Currently I am working on expressing emotions and opinions. I have learned ways to express favorites, emotions, personality traits and descriptions, and comparisons. I feel that I have been successful in what I had hoped to accomplish in terms of learning about these concepts and constructions, but committing these to my active recall memory has proved more challenging. Going forward I want to incorporate strategies that will increase my memory retention such as increased language practice. Because my girlfriend is also currently studying Ukrainian, I imagine that I can put in more conversation practice with her. Increasing conversation practice will help increase my active recall of the language.
I think another aspect I would like to work on is my pronunciation and flow. I still struggle with speaking seamlessly because many of the words are very hard for me to pronounce. One example of this is that the ukrainian letter “г” is a voiced glottal fricative. And often, this letter is followed by a voiced alveolar trill, like in the word for “to play” – “гратися”. I find this extremely hard to pronounce, but I have been watching phonetics videos on Youtube to try to learn exactly how to form the sounds. Moreover, another aspect which makes pronunciation difficult is the fact that many of the words differ by just one letter or syllable from their Russian counterparts. Therefore, sometimes I get tripped up reading or saying the words because my brain wants to slip into the more familiar tongue. I find this slip up to be very frustrating. As such, I am still trying to find solutions to mitigate this problem.
One strategy I have effectively incorporated into my study routine are singing along to Ukrainian songs. After discovering some Ukrainian songs, which I enjoy, on RadioGarden, I’ve compiled them into a spotify playlist, where I can read the lyrics while listening. This activity is extremely helpful because it helps me pronounce words correctly, stress the correct syllable of the word, read words quicker, learn colloquialism, and learn more about Ukrainian culture. Given the current war-time context in Ukraine, the Kiev radio often plays inspiring anthems infused with Ukrainian patriotism. One such song is called “Все буде Україна” or “everything will be Ukraine”. These songs are incredibly important as the Russian-Ukrainian war has caused what some have called a cultural genocide, as Russia has specifically targeted prominent cultural landmarks and influencers. Moreover, listening to more Ukrainian music has led me down the rabbit hole of Eurovision, which has been entertaining to say the least. Listening to the Ukrainian entries into this song contest has further taught me about Ukrainian culture and politics.
This strategy of singing in Ukrainian has made me want to read more Ukrainian poetry. For a project I am working on for my History Thesis, I have been reading poetry written by Ukrainian prisoners in the Gulag. Reading this poetry has also been helpful for learning where the stress falls in Ukrainian words, as it needs to be read in a certain way to maintain the flow of the poem. I will continue to utilize both of these strategies in my language studies.