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

Johannes Poulard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1996

Up-to-date language instruction guide for students with little or no background in Ukrainian language. This book also teaches about the country's history and culture, including social customs, dining out and other daily tasks. Also provided are basic language skills, vocabulary, grammar and phrases to move about freely in the country.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English

About the Author

J Pulard

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Hippocrene Books (June 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0781804434
• ISBN-13: 978-0781804431
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #262,922 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #40 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Russian
  • #99 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Languages > Russian

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellant, May 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Beginner's Ukrainian: Iak Sia Maiesh (Beginner's Guides (New York, N.Y.)) (Paperback)

This book is one of the better beginner Ukrainian books. Theone that closely resembles it is Assya Humesky's "ModernUkrainian" which I wasn't as pleased with. I prefer this book because it has easy to read charts (such as verb conjugation etc), which help in studying and for quick reference. Humesky's book doesn't really have the charts, just the info layed out. If I would have had this book, I feel I would have done much better in my Ukrainian class. Either way, Poulard's "Beginning Ukrainian" makes a great companian/supplement for those use "Modern Ukrainian" as the standard text for the class. This book is a real bargain. If you have a Ukrainian class, spend the money, it will be well worth it in the long run. END

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Bad, But Could Be Better, July 6, 2001

By 

Aaron Jordan (Salt Lake City, Utah) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Beginner's Ukrainian: Iak Sia Maiesh (Beginner's Guides (New York, N.Y.)) (Paperback)

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.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Of limited value..., May 4, 2001

By 

"hakob" (Las Vegas, NV) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beginner's Ukrainian: Iak Sia Maiesh (Beginner's Guides (New York, N.Y.)) (Paperback)

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.