Went through a unit on animals a while back. For some reason, павук /pavuk/ "spider" was no problem. But the word for "dog", собака /sobaka/ gave me grief.

Nothing like #English
Nothing like #French

Until I realized that it sounds remarkably close to "Chewbacca". Now I'm good. 🐕

#LearningUkrainian
#mnemonic

I got to the end of the Duolingo Ukrainian course and now I'm taking stock. One thing I'd love to work on, somehow, is cases.

Does anyone have advice on how best to get my head around cases as an L1 English speaker learning a case-heavy language? Ukrainian-specific advice ideal, but I'm happy to hear anything people have.

#LearningUkrainian #LearningCases

I've been watching #Ukraine's version of The Voice (Голос країни), most of it recorded *before* Feb. 24, 2022. A powerful sense of country is palpable in the prewar responses to the many different Ukrainian songs performed by people from the North, South, East, and West. What on earth were Putin & Co thinking when they decided to try to wipe out #Ukrainian culture? #СлаваУкраїні #StandWithUkraine #LearningUkrainian #PutinsWar #FuckPutin #RussianUkrainianWar #CulturalFront

Word: далеко
Pronunciation: /daleko/
Meaning: far away

Because that's where you want the Daleks to be: very far away!

#LearningUkrainian
#mnemonic
#DoctorWho

The word "небо" /nebo/ means "sky".

I'm going with "nebula", one of the more magical-looking types of celestial phenomenon, as my reminder.

#LearningUkrainian
#mnemonic

Here's a new type of memory trick. For the word площа /ploʃt͡ʃa/ "square", I first noticed the letter shapes.

The п and щ are all right angles and straight lines, and even л is squarish.

The dictionary tells me this word covers the geometrical sense too, but Duolingo has so far only introduced the "town square" sense, so I'm also drawing on the /pl/ onset, like in "plaza", to help.

Glyph shape as well as phonotactic mnemonics. Fun! 🤓

#LearningUkrainian
#mnemonic

Here's a trifecta that Duolingo just pointed out to me:

друзі, дружба, дружина
/druzi druʒba druʒɪna/
friends, friendship, wife

This by way of teaching me the word for "friendship" - I already had the other two.

😍 It's just so sweet! So perfect!

(If only the word for "husband", чоловік /t͡ʃolovik/, followed a similarly romantic line. It's just the word for "man".)

#LearningUkrainian
#mnemonic

@celrydoor Also, just looked it up and грим /grɪm/ is "makeup" in Ukrainian too.

For my mnemonics, I do sometimes gloss over the і/и difference. It'll probably come back to bite me later - I already struggle a bit with keeping all the vowels straight in Ukrainian.

#LearningUkrainian
#vowels

@celrydoor It feels like Ukrainian is giving my English brain better mnemonics for those. I get грім = /grim/, and then кіт = /kit/ for kitty (cat). I think it'd be more work with гром and кот.

But then, Ukrainian has кішка /kiʃka/ for a specifically female cat, and I think коти /kotɪ/ for cats, and I don't have an easy memory trick for either of those. 🤷‍♂️

#LearningUkrainian
#mnemonic

I thought this would take forever, but it just hit me. The word is народне /narodne/ (adjective, so that last vowel changes to match the noun). It means "folk", as in народне пісня "folk song".

And it just hit me: it sounds something like part of the folksy song lyric "o{n the road} again". Yes, I know it's a stretch, but it hit me so strongly that I think it might stick.

I'll take my mnemonics where I can get them!

#LearningUkrainian
#mnemonic

I think that грім /grim/ is a good word for "thunder", based on our dog's reaction to the recent thunderstorms we've had.

#LearningUkrainian
#mnemonic

Well, I just got a bit of internal help on a verb I'd been struggling with.

The verb is розуміти /rozumitɪ/ "understand". Hadn't come up with a mnemonic for it yet.

Then I encountered the adjective розумне /rozumne/ "smart".

I'm hoping the obvious connection will mean that each of these words will reinforce the other in my mind.

#LearningUkrainian

@celrydoor Cool! As soon as read that, I hypothesized that we get Ukrainian ф in borrowings from Greek θ - works for марафон and Афінф.

But I thought that maybe 2 data points is not enough to support a generalization like that.

And then I thought of театр /teatr/ "theatre". So that hypothesis doesn't work.

But I've learned that even discovering a non-pattern can help with the ultimate goal: learning the words.

#LearningUkrainian
#FailedHypothesis

@celrydoor
So I use English "hot" as a mnemonic for готувати /hotuvatɪ/ "to cook".

But for a word like елегантний /elehantni/ "elegant", it's more helpful to my memory to remember that "Гг" is /g/ in Russian. It also matches the uppercase for Greek "Γγ", which has been used for /g/, /ɣ/, /ŋ/, and probably others across times and environments.

I am definitely a learner of Ukrainian, not a linguistic expert in it.
#LearningUkrainian
#PhonemeSpeculation
#Cyrillic

@celrydoor Oh, it's almost certainly my error. My transcriptions are tentative and based entirely on what I can infer from the Duolingo speech samples. They definitely have hints of velar place and of voicing, so I suspect /ɣ/.

That's as a linguist.

As a language learner, I'm anchoring to phonemes I know from English and French where possible. In my head, г is "/h/ with a Ukrainian accent".

#LearningUkrainian
#PhonemeSpeculation
#Cyrillic

@celrydoor And didn't the main character call his cronies "me droogs"? That partial, fading memory of mine has helped me with друг /druh/ "friend" and (less directly) the feminine form подруга /podruha/.

#LearningUkrainian
#UkrainianThroughBadMovieRussian

@celrydoor Although, since you mentioned apples, I have to point out the names of the two most common fruit in my household.

I have no problem with апельсин /apelʲsɪn/ 🍊 - it's memorably contrary for my English ears.

But I keep forgetting the word яблуко /jabluko/ 🍎. Any suggestions for a memory trick there are welcome!

(Third most common fruit in our house is банан /banan/ - no problem at all!)

#LearningUkrainian
#mnemonic

Working in the months of the year now. Here goes ...

Червень /t͡ʃervenʲ/ "June".

Sounds a bit like "cherry" at the start. We get cherries in June. 🍒 (Please don't @ me about the actual season - I'm doing language learning, not horticulture.)

I use the same mnemonic for червоне /t͡ʃervone/ "red".

#LearningUkrainian
#mnemonic

So here's a couple of words that look like they want to cause me trouble.

The word for "magazine", журнал, sounds like "journal", and the word for "store", магазин, sounds like "magazine".

Fortunately, I've been through this before with French "journal" (newspaper) and "magasin" (store). I suspect Ukrainian borrow these words from French, directly or indirectly.

One again, my (intermediate at best) French helps out my Ukrainian.

#LearningUkrainian
#FalseFriends

@Neverfadingwood Cool! I didn't know that about Polish. Thanks for the tip!

I believe the letter "г" represents /g/ in Russian too. So for a Ukrainian verb like фотографувати /fotohrafuvati/ "to take pictures", the stem is easier to remember as /fotograf/. I then think of a Ukrainian "accent" turning /g/ to /h/.

There are other examples of this that I've come across, so this is a useful strategy more generally.

#LearningUkrainian
#mnemonic