Language and Travel Guide to Ukraine

Rating:
Summary: A good travel guide to Ukraine - not a language primer
Review: A single trip to Ukraine hardly qualifies one as an expert on the Ukrainian or Russian languages.Yet, this is exactly what some reviewers pretend to be. Linda Hodges' travel guide on Ukraine, while it has some shortcomings, is definitely full of valuable facts, and comes from the heart of the author, which is more than can be said about the reviewer's attack on the Ukrainian language and therefore its culture. To call the Ukrainian language "pointless" is quite an outrageous thing to say. While it is true that little Ukrainian was heard in the Eastern part of Ukraine ten years ago, the situation is quite different today, where one hears Ukrainian everywhere - in the streets, in schools, in government offices, even though Russian is still considered far more dominant in many areas. The use of the Ukrainian language is growing every year. One can't help but be somewhat surprised to see the obvious hostility towards Ukrainians. Why travel to the fascinating land of Ukraine with this kind of attitude? Perhaps one should confine his interests to travel in Russia, an equally fascinating country, where the Ukrainian language would not be such a threat.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but inaccurate
Review: I bought this book before making my first trip to Ukraine in 2003. Since then I've been back for a much longer second visit and have learned enough Russian to get around. While this book has useful tourist information, its language guide is quite misleading. First of all, the only people who speak Ukrainian are those living around Lviv. Everyone else, without exception, speaks Russian. So learning Ukrainian phrases etc. is totally pointless. Second, the pronunciation guide suffers from the major flaw of representing the "g" sound as "h" - which will make any beginner's attempt to speak the language hilariously incomprehensible. Imagine a foreigner coming to the USA and asking for directions to the nearest "has station" to fill up her car with gasoline, or admiring a nice flower-filled "harden." Or how about, "let me hive you some hrapes."

So if all you need is a basic primer for sites to visit, this book is OK - but if you also need to learn something of the language, skip this book and head straight to one of the many excellent Russian language course books available - ones that don't pretend "o" sounds like "oh" - it actually almost always sounds like "ah" and tell you the truth about that letter "g."

Rating:
Summary: Very user-friendly travel guide!
Review: I would highly recommend this travel guide to anyone planning a visit to Ukraine. Linda Hodges and George Chumak have upgraded this new edition. Definitely worth getting!