Glossary

The accusative marks the direct object: Я ба́чу сестру́. (I see my sister.) It is also used after some prepositions, for example for direction after в or на.

For some nouns the accusative looks the same as the nominative, so you cannot always see it from the ending.

Adjectives, possessives such as my, and past-tense verbs agree with their noun. In the singular they match its gender, and in the plural there is one form for all genders: нови́й буди́нок (a new house), нова́ кни́га (a new book), нове́ вікно́ (a new window).

Agreement follows the noun’s grammatical gender, not its meaning.

The apostrophe is not a letter of the alphabet, but it changes the pronunciation. It is written between a hard consonant and я, ю, є or ї, and it tells you to pronounce the й sound at the start of that vowel: м’я́со (meat).

This site writes the apostrophe as ’, as the official orthography does. In the official transliteration it is left out.

Most Ukrainian verbs come in pairs that share one English translation. The imperfective verb (недоко́наний вид) presents the action as a process, or as something repeated. The perfective verb (доко́наний вид) presents it as completed, with a result.

The perfective is often the imperfective with a prefix: чита́ти and прочита́ти both mean “to read”. Perfective verbs have no present tense: their present-looking forms refer to the future.

Ukrainian shows who does what mainly with the endings of words, not with word order. Each set of endings for one job is a case. Ukrainian has seven: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative and vocative.

English has a small remnant of this in he and him. Ukrainian does it with every noun: сестра́ (sister, as the subject) but сестру́ (sister, as the direct object).

A Ukrainian verb has a different ending for each person in the present tense: я чита́ю (I read), ти чита́єш (you read, informal), він чита́є (he reads), and so on.

Verbs fall into two groups, the first and the second conjugation, with different vowels in their endings. The you (informal) form shows which group a verb is in. A few common verbs, such as бу́ти, да́ти and ї́сти, are irregular and fit neither group.

The dative usually answers “to whom?” or “for whom?”. Some verbs are followed by the dative where English uses a direct object: Я телефону́ю сестрі́. (I’m phoning my sister.)

The genitive often shows what something belongs to or is part of, like English of or ’s: Це кни́га сестри́. (This is my sister’s book.)

It is also used after a negative such as “there is no…”, and after some prepositions, such as без (without).

Every Ukrainian noun in the singular is masculine, feminine or neuter. This is a grammatical category, not a statement about sex: things have a gender too. Стіл (table) is masculine, кни́га (book) is feminine and вікно́ (window) is neuter.

Gender matters because adjectives, past-tense verbs and pronouns change their endings to match it. The ending of the dictionary form is a good guide to the gender, but not a perfect one. A dictionary gives the gender of every noun.

Ukrainian dictionaries list verbs in the infinitive, which ends in -ти: чита́ти (to read). It does not change for person or tense.

You build the past tense from the infinitive, and one way of making the future uses the infinitive after a form of “to be”.

In Ukrainian, nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs all change their endings. A noun changes for case and number: кни́га (a book, as the subject) but Я чита́ю кни́гу. (I’m reading a book.)

Changing the endings of nouns, adjectives and pronouns is also called declension. Changing the endings of verbs is called conjugation.

The instrumental shows what you do something with or by means of. The ending alone can do the job of English with: Я пишу́ ру́чкою. (I write with a pen.)

After the preposition з it shows who or what you are together with.

The locative never appears without a preposition. Its most common use is for place, after в or у (in) and на (on, at): Я живу́ в Ки́єві. (I live in Kyiv.)

It is also called the prepositional case.

The nominative is the form you find in a dictionary. It is used for the subject of the sentence, the one doing the action, and after this is: Це моя́ сестра́. (This is my sister.)

In Ukrainian, the noun after a preposition is always in a particular case, and usually its ending changes: без цу́кру (without sugar, genitive), з молоко́м (with milk, instrumental).

Some prepositions take one case, others two with a difference in meaning. Learn each preposition in a short phrase together with its case.

Reflexive verbs are conjugated like other verbs, with -ся added after the ending: навча́тися (to study) → я навча́юся (I study).

The name comes from verbs like to wash oneself, but many reflexive verbs have no “oneself” meaning in English. After a vowel, dictionaries also give a shorter -сь.

The soft sign is the letter Ь. It is not pronounced by itself. It shows that the consonant before it is soft (palatalised), roughly as if a hint of the y in yes were blended into it: день (day).

In the official transliteration the soft sign is simply left out.

A Ukrainian word of more than one syllable normally has one stressed syllable (a few words allow two pronunciations). The stress can fall on any syllable, and it can move to a different syllable in another form of the same word, so it has to be learned with each word.

Ordinary Ukrainian text does not show the stress. This site marks it in examples with an accent over the stressed vowel. For example, the stress moves in the plural of the word for water: вода́ (water), во́ди (waters).

Ukraine has an official transliteration system, approved by the Cabinet of Ministers in 2010. It sets the Latin spelling of names and places, as in Ки́їв → Kyiv.

Transliteration is not a pronunciation guide. It does not show stress, it drops the soft sign and the apostrophe, and some Latin letters stand for sounds that are not the English ones.

When you address someone, their name or title takes the vocative ending: Ма́мо, дя́кую! (Thank you, Mum!) The stress can move in the vocative, so learn it with the word.