Привіт друзі! Сьогодні, Я буду говорити про вивчення української мови.
(Hello friends! Today, I will talk about learning the Ukrainian language.)
One of the biggest parts of being a Peace Corps Volunteer is learning a new language.
Or two. Or two and a few dialects.
(Quick preface: Prepare yourself. This post is a lot of words. Because language.)
SO, PEACE CORPS LANGUAGE TRAINING?
Every volunteer — regardless of country or sector — is put through two-to-three months of RIGOROUS language training upon arrival in-country.
It’s actually a huge part of the Peace Corps program. If you serve, you’re almost guaranteed to learn a new language, to a certain level.
Sometimes, volunteers have to learn more than one language. Like, for example, here in Ukraine. I was given two months of formal language training in by-the-book Ukrainian, but do people here actually speak by-the-book Ukrainian? Definitely not. They speak some Ukrainian, some Russian, some Surzhyk — a mix of Russian and Ukrainian — and all sorts of various slangs, dialects and who knows what else. So really, I’m learning two-and-a-half new languages.
Most volunteers were formally taught Ukrainian, but some were formally taught Russian. All were encouraged to explore both languages — and Surzhyk as well. Some volunteers were actually encouraged to learn Romanian and Polish, too!
Most volunteers work in cities, towns or villages where English is not prevalent. In order to work, volunteers HAVE to learn the local language(s). Not only is it important for work, it’s also crucial for actually living. In Ukraine, I have to talk to marshrutka drivers, bazaar vendors, train station cashiers, etc. NONE of those people speak English! It’s also really important to speak the local language because it’s just generally really respectful. I really love Ukraine’s culture, and I want to honor that by speaking the language here.
We were taught by our LCF — language and cross-cultural facilitator — Yuliya, who created all her own lesson plans. Yuliya is absolutely phenomenal. I will sing her praises until my dying day. I’m convinced she’s the only reason I’m still alive and functioning in this country. Every day, we would go to Yuliya’s apartment to learn. By the end of PST, every square inch of Yuliya’s living room (dubbed our “office”) was COVERED in color-coded handwritten grammar charts, vocabulary words and other various study materials, so we could reference them during classes.
Throughout PST, we spent somewhere between four and seven HOURS a day studying grammar patterns, drilling vocabulary, role-playing various scenarios, playing games, conversing back-and-forth and also crying. (I did A LOT of crying.)
ABOUT THE LANGUAGE (and its use!) ITSELF
If you’re not familiar with Ukrainian, here’s a little bit more about the language. It’s a Slavic language that uses the Cyrillic alphabet, similar to Russian. There are 33 letters to it, and apostrophes are often used. However, Ukrainian is not the same as Russian. It’s an entirely different language. Just because someone knows one, doesn’t automatically mean they’ll learn the other. Kind of like French and Spanish. Both languages have similar structures and use the same alphabet, but different letters make different sounds, and native speakers of one language can’t automatically understand the other. Ukrainian is actually more closely related to Belarusian, Czech, Slovak and Polish than it is to Russian!
However, many Ukrainians do happen to speak both Ukrainian and Russian, because of the country’s history under Soviet rule. Within recent years, though, Ukraine has been trying to popularize the Ukrainian language. It’s now used as an official government language, and speaking it publicly is highly encouraged.
Also, Ukrainian is REALLY FREAKING HARD, you guys. The U.S. Department of State ranks languages 1 through 5 based on how hard they are for a native English speaker to acquire. A 1 is the easiest, and a 5 is the hardest. Ukrainian? It’s a 4. (Swell.)
Also, fun fact: These rankings are determined, in part, by Peace Corps Language Proficiency Interviews! So my ability to speak the Ukrainian language affects this ranking.
There are a few things this language has going for it. First, Ukrainian is a phonetic language, which means every letter ALWAYS makes the same sound. (No letter F making a “ph” sound on occasion over here.) Second, it only has three tenses: Past, present and future. (Did you know English has, like, 18 tenses?!) There’s no need to learn present perfect continuous or anything. Just three tenses — which happen to be conjugated similarly to Spanish, thankfully! (If you’re one of the majority of Americans who took a Spanish/ French/ etc. class, you’re in luck on this one.) Third, the Ukrainian language doesn’t have any auxiliary verbs or articles. So, instead of saying “I am a teacher,” a Ukrainian speaker would say “Я — вчитель,” which literally translates to read “I teacher.” (This is often why you’ll hear native Russian speakers omit auxiliary verbs and articles when they speak English as a Second Language. The concept doesn’t exist in this language.) While this is kind of easy because it’s one less thing to study, it’s also a little tricky because my brain really, really wants to put articles into sentences.
Now, let’s talk about the struggles of learning the Ukrainian language. First, the alphabet is COMPLETELY different than anything native English speakers are used to. A lot of Ukrainians can read the Latin alphabet, just because it’s very prevalent here in advertisements, on products, etc. But in America? Cyrillic virtually does not exist. We don’t see Cyrillic labels on our cars controls, or our phone OS. We don’t see it on imported food products or on posters catering to tourists. Most Ukrainians are comfortable with the Latin alphabet itself, while Americans are completely and totally unfamiliar with Cyrillic. This in and of itself is a HUGE learning curve.
Second? The noun genders and cases. The Ukrainian language has three different noun genders, and seven different noun cases. This means that every time a noun is used in a different way, the ending of it changes. Why? Because in Ukrainian, the words in a sentence don’t need to be spoken in a certain order for that sentence to make sense. Instead, the Ukrainian language changes the words themselves to indicate what is happening. This is really, really hard to explain, but you can read this piece here for more information on the noun cases. Additionally? Nouns have genders. Each noun is either feminine, masculine or neutral, and the way that noun changes depends on the gender of the word itself. Nouns are pluralized, too, just like in English. So basically, there are about a MILLION ways to change every noun in a sentence. I struggle with this SO HARD.
Another struggle? The pronunciation. The Ukrainian language rolls its “Rs” (another positive for Spanish speakers) and the letter “Х” is a guttural sound reminiscent of an English “H.” Ukrainian uses a lot of side-by side consonant combinations that English doesn’t, so it’s often tricky to pronounce words, just because some words contain sounds that the average English speaker has never had to utter before!
THE PEACE CORPS LPI
Whew, still with me? I’ll stop complaining.
Anyway. Once Peace Corps trainees are done with their language training, they get to take this very daunting test called an “LPI” — a Language Proficiency Interview.
This is how Peace Corps determines how well you’ve acquired the local language. We all stress out over it a ton.
For the LPI, each trainee sits down with a speaker and holds a 20-minute conversation entirely in Ukrainian. We answer questions, talk about ourselves and are given a scenario to role play. I was asked to talk about myself, my hobbies, my family, my host family and my job. I was also asked to talk about what I like to do in Zhytomyr, and to compare Zhytomyr to Chicago. For my role playing scenario, I was told that I was invited to dinner with my host family, and I needed to ask five to six questions about the event in order to get more information about it.
After our 20 minutes of talking, we were given our results, which fell somewhere on this scale:
- Superior
- Advanced high
- Advanced mid
- Advanced low
- Intermediate high
- Intermediate mid
- Intermediate low
- Novice high
- Novice mid
- Novice low
We’re given the LPI three times throughout service, to see how our language progresses. Nobody was sent home based on the outcome of their LPI, so it was impossible to fail — but regardless, it’s a great way to benchmark a volunteer’s progression in the local language. And, again — the results are used by the Department of State to calculate the difficulty level of acquiring a second language for native English speakers.
I was honestly astounded by my LPI result. I was expecting to receive a novice mid at most, because I am TERRIBLE at this language, but I ended up testing at an intermediate mid level. It sounds so dumb, but I was honestly so impressed that I managed to hold a 20-minute long conversation. My pronunciation was terrible, my vocabulary was elementary and I made a ton of grammar mistakes, but considering I couldn’t speak a word of Ukrainian two months prior? I’ll consider it an accomplishment.
Anyway! This definitely isn’t the end of my Ukrainian language journey. I really, really want to learn the language for both practical and personal reasons. Practically, I’ll be living in Ukraine for two more years. It’ll be useful to know Ukrainian, obviously. And personally? I’ve mentioned it before, but Ukrainian was the first language of my maternal ancestors, so I think it would be SO cool to speak it as a second language, a century after my family immigrated to the U.S. from Ukraine!
Cool, right? Ukrainian is definitely hard to learn, but I’m incredibly motivated to keep with it.
So, for now, that’s it. До побачення!
