Product Description

This phrasebook provides a world of words on traditional dance, folk music and local Ukrainian customs. It gives language tips when bargining for crafts and souvenirs, and there are sections on hiking, sports and going out. Transliteration features alongside local script.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #678525 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

Still gets five stars
I've just come back from a wonderful few days in Ukraine and the evaluation is still the same: 5 stars.

But I have one comment - if you're going out there yourself, make sure you take a Russian phrasebook too, because that's the majority language, not Ukrainian.

The author's claim that Ukrainian is the native tongue of the vast majority of the country is misleading and may be the wishful thinking of a proud patriot in exile .

I spent the first few days in Kyiv frustrated that I hadn't bought the LP Russian phrasebook as well. I just got bemused looks when I tried out the Ukrainian phrases, and even a couple of people asking me tersely to speak Russian. Weirdly, all the public signs are in Ukrainian, so I found myself understanding these but unable to fathom conversations on the metro.

Things got better when I headed out west to Lviv and the Carpathians, where Ukrainian predominates. But I was put off from my original plan of going down to the Crimea and Odessa because apparently it's almost entirely Russian-speaking and I wasn't prepared. I wish Mr Pavlyshyn had given me at least a clue about that before I left.

The fact that the book is useful only for the western corner of the country makes me even more amazed (and pleased) that LP would publish it. I gave the book away to a friendly Ukrainian sharing the compartment on my final train trip back to Kyiv, knowing I wouldn't need it there. I'll be ordering another copy, but with the Russian one too this time.

The only one around!
The new generation of Lonely Planet phrase books published over the last few years are truly excellent. The first one I had was on Latin American Spanish; I thought then that it was the best phrase book I'd ever used. The grammar section especially is more than just cursory and in fact provides as much as you'd probably need to know to learn the language properly.

So I was delighted to discover that the only Ukrainian phrase book on Amazon (and so presumably the market) is a new LP guide. And it seems to be equally good. It has sections on things I'm interested in (hiking, environment, culture, photography) instead of the interminable lists of consumer goods produced by Berlitz, which seems to think all tourists do is shop for souvenirs.

It also has those interesting and vital boxes adding cultural background to words and the language in general. And the explanation of perfective and imperfective verbs (common to other Slavic languages) has the best clarity/concision ratio I've seen. Other phrase books don't even go into these things.

Of course I haven't actually used it yet, so who knows, I may end up telling people in Kyiv that my hovercraft is full of eels.

Some quibbles: the grammar section includes conjugations of key verbs, but inexplicably omits the essential verb "to go". It is introduced later in the book, however. Also, since Ukrainian is written in Cyrillic, it's important to learn this alphabet. But the Ukrainian words and phrases are always introduced with their Latin alphabet transliteration first, before the Cyrillic spelling. This discourages (though only slightly) the reader from getting to know the alphabet by figuring out the pronunciation of the Cyrillic first and then checking with the transliteration. Lastly, in the acknowledgements the publisher thanks the cover artist for her "innovate" illustration. I can't for the life of me see what's innovative about it. It's just a pleasant picture. There's no need to exaggerate.

But these are minor points. For producing such an excellent book, and having the courage to do it for what is still an obscure language (in tourist volume terms) it should get five stars.

ukranian phrasebook
The book is fine, but the assertion that the 'vast majority' of people in Ukraine speak Ukrainian as their first language is ridiculous..its more like 40% and probably less. An unacceptably misleading stat considering the people who buy this book want to be able to communicate in the language of the locals..whatever is myabe.

The book is good for West Ukraine, but East and South (and cities in the North) are wholly or mostly Russian speaking.