Colloquial Ukrainian - 2 db kazettával és 2 db CD-vel [antikvár]

About this book The aim of the authors has been to provide a complete introductory course in the Ukrainian language, but one which can still be used by someone who needs only to 'survive'; it can be used for study on one's own or in a classroom setting. This course was written with all English speakers in mind as potential users; to this end, definitions of Ukrainian words include occasional American English variants alongside typically British English forms (e.g. lorry, Amer. truck). The variant of Ukrainian presented here is essentially rather neutral. One of the problems facing a grammarian of Ukrainian, however, is that there is widespread disagreement as to just what the 'standard' is, whether this concerns the lexicon or the grammar. Connected with this there is substantial regional variation in Ukrainian; where particular variants are widely used, we have supplied them alongside the 'standard' forms. As an introduction to Ukrainian, especially the spoken language, our approach is meant to be casual and fun without disregarding grammar: the structure of the Ukrainian language. You are certain to find some gaps in the subject matter treated in this work, as not all topics can be covered in a book of this nature. But Colloquial Ukrainian will, if you are conscientious, put you on course for reasonable competence in Ukrainian, and give you a solid basis for more advanced work in the language. Two 60-minute cassettes are available to accompany Colloquial Ukrainian. If you are really serious about learning Ukrainian, then we would urge you to use them. Pronunciation and listening skills can only really be properly practised by listening to and following the example of native Ukrainian speakers. The material recorded includes dialogues and examples from the book as well as additional matter. The learner should note that where the cassette symbol appears throughout the book, not every example is recorded. How to go further When you have completed this course and are ready to expand your knowledge of Ukrainian, there are several avenues you can pursue. It is always a good idea, if you live in an area where there is a Ukrainian community, to contact their club: for instance the Federation of Ukrainians, or the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain. You should have no problem in the United States or, especially, in Canada, Introduction The Ukrainian language is spoken by around 45 million people, most of them, over 36 million, resident in Ukraine. There are Ukrainians in neighbouring states, especially in Russia and Belarus'. In addition, there are well-established Ukrainian communities in more distant lands, such as Australia, Argentina, Brazil, the countries of Westem Europe, and, most notably, the United States and Canada. This is the Ukrainian diaspora, which comes mainly from the west of the Ukrainian linguistic area. Ukraine declared its independence on 24 August 1991, a declaration that marked a stage in the dissolution of the Soviet Union. At the beginning of 1991 the official population was a little over 52 million. Ukraine's territory amounts to over 603,000 square kilometres, and its capital is Kyiv ('Kiev' is the Russian variant of this name, and will not be used in this book). The country has a highly varied landscape, from the fertile black-earth zone and the steppes and considerable heavy industry and coal mining of the east of the country, to the mountainous south-west and forested and marshy north-west. It is bounded in the east and much of the north by Russia, in the north-west by Belarus', in the west by Poland and Slovakia, in the south-west by Hungary, Romania, and Moldova and in the south by the Black Sea. Political and subsequent cultural diversity and division inhibited standardization of the language. Moves towards this goal emerged within the context of Romanticism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, advanced further (in circumstances at first exhilarating and subsequently tragic) in the 1920s and 1930s, and are almost certainly coming to final fruition at the time of writing. Ukrainian specialists have no illusions about the importance and difficulty of this task: Palamar and Bekh (1993:3) write of the 'healing of the language situation in Ukraine', and of establishing the 'free functioning of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of the life of society', now that Ukrainian is the official state language. Ukrainian language, literature and history Ukrainian is a Slavonic language, like Polish, Czech, Slovak, the two Sorbian languages, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croat, Slovene and.