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Beginner's Ukrainian: Iak Sia Maiesh (Beginner's Guides (New York, N.Y.).)

Beginner's Ukrainian: Iak Sia Maiesh (Beginner's Guides (New York, N.Y.).)

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Of limited value...
Review: I purchased this book to gain a basic reading knowlege of Ukrainian and was extemely disappointed. Verb conjugations and noun declensions are usefully laid out in charts, but Poulard's book lacks basic features which are necessary in any intoductory Ukrainian language text.

To start, it does not adequately explain how the verb "buty"/"to be" functions in the Ukrainian language. When it does provide a conjugation of the verb, it fails to explain that the verb, when conjugated, has a future meaning--i.e., "will be." Generally, the verb is not conjugated but rather implied in the present tense in Ukrainian. I knew there was a problem with how Poulard explained things (or rather, failed to explain things) only because I had studied Russian for several years and thus was already some basic features of Slavic linguistics. A beginning student would likely become confused by Poulard's presentation.

Another pervasive problem is the lack of accents throughout. Like Russian, Ukrainian has a complicated stress system--there is simply no way for a beginning student to figure out the proper stress for a given word without memorizing it, since stress can even shift within the declension or conjugation of a given noun or verb. Furthermore, the meaning of certain words changes altogether with a different stress. Thus, it is absolutely crucial that any introductory Ukrainian book address the problem of stress and provide accents throughout.

Unfortunately, serious language textbooks tend to be expensive because of the research, review process and specialized typesetting involved. Books like Poulard's may be more affordable, but in the long term they can actually hinder progress in language acquisition. Whether you're studying on your own or purchasing this for a class, I recommend hunting down a text by a more qualified language teaching specialist.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not Bad, But Could Be Better
Review: If it weren't for the fact that I already speak fluent Russian, this book would not have been very helpful to me. If you're learning Ukrainian from scratch, this book can give you the basics, but it might also confuse you. The grammar was not explained as clearly as it could have been, and I think I understood it only because of my Russian. I also can't believe that there are no accent marks for the Ukrainian words. That has been my biggest frustration, because when I try out my Ukrainian on some Ukrainian friends, I have no clue if I'm pronouncing the words correctly, and sometimes the way I say things sounds funny to them. However, this book can give you a good start if you already have experience with a slavic language. Just make sure you get a dictionary so that you'll know where the accent marks are. But if you're a beginner, you might want to look for a better book.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Iak Sia Maiesh is polish not ukrainian
Review: Start with the basic concept that the book is titled in the incorrect language, assume then that you will not likely learn Ukrainian. I would have rated it zero stars, however that was not an option.


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