How to learn Ukrainian by reading

Ukrainian is the state language of Ukraine and the language of a literature that runs from Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko and Lesya Ukrainka to contemporary writers such as Oksana Zabuzhko and Serhiy Zhadan. It’s a melodic language with a clear, regular spelling, and a rich grammar that reading teaches better than any table.

A note before you start: in Lexo, Ukrainian editions have the text and glosses now, and narration is coming later. That shapes the routine below, which pairs Lexo’s reading with listening from other sources.

What makes Ukrainian hard to read

• The alphabet. Ukrainian uses 33 Cyrillic letters, including four that Russian lacks: і, ї (yi), є (ye) and ґ (a hard g). An apostrophe separates sounds that would otherwise merge: м’ясо (meat), сім’я (family). Our guide to learning a new script has tips for learning Cyrillic.
• Letters that sound different from Russian. Г is a breathy h, и is a short sound like the i in “bit,” and е is like the e in “bet.” Unlike Russian, Ukrainian doesn’t reduce its unstressed vowels much: молоко (milk) keeps its three clear o’s.
• Invisible stress. Stress can fall on any syllable, moves between the forms of a word, and isn’t marked in normal text.
• Seven cases, including the vocative. Nouns change their endings with their role, and Ukrainian uses a special form for addressing people: Тарас becomes Тарасе, Олена becomes Олено, and друг, “friend,” becomes друже when you call out to one. Watson, in a Ukrainian Sherlock Holmes, is addressed as Ватсоне.
• Soft consonants. The soft sign ь softens the consonant before it, as in кінь (horse) and день (day), and я, ю, є and і soften the consonant before them, while at the start of a word or after a vowel я, ю, є and ї add a y sound. The difference is subtle in speech and plain on the page.
• Name and patronymic. Polite address uses a first name and a patronymic, both in the vocative: Іване Петровичу, “Ivan Petrovych.” In dialogue it signals respect and some distance; a first name alone is friendly and familiar.
• Aspect. Most verbs come in pairs, imperfective for processes and habits, perfective for completed actions: робити and зробити, писати and написати.
• A future of its own. Alongside буду читати, “I will read,” Ukrainian has a one-word future: читатиму.
• False friends for Russian speakers. Неділя is Sunday (the Russian look-alike means “week”), час means “time” (Russian: “hour”), and питати means “to ask” (Russian питать means “to feed, nourish”). If you know Russian, it helps, but read carefully.

Ukrainian reading at each level

What the CEFR levels mean for Ukrainian text:

• A2, elementary. Short sentences in the present and past, the most common cases, the vocative in dialogue, and frequent aspect pairs.
• B1, intermediate. All seven cases, aspect choices in narration, verbs of motion, relative clauses with який, and both forms of the future.
• B2, upper intermediate. Adverbial participles (сховавшись, “having hidden”), the passive, the conditional with би, and a more literary vocabulary.
• C1, advanced. Close to the original text, with light condensing. C2 is the complete book.

New to the CEFR? Start with CEFR levels explained.

The Hound of the Baskervilles at A2 and at B2

Two moments from Conan Doyle’s novel, written for this page at two levels:

A2

Сер Чарльз Баскервіль помер біля свого будинку. Поруч доктор Мортімер побачив сліди величезного собаки. Він попросив Шерлока Холмса допомогти.

Sir Charles Baskerville died near his house. Nearby, Doctor Mortimer saw the footprints of an enormous dog. He asked Sherlock Holmes for help.

B2

Холмс удав, що залишається в Лондоні, а насправді таємно жив на болотах, щоб стежити за кожним, хто міг загрожувати молодому серові Генрі.

Holmes pretended to be staying in London, but in fact he was secretly living on the moor, keeping watch on anyone who might threaten young Sir Henry.

The A2 text uses the reflexive possessive свого, “his own,” and the genitive after біля, “near.” Собака is masculine in standard Ukrainian, hence величезного собаки, “of an enormous dog,” where its Russian twin is feminine. The B2 sentence keeps the present tense in the що clause (що залишається, “that he is staying,” where English says “was staying”), uses the instrumental after стежити за, “keep watch on,” and shows the dative ending -ові in серові Генрі, because загрожувати, “threaten,” takes the dative.

A daily routine for reading Ukrainian

1. Read in Lexo, at your level. Read a section, tapping only the words that block the meaning of the sentence.
2. Read a few sentences aloud. Without built-in narration for now, your own voice is the bridge between page and sound. Check stress in a dictionary when you’re unsure.
3. Listen elsewhere, every day. Ukrainian podcasts, radio and audiobooks fill the gap until Lexo’s narration arrives. Listen to something at or just above your reading level, and when you find an audiobook of a text you’ve already read, try reading while listening.
4. Reread. Second readings are where endings and stress patterns settle in.
5. Keep a stress list. Note words whose stress surprised you, with the accent marked, and say them aloud once a week. It’s a small habit that makes up for the missing audio.

The principles of extensive reading, set out by Day and Bamford (1998, Extensive Reading in the Second Language Classroom), apply fully here: easy material, lots of it, read for pleasure and at a fluent pace. Reading a great deal at the right level is how Ukrainian’s endings stop being puzzles and become signals. See also comprehensible input, choosing your reading level and the 98% rule.

Classics to start with

• The Hound of the Baskervilles is a page-turner with a clear structure, good at B1 and B2.
• Grimms’ Fairy Tales are short and complete, ideal daily reading at A2.
• Andersen’s Fairy Tales offer more short stories, from The Snow Queen to The Little Match Girl, at A2 and B1.
• Treasure Island is fast and full of dialogue, an ideal first novel.
• Journey to the Center of the Earth moves in a straight line, from a coded message to the depths of the Earth, easy to follow at A2.

Further on, Ukrainian’s own literature is waiting: Shevchenko’s poems in the Kobzar, Lesya Ukrainka’s verse drama The Forest Song, and contemporary novels such as Serhiy Zhadan’s Voroshilovgrad. Reading comfortably at C1 brings all of them within reach.

Ukrainian in Lexo, and what’s coming

Ukrainian editions in Lexo have the full text and glosses today; narration is coming later. Until it arrives, there’s no audio in Ukrainian editions, either for the whole book or for single words.

What you do get is the reading help. Tap any word and a card shows what it means in that sentence, its base form and its part of speech, which matters in a language where серові leads back to сер and свого to свій. Until narration arrives, the card’s reading in Latin letters does some of the audio’s work: it spells each word out, so letters like г and и aren’t left to guesswork. If the word belongs to a phrase or idiom, the card explains the phrase too, and the whole sentence is translated into English. Words you want to keep go into your Words list, and sentence-by-sentence mode shows one sentence at a time with its translation.

Pick a level for each book, anywhere from A2 to C2. If you’re the first to ask for a book in Ukrainian at your level, Lexo writes the edition for you: chapter 1 is ready in a few minutes, the rest follows while you read, and you keep a dated “First edition” mark. Books download for offline reading on iPhone and iPad, and there’s no account to create.

For other Slavic languages, see Polish, which shares much of Ukrainian’s vocabulary, Czech, and Russian.

Lexo is coming soon to the App Store for iPhone and iPad. Get notified at launch.