TV Company RAI

" EASY UKRAINIAN "

Lesson 3

You already know how to greet people, you are able to say that you like Ruslana`s famous song and you can express your love for Ukraine and it`s capital Kiev . But it`s not always that easy because Ukrainian nouns change in gender, case and number:

• Most nouns ending in – а and - я belong to the feminine gender, e. g.:

(a song; a map; a capital, main city; Germany ; Turkey ; a country)

2. The same rule is true about the adjectives modifying the feminine nouns:

(Ukrainian song; a new map; a big country)

3. In plural these nouns as a rule take the endings (instead of singular endings )and adjectives always :

but “ a girl – girls ”:

The phrase “I like…”

in plural has the form:

Now say it in Ukrainian- “I like this girl - I like Ukrainian girls”:

And one more rule that will help you to make new sentences. Ukrainian nouns change in case. To express posession (like English “of”) we use the Genitive case. The feminine nouns in G. case take the endings .

Now try to understand it yourself:

That is: the capital of Ukraine ; the map of Germany ; the song of (by) Ruslana; songs of (by) Ruslana.

The same Gender case comes after the preposition (from). Remember two new letters and some words before you read the phrases:

-l ike [z] in “zero”;

- like [kh] in English or better “j” in Spanish “Juan”.

– a tourist;

- a boy:

- this (in phrases like “This is...”, but bear in mind that in Ukrainian the copula “is” is not used);

- this (as a modifier before feminine nouns, e. g. “this girl).

Send your questions to rai@br.if.ua .

Good luck and