The adverb is an unchangable part of speech that defines means of action, state or other means.

Unlike other independent parts of speech (e.g. the noun or adjective) the adverb does not have genders, declensions, singular or plural forms.

Adverbs are created by changing other parts of speech like nouns, adjectives and pronouns.

For example:

ніч (night) — вночі (at night): noun — adverb

швидкий (quick) — швидко (quickly): adjective — adverb

мій (my) — по-моєму (roughly means "as for me"): pronoun — adverb

Adverbs can be divided in two main groups:

1. Adverbs of quality, quantity and manner.

2. Adverbs of time, place, intention and cause.

Read more about adverbs →

When telling the location of or destination to a particular object you may encounter some difficulties with what preposition to use or how to change the noun according to it.

In this article I will show you the most popular prepositions and their common usage.

Here are some main points of telling the location and destination:

• depending on the preposition and the question put to the sentence there can be 4 different cases involved in: Genitive, Accusative, Instrumental, Locative;

• Locative case is never involved in telling the destination, it can only point on the location of an object.

Find out more about location and destination →

Ukrainian adjectives have two degrees of comparison: comparative and superlative. Every degree has as well two forms: simple and hard.

First of all I would like to note that for beginners or even more advanced Ukrainian speakers the "simple" form is actually more difficult to understand and learn than the "hard" form. So feel free to use the easiest form because they both are interchangeable, though we prefer to use "hard" form with more abstract or relative adjectives.

Read more about degrees of comparison →

Depending on the consonant before the ending adjectives can be divided into two groups:

1. hard group:

   the hard consonant before -ий ending: добрий (kind), червоний (red), чистий (clean), низький (short);

   all the possessive adjectives: мамин (mother's), батьків (father's);

2. soft group:

   the soft consonant before -ій, синій (dark blue), ранній (early), колишній (former, ex), справжній (true);

   adjectives with -їй ending: безкраїй (immense, endless).

3. and a special group of adjectives with -ций ending, which is a part of -лиций (“лице” means “face”): груглолиций (round-faced), блідолиций (pale-faced).

Read more about adectives →

The adjective (прикметник [prɪk'mɛtnɪk]) is a part of speech which defines the subject and answers the question: “який?” “яка?” “яке?” (which?/what?/what kind?) and “чий?” “чия?” (whose?).

The adjectives can define:

• colour: білий (white), чорний (black), блакитний (blue);

• size: великий (big), малий (small, little), широкий (wide), вузький (narrow);

• age: молодий (young), старий (old);

• flavour: солодкий (sweet), кислий (sour);

Read more about adjectives →

The fourth declension includes neuter nouns with -а(-я) endings, which after declension achieve ен-, -ат-, -ят- suffixes.

Similar to the third declension it does not have groups (still the first and second declensions have them).

Neuter nouns with -а(-я) endings that mostly mean little animals or names of undersized things get the -ат-,-ят- suffixes: курча (a chicken) — курчати, кошеня (a kitten) — кошеняти, ягня (a lamb) — ягняти, немовля (a newborn baby) — немовляти etc.

Read more about fourth declension →

The third declension includes feminine nouns with zero endings and the word “мати” (a mother).

It does not have groups like the first and second declensions and thus is easier to deal with. Many feminine nouns from this group mean something abstract, object's quality, condition, action or even some general concepts. These nouns often cannot have plural form.

Example: сміливість (courage), гордість (pride), любов (love), щастя (happiness), мудрість (a wisdom), радість (a joy) etc.

Read more about third declension →

The second declension includes masculine nouns with zero and -о endings and neuter nouns with -о,-е,-я endings.

These nouns are divides in three groups: hard, soft and mixed. In The Noun: Declensions article it was explained which nouns belong to each of these groups, so now it is time to learn how to change the nouns according to the cases and their groups.

Read more about second declension →

The first declension includes feminine, masculine and combined nouns with -а(-я) ending.

These nouns are divided into three groups: hard, soft and mixed. In The Noun: Declensions article it was explained which nouns belong to each of these groups, so now it is time to learn how to change the nouns according to the cases and their groups.

Read more about first declension →

From the previous article you have found out more about cases and their main points, so the next question you would probably ask is:

How to change the nouns according to the cases?

Well, for this purpose there are four declensions. Declensions are actually groups of nouns gathered due to their specific endings and genders. The first and the second declension also are divided into three different groups: hard, soft and mixed.

It looks like this:

1. I declension

   • hard group

   • soft group

   • mixed group

2. II declension

   • hard group

   • soft group

   • mixed group

3. III declension

4. IV declension

Read more about declensions →

In the previous article it was mentioned, that the noun in Ukrainian language has seven cases. Here I would like to expand the topic, so that you can understand the purpose of cases and their meaning.

Why do we need cases?

We need them to show how the noun and other words in the sentence interact with each other. It is basically a grammatical category.

How to understand where to use a certain case?

You must put a certain question to a noun in the sentence. For example, in English you can put three kinds o questions to a noun depending on its role in the sentence.

• The boy is playing with a kitten. (who? what?)

  The word “boy” plays the role of a subject.

• The boy hugged him. (who?/whom?)

  The word “him” plays the role of a direct object.

• His kitten.

  The word “his” plays the role of a possessor. (whose?)

But in Ukrainian language you can put 6 types of questions.

Read more about cases →

The noun (іменник [i'mɛn:ɪk]) — is the main part of speech and it is the basis of Ukrainian grammar. Ukrainian nouns have three genders, they can be singular and plural and what is more important they have seven cases. Unlike English they do not have articles.

Depending on the noun's gender, number or case the other parts of speech, such as: adjectives, pronouns, prepositions, numerals and verbs, will change.

For example:

Цей чоловік кладе книжку на стіл. — This man is putting (puts) a book on the table.

What we have here is the main noun “чоловік” (a predicate) which is masculine, singular and in nominal case (answers the question: “who?”). According to this we have to change the pronoun and the verb.

Let's talk about the genders

There are three of them:

1. Masculine (чоловічий рід).

2. Feminine (жіночий рід).

3. Neuter (середній рід).

Read more about genders →

The first thing one should start from, when learning a new language, is the alphabet.

Knowing the letters and sounds you will encounter during your long journey sure is useful and helps a lot with learning new words.

Once you have mastered the alphabet consider yourself officially in!

To be serious I find it really hard for English-speaking (or people whose native language is based on Latin alphabet) people to actually understand and “see” Cyrillic letters. Very often they confuse letters like “b” and “ь” or “R” and “Я” or “n” and “п” etc., which leads to some sort of mutant words. Can't say I can blame them, but if you want to study well and understand what you're studying you shouldn't mix the letters thus preventing the mess in your head and other people's heads.

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