Interesting facts about the language

Ukrainian belongs to the Slavic language family. After Russian, Ukrainian is the second most widely spoken Slavic language. Approximately 47 million people speak Ukrainian. 37 million native speakers live in Ukraine itself. The remaining speakers are spread throughout the world: They live in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Croatia, Latvia, Moldova, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, the USA, Uzbekistan, and Belarus. More than 100,000 people with Ukrainian roots also live in Germany.

In Ukraine itself, three-quarters of the population speak Ukrainian. The same number say they speak Russian. And many are fluent in both languages. This situation has historical roots: During the Soviet era, Russian dominated the country. Since Ukraine's independence in 1991, however, Ukrainian has been the country's official language and the language of instruction in all schools. The long and intensive coexistence of the two languages has led to the emergence of a hybrid form; Ukrainians call this Surzhik. Surzhik is not a written language; it is only used in everyday interactions between people.

In addition to this mixed language, you'll also hear many different dialects in Ukraine. Roughly speaking, there are three dialect zones: one in the north, one in the southwest, and one in the southeast. The southeastern form of Ukrainian is considered the standard for the entire country. You'll also learn this variant in our express course. In your Ukrainian express course, you'll always find a transliteration in Latin letters beneath every Cyrillic word. This will definitely make learning easier for you!