Negation

After this page you will be able to make Ukrainian sentences negative, answer no, and use words like nobody, nothing and never. You will also know how to say “there is no…” and “I don’t have…”, which need a different case.

Sentence structure gave a first look at не. This page goes further.

Не: not

To make a word negative, put не directly in front of it. Most often this is the verb. Ukrainian has no helper verb like English do: не on its own does the job of don’t, doesn’t and didn’t.

In the future with бу́ду, не goes before бу́ду, as in the last example.

Не can also stand in front of another word, and then only that word is negated. In a sentence without a verb, it goes in front of the noun or adjective.

Writing не

Не is written as a separate word before a verb: не зна́ю, не працю́ю [src: pravopys-2026, §44]. A few verbs never appear without не, and those are written as one word. One you will meet early is нена́видіти (to hate). The spelling rules for не with nouns and adjectives are more complicated, and are left for a later page.

Ні: no

Ні is the answer no. It stands at the start of the reply. If the reply goes on to deny an action, the verb still needs its own не.

Double negatives are correct

In standard English, I don’t know nothing is a mistake. In Ukrainian, it is the normal pattern. Words like nobody, nothing and never start with ні-, and the verb also keeps its не.

The examples mean: Nobody knows. I don’t see anything. I’ve never been to Lviv (said by a man). He doesn’t work anywhere. I’m not going anywhere. No bus goes there.

A few notes on these words:

• They follow the question words. Хто → ніхто́, де → ніде́, куди́ → ніку́ди, яки́й → нія́кий. See Questions.
• The dictionary form of nothing is ніщо́. In a sentence with a negative verb you will usually see the form нічо́го: Я нічо́го не зна́ю. (I don’t know anything.)
• They change their form like хто and що: ніко́го, ніко́му, ніки́м. With a preposition, the word splits into two and the preposition goes in the middle: ні з ким (with nobody), ні про що (about nothing).
• Stress matters. Ніко́ли means never. The dictionary also lists ні́коли, with a different stress and the meaning “there’s no time”. Ніде́ and ні́де differ in the same way: “nowhere” and “there’s nowhere to…”, as in ні́де сі́сти (there’s nowhere to sit).

All of these are written as one word [src: pravopys-2026, §44], except when a preposition splits them.

“There is no…” and “I don’t have…”

To say that something exists or someone has something, Ukrainian uses є with the nominative. To say that something does not exist or is not there, it uses нема́є, and the noun changes to the genitive.

Нема́ is a shorter form of нема́є with the same meaning; the dictionary lists both. In this pattern the thing that is missing is not the subject, so it does not take the nominative.

You can also negate the person directly, with не and the nominative: Ма́ма не вдо́ма. (Mum isn’t at home.) Both are correct; нема́є puts the weight on the absence. For “I don’t have”, you can also say я не ма́ю, again with the genitive: Я не ма́ю ча́су.

Repeated, ні… ні… means neither… nor…: У ме́не нема́є ні бра́та, ні сестри́. (I have neither a brother nor a sister.)

The past and future work the same way, with не було́ and не бу́де. These forms do not change, whatever the gender or number of the noun.

Not yet, no longer

Two small words often come before не:

• ще не: not yet. Я ще не зна́ю. (I don’t know yet.)
• уже́ не or вже не: no longer, not any more. Він уже́ не живе́ тут. (He doesn’t live here any more.)

Common mistakes and limits