How different are Ukrainian and Russian?

After Belarusian, Ukrainian is also closer to Slovak, Polish and Czech than to Russian – 38% of Ukrainian vocabulary is different from Russian. If we compare it with other European languages, the difference is like between Spanish and Italian (33% of different vocabulary) or French and Portuguese (39%).

Does Ukrainian sound different from Russian?

Differences in Pronunciation Russian and Ukrainian are different in pronunciation. To non-native speakers and for those not familiar with the language, they can sound the same. However, they are only roughly similar, and enough to be noticeable by people familiar with the languages. Ukranian has more soft consonants.

Can Ukrainian and Russian understand each other?

The Ukrainian language is very similar to the Russian, but is it understandable for the average Russian native speaker, let’s say, in Moscow? Ukrainians understand Russian, but this is mostly because of the high exposure to the Russian language in media and everyday life.

Do Russian and Ukrainian use the same alphabet?

Both of them also use the Cyrillic alphabet… and this is where things get complicated. Both of the alphabets consist of 33 letters; Russian has the letters Ёё, ъ, ы and Ээ, which are not used in Ukrainian. Instead, Ukrainian has Ґґ, Єє, Іі and Її.

Why is Russian so different from other Slavic languages?

A unique feature of this language is that, in addition to singular and plural, it also has the dual number, i.e. special forms used when talking of two objects or persons. Lest you think that Russian has nothing in common with South Slavic languages, here is some good news: they share a lot of vocabulary.

Can a Russian understand Polish?

Is Russian and Polish Mutually Intelligible? While the two share a similar grammar system and some vocabulary words, Polish and Russian aren’t mutually intelligible. If a Russian person lands in Warsaw, nobody would understand him if he only spoke Russian.

Can Russian understand Czech?

These three languages have an 86% lexical similarity; that is, they share 86% of the same words. If you can speak Russian fluently, you will be able to understand 77% of Polish words, while Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, and Slovene have a 74% similarity to Russian in terms of vocabulary, which decreases to 71% for Serbian.

What is the closest language to Russian?

Bulgarian
After Ukrainian and Belarusian, Bulgarian is the closest to Russian. Written Bulgarian is pretty close to the Russian alphabet and Russians can easily read it.

What language is the opposite of Russian?

Czech is another West Slavic language, and some of the words mean the opposite of their Russian cognates!

How are Ukrainian and Russian languages similar and different?

In this article, find the similarities and differences between Ukrainian and Russian languages on the different linguistic levels: vocabulary, letters & sounds, grammar, and sentence structure. All Slavic languages, including Ukrainian and Russian, were dialects at first.

How can you tell if someone is Russian or Ukrainian?

Local people can generally tell if a person is Ukrainian or Russian just by looking at them. The same way as say, Indians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis and Sri Lankans can tell each other apart – while others cannot. Musical instruments and music are different.

Is it true that Ukrainian is a fake language?

There’s a lot of speculation: Some say that Ukrainian is a fake language and just a vernacular of Russian (and there’s apparently even fake evidence of that!). In order to know for sure, let’s take a closer look at these two languages and their histories.

Is the mother tongue of Ukraine Russian or Ukrainian?

However, it doesn’t mean that it is their mother tongue and, moreover, that Russian and Ukrainian are the same. Ukraine is a bilingual country. However, people born in Western Ukraine speak Ukrainian over Russian and girls from Eastern Ukraine do the opposite.