The Ukrainian letter у is pronounced like the “oo” sound in “boot” or the end of the word “shoe” (IPA: /u/). Although this letter resembles an English “y”, it is not pronounced like the “y” sound in “yesterday” or the “y” sound in “tiny”. This letter will be represented as “u” in this book. The uppercase form is У.
The Ukrainian letter н is pronounced like the “n” sound in “now” or “hen” (IPA: /n/). Pay close attention to this letter as it resembles an uppercase “H” in English, but should not be pronounced like an “h” sound. The uppercase form is Н.
The pronunciation of the Ukrainian letter х does not exist in English. It is the “ch” sound in the German “doch” or the “j” sound in the Spanish “ojos” (IPA: /x/). It is a heavy throat clearing “h” sound, or as a student once told me “a sound like choking on a chicken bone!” This letter will be represented by “kh” in this book. The uppercase form is Х.
The letter б is pronounced like the “b” sound in “best” (IPA: /b/). Pay close attention to the letters б and в. The letter б, which looks like the number “6” is pronounced “b” and the letter в, which looks like an uppercase “B”, is pronounced “v”. With some practice this will become easier. The uppercase form is Б.
The Accent in Ukrainian
In Ukrainian, like in English, to pronounce a word correctly one must stress one syllable more than the rest. Also like English, the accent in Ukrainian is not normally written. Think about the English word conduct. It can be pronounced CONduct, or conDUCT although the written language does not tell us which one is correct. This is the same as the situation in Ukrainian.
In Ukrainian-English dictionaries you will often see an accent written on the vowel that is to be stressed in the Ukrainian word. These accents, however, are not normally written in the language and therefore I will not be including them in the Ukrainian words in this book. However, I have included the accent in the pronunciation so that readers can start thinking in terms of the correct pronunciation and not develop bad habits of pronunciation that will have to be unlearned later.
PRACTICE
Try to read these real Ukrainian words. The English translation is given next to each word. The correct pronunciations (with accents) are given in the answers below.
1. вухо (ear)
2. рука (hand/arm)
3. ніс (nose)
4. ні (no)
5. небо (sky)
6. особа (person)
7. брат (brother)
8. субота (Saturday)
ANSWERS
1. vúkho
2. rukhá
3. nis
4. ni
5. nébo
6. osóba
7. brat
8. subóta