Voices of Ukraine: A Practical Course in Ukrainian Phonetics

Mastering modern Ukrainian pronunciation made easy and fun!

Voices of Ukraine is a pioneering language course that offers an easy, engaging, and effective way to master Ukrainian pronunciation. The book is carefully-paced and user-friendly, with eye-catching illustrations and illustrative examples throughout, detailed explanations of vowels, consonants, typical assimilation patterns, articulation tips, and clearly set pronunciation tasks for each exercise. A key feature of this textbook is that it showcases standard Ukrainian pronunciation in its regional, social, age, and gender variability, offering students a unique opportunity to familiarize themselves with a wide range of Ukrainian voices. A free companion website provides audio exercises and phonetic drills to reinforce learners’ pronunciation skills. Though Voices of Ukraine can be used as a standalone book, it also works well with Beginner’s Ukrainian with Interactive Online Workbook and The Ukrainian-English Collocation Dictionary, also by Yuri Shevchuk. This course is appropriate for beginning, intermediate, and advanced students of Ukrainian, whether for classroom use with an instructor or for self-study.

Includes:

• A detailed and accessible description of the Ukrainian sound system, its logic and the traits that distinguish it from English and neighboring Slavic languages

• More than 400 phonetic exercises specially designed to facilitate quick acquisition of Ukrainian standard pronunciation

• Phonetic drills featuring all Ukrainian phonemes in the initial, medial, and final position in the word as well as in the phonetic environment typically affecting their realization in speech (regressive assimilation, simplification)

• Access to a free companion website with audio, phonetic drills and additional exercises