HOW TO SPEAK UKRAINIAN FLUENTLY WITHOUT REVERTING TO RUSSIAN: BUSINESSMANʼS EXPERIENCE

          Just ten months ago, I couldn't speak Ukrainian fluently. Terrible surzhyk, Russicisms, incorrect stresses – all these accompanied my clumsy attempts to integrate the language into business and everyday use.

          I would last about twenty minutes before overwhelming fatigue set in and I felt like giving up. Now, I can freely conduct meetings in Ukrainian at my company, speak from the stage, converse with friends, and even think in it.

          Mastering the language has been a real challenge for me, as I hadn’t tried to learn it until I was 50 years old; I had communicated in Russian all my life. Even in school, I was exempt from Ukrainian language lessons because my parents were geologists, which meant the family moved often. In the Soviet Union, there was a rule that allowed geologists' children to skip learning the local language.

          Ultimately, I didn’t even have basic grammar. This didn’t hinder me in either studying or working: it must be acknowledged that the Chernihiv region had been predominantly Russian-speaking for a long time.

          Two years ago, a lot changed. The threat of losing everything you've built has a very strong impact on consciousness – in the first weeks of the war, I even practiced a ritual of saying goodbye to what I owned. They say that if a Russian is in a Russian-speaking environment, he feels comfortable – as if at home. Therefore, I simply have no right to speak Russian.

          The entire business community has voluntarily switched to Ukrainian. From my own experience, I am convinced that learning a language and fully integrating it not only into business but also into everyday communication is a voluntary matter. Language and coercion are incompatible. 

The internal resistance that inevitably arises in response to coercion hinders mastering the language, loving it, and starting to think in it.

          Thus, with strong motivation, I began to learn the language. It turned out that sincere desire alone was not enough. It was a struggle, and most importantly, I couldn’t fully express my thoughts and feelings in my own unique way. So even when I spoke correctly, it seemed artificial, unnatural; it wasn't the real me.

          That continued until I found a language coach. I emphasize—not a teacher, not a tutor, but specifically a coach. For my purposes, I didn’t need a perfect knowledge of grammar and rules. My request was to become conversational, and the coach’s approach helped me achieve this fairly quickly, to integrate Ukrainian into my life in six months, and to begin thinking in it after ten months.

          What exactly was right about the approach? What did the language coach do?

           Identified my individual language constructions

          Before our training sessions began, Mira (that's my coach's name) listened very attentively to how I spoke Russian: how I constructed sentences and conveyed meanings. 

She asked me to talk a lot, on various topics. She listened and meticulously noted everything down. Mira identified that I often use quite long complex and compound sentences, heavily seasoned with semantic and emotional enhancers (including profanity).

Why devote so much time and attention to this? In order for me to communicate freely in Ukrainian while remaining true to myself, it was important to preserve the language constructions and individual features of expression that are customary to me.

           Allowed profanity

           As I mentioned earlier, I am prone to using profanity. All this "oh-oh-oh, language must be clean" – that’s not for me.

           I fell in love with Ukrainian for the first time when I started listening to Les Podervianskyi. He had such a harmonious way of integrating profanity into the language! My speech is always seasoned with profanity.

           Professional deformation – I've been in manufacturing all my life, and there is no manufacturing without swearing. And it's very convenient because sometimes in a meeting you can express admiration, despair, praise, and scold all in one word.

           After listening to me, the coach said, "Oleksandr, you can't take away the swearing because without it, it wouldn’t be you, and you would feel uncomfortable. And if it's not comfortable, then you won’t enjoy speaking Ukrainian."

           Several of our sessions with Mira were dedicated to learning Ukrainian swear words, searching for expressions that would most accurately match my Russian profane constructions. Thus, phrases like "дідько його знає" (devil knows), "хай йому грець" (to hell with him), "очманіти" (to go crazy), and "щоб тобі с*ка луснула" (may your b** burst) became a regular part of my vocabulary.

           Supported During a Setback

           What is a setback? It's an unpleasant but inevitable phenomenon that accompanies forward movement, regardless of what that movement is associated with.

Internal transformation, mastering new knowledge and skills—all that requires additional efforts and changing habits, eventually exhausts us. And it's at this moment that a regression begins, often accompanied by despair, apathy, and even irritation.

           After seven months of language training, I experienced a very strong setback. Interestingly, I observed something similar in my acquaintances. Some people, who seemed to have switched to Ukrainian seriously and permanently, reverted to Russian. I was among them. 

           We start speaking Ukrainian, but eventually, we switch back to Russian.

           There's little pleasure in this. I shared this with my coach. Mira wasn't surprised and explained to me that in language learning, as in other training or in business, there is a plateau: it seems like nothing is happening, there is no forward movement, instead, a regression begins.

           Language setbacks are now observed in many. There's nothing strange or particularly frightening about it—it's a normal cyclical phenomenon, says Mira.

The first strong demand for the Ukrainian language was observed in 2014. There was a two-year setback starting in 2016. A new surge from 2018 to 2020. And following the next setback was the greatest rise in modern Ukrainian history starting in February 2022. Enthusiasm gives way to fatigue. And fatigue and mental overload now are common and widespread phenomena.

           So what should I do? – I asked my language coach.

           Don't worry, believe in your strength and keep up the pace. Understand that it's just a pendulum that will definitely swing back in the right direction soon. Patience and persistent self-work will be useful.