomes Ya
Ю́рій	Yurii	ю at the start becomes Yu; й at the end becomes i
Олексі́й	Oleksii	й at the end becomes i
Терно́піль	Ternopil	ь is left out
Зна́м’янка	Znamianka	the apostrophe is left out
Ма́р’їне	Marine	the apostrophe is left out; ї in the middle becomes i

The stress marks are on the Cyrillic only. The official Latin spelling has no way to show stress, and this site does not add any.

What transliteration cannot do

Common mistake

Transliteration is not a pronunciation guide. It tells you how to spell a name in Latin letters, not how to say it. Read Kyiv-style spellings with care:

h is not English h. It stands for г, the voiced throat sound described in Pronunciation basics.
y and i are easy to read the wrong way round. In Kyiv (Ки́їв) the y stands for и; in Vinnytsia (Ві́нниця) the first i stands for і and the y for и.
Information is lost. The soft sign and the apostrophe disappear, so Ма́р’їне becomes Marine.
It cannot be reversed reliably. Several letters can give the same Latin result: й, the start of є, ї, ю, я, and и can all produce y, and й, ї and і can all produce i in the middle of a word. You cannot rebuild the Cyrillic from the Latin.
Stress is not shown.

You will also see other ways of writing Ukrainian in Latin letters. The 2017 phonetic study, for example, uses a scholarly system and writes the capital as Kyjiv. Such systems give different results for some letters. This site does not mix them with the official system.

Why Cyrillic stays first

On this site, Ukrainian is always shown in Cyrillic first. Transliteration, when it appears at all, is optional support for readers who are still learning the letters. It is never the only form of an example. This is a site policy, for three reasons:

Ukrainian is written in Cyrillic. Everything you will read, from signs to books, uses it.
The Latin form loses information that matters for reading and pronunciation: softness, the apostrophe, the difference between й and и in some positions, and stress.
Every later page on this site depends on reading Cyrillic. Relying on Latin spelling makes it harder to read real Ukrainian.

Украї́на

Ukraina

Ukraine

Applying the official table: ї in the middle of a word becomes i. Learn the Cyrillic; the Latin form is for names on documents and maps.

Practice

Audio

The letters (said by their names) and the examples in these parts of the page are read by a computer-generated voice (OpenAI text-to-speech), because free recordings by native speakers do not cover the whole set:

Stress moving inside one word
The official transliteration (Resolution No. 55, 2010)
Examples from the resolution

The recordings are not individually checked by a listener, and a computer voice can occasionally stress or pronounce a word wrongly: the written word, with its stress mark, is the reference. They are not recordings of a native speaker. Their listen buttons say "computer-generated voice" when you point at them. Nothing is downloaded until you press a listen button.

Recordings

The recordings of the example words are from Wikimedia Commons, made by volunteer native speakers. Words whose meaning depends on the stress have no recording, because a recording cannot show which word it is.

мо́ва, вода́, авто́бус, о́зеро: recorded by Галя Раптова, Nicolas Vion, CC BY 3.0 US.
Украї́на: recorded by Женя Музика, Nicolas Vion, CC BY 3.0 US.

Sources

Ukrainian (Illustrations of the IPA). Journal of the International Phonetic Association 47(3), 2017, 349–357 (Bernd Pompino-Marschall, Elena Steriopolo, Marzena Żygis, International Phonetic Association / Cambridge University Press (open-access copy on edoc-Server, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin))
In English. Used for: the main phonetic description behind the pronunciation pages: the six vowels, hard and soft consonants, г, в, й and щ, voicing, and free, moving stress.. Accessed 29 October 2026.
Ukrainian language (section “Phonetics and phonemics”). Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (George Yurii Shevelov, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (originally Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5, 1993))
In English. Used for: a second English-language description of Ukrainian sounds for the pronunciation pages: the vowels with and without stress, the sound of в at the end of a syllable, soft consonants, and voicing.. Accessed 29 October 2026.
Горох — онлайн-бібліотека словників української мови: Словозміна, Тлумачення (goroh.pp.ua)
In Ukrainian. Used for: stress, gender, plurals, aspect and full word forms for the examples, tables and vocabulary lists on every page; the dictionary definitions (СУМ) used for the meanings of ти and ви, the case each preposition takes, and words such as чи, ні and нема́є.. Accessed 29 October 2026.
«Словники України» online (Український мовно-інформаційний фонд НАН України (ULIF))
In Ukrainian. Used for: an independent check of stress for sample words, in the dictionary of the Ukrainian Language and Information Fund of the National Academy of Sciences.. Accessed 29 October 2026.
Постанова Кабінету Міністрів України від 27 січня 2010 р. № 55 «Про впорядкування транслітерації українського алфавіту латиницею» (Кабінет Міністрів України, kodeksy.com.ua (unofficial mirror of the legislative text))
In Ukrainian. Used for: the official transliteration table used on the stress and transliteration page: the Latin equivalent of each letter, the special forms at the start of a word, and the rules for ь and the apostrophe.. Accessed 29 October 2026.
Ukrainian: romanization system (UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems) (UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems, United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (archived by the Institute of the Estonian Language))
In English. Used for: an independent check of the national transliteration table, and its status: recommended by the UN for Ukrainian place names in 2012, and not fully reversible.. Accessed 29 October 2026.
Стандарт державної мови «Український правопис». Офіційне видання (Національна комісія зі стандартів державної мови)
In Ukrainian. Used for: the current official spelling standard: the 33-letter alphabet, г and ґ, the apostrophe, the alternation of у/в, і/й and з/із/зі, writing не and ні-, and capital Ви in letters and documents.. Accessed 29 October 2026.

Last updated 29 October 2026