After three weeks, I’m halfway through the course, so I can review my progress. I’m also saying goodbye to participants, (and teachers and tutors) who joined for only three weeks. And Monday I’ll be saying hello to a new batch of participants!
Course progress
Since the beginning of this course, I’m in the “false beginner”/”untangling” group with Edward. He knows Czech and I know some Ukrainian vocab — so while neither of us started entirely from scratch, we were still very much beginners. Although I’ve been learning Ukrainian for over three years, I’ve always done so casually. Our background knowledge was helpful, but not as helpful as we had hoped.
After two weeks, Edward left for a week, so I had private classes — which felt like a great opportunity to make some real progress! It turned out to be the toughest week yet. After two weeks of classes and a lot of excursions, I was just too exhausted to learn much more. Moreover, this third week was dedicated to the “genitive case” — an absurdly illogical language feature that relies more on ‘vibes’ than on ‘logic’. It actually made me a bit angry — mostly because Ukrainian thus far seemed difficult but mostly logical.
Luckily, class offers many fun moments as well. We’re doing reading, tongue twisters, games, video narration and more!
After three weeks, we’ve almost finished a third of the book. My vocabulary, grammar and listening skills still need training, but my pronunciation is quite okay — it even sounds “cute”, apparently! New people will join on Monday, so I expect all groups will be reshuffled and we’ll probably recap material to bring everyone to the same level again.
Goals for six weeks
With three weeks completed and three weeks still to go, I think I can set some goals.
Goal: achieve A2 level
After six weeks, I anticipate I’ll only finish about 60% of the course book. The book covers language levels A1 and A2 and some part of B1. So I expect I’ll achieve A2 level and I’ll be able to have small conversations with simple words while still misconjugating everything.
I’ll be content with A2. I hoped for B1 but this expectation wasn’t grounded in any reality. This course also includes many excursions and cultural learnings, so a lot of time is spent outside class and in English.
Goal: reading children’s books
When visiting the Victoria’s Garden shopping mall in Lviv with friends, we stumbled upon a book store. Of course, I had to buy some Ukrainian books to take home.
Children’s books seemed like an appropriate starting point, but sadly these are currently still too difficult for me. In fact, I’ve already been warned that Ukrainian children’s books tend to actually not use simple language. Still, by the end of the course, I hope I’ll be able to read some of these books.
Goal: watching cartoons
By the end of six weeks, I want to be able to watch and understand Ukrainian cartoons with Ukrainian dubbing — particularly Кармен Сандіеґо and Качині історії. I know both series in English, so I hope the recognition helps with understanding the Ukrainian versions.
Goodbye and hello
Reaching the half-way point is really bittersweet. I’m excited to continue, but saying goodbye to some of the people is quite hard. I’ve really made a bunch of awesome new friends — we’re already talking about returning next year.
I’m staying for three more weeks and in a way, the fourth week will be like my first week again. And I now know the awesomeness that awaits me — with new lessons, new excursions, new friends!
