You may have noticed one thing already: unlike English, there’s no fixed word order in Ukrainian. In English, sentences like "Over the fence jumped the horse" would sound incorrect because it should be the other way around: the horse jumped over the fence. In Ukrainian, you can say it both ways and actually shuffle words around even more. Each time, the logical emphasis in the sentence will be different.

You already know that there are no articles in Ukrainian. A loose word order functions partly to replace the need for articles. In sentences with inverse word order the element that comes first is usually something known from the previous contexts; if it happens to be a noun, it’s English translation, whenever appropriate, could well be with the definite article the. The last element in the sentence is usually "new information" that bears logical emphasis; since it’s "new", a noun used here would come with an indefinite article in the English translation. Certainly, this is just a general rule of thumb. Logical emphasis, the word order and finally the meaning are largely defined by the context.

A flexible word order could make things pretty confusing in sentences like "The boy sees a girl". This is where case endings play an important role. Remember that the subject will always be in the nominative case. So, if you hear, "Іру зустрів на вокзалі брат," you will easily understand that Іру is the accusative case of a woman's name Ira and therefore she’s not the subject of the sentence. It was the brother who met Ira at the train station, although the subject word брат comes only at the very end of the sentence.

A fixed word order applies to prepositions, the negative particle не and other particles, conjunctions (and, but): they are more or less firmly fixed to the words that they precede. So, if the word order is changed in the sentence, the words that are connected to prepositions, particles or conjunctions occupy their new place together with these prepositions, particles, or conjunctions. In everyday speech, the same goes for nouns that are connected (agreed in gender and number) with adjectives (e.g, red car).

The feel for the word order will come only with more practice, so at this point you should think not so much about what word order you should use, but rather focus on what you hear/read. Now you know that the first noun or pronoun in the sentence is not necessarily the subject, so you should pay attention to its case ending.

Exercise 1. Please translate using our Ukrainian-English glossary.

1) Микола зателефонував Ірі.
2) Річард купив квартиру.
3) Річардові належить квартира.
4) До Річарда приїхав гість.
5) Підручник Микола переклав.

Key to the exercise

Certain sentence parts that are normally present in English may be omitted in Ukrainian. Sentences like "Mykola is a student" sound simply "Микола студент" in Ukrainian; the verb is omitted. Sometimes there’s a punctuation mark-- dash-- in such sentences and a respective pause in speech: Мій чоловік -- інженер (My husband is an engineer). The verb "to be" is also often omitted in sentences with "this is..."

In the example above the verb was omitted. There are also situations in Ukrainian where the subject is omitted, and the verb appears in a form that you haven’t seen so far. You can easily notice that it functions similarly to the English passive voice:

Магазин зачинено. (The store is closed/locked.)
Проїзд заборонено. (Passage by vehicle is vorbidden.)
Прохід закрито. (Walking passage is closed.)

You may at first believe that the starting noun in each of the three sentences is in the nominative case. However, all these nouns are masculine inanimate, and this category of nouns has the same form for both the nominative and accusative cases (in lesson 5 you studied a different pattern of declension and were alerted that there are some more). So in fact here you see nouns in the accusative case (object of the action), and special verb endings -но, -то indicate that there’s no subject. In the English translation, since in English both the subject and the verb have to be in place, you see the passive voice: although the nouns have become subjects of sentences, they are not doing the action expressed by the verb, but were rather subjected to that action. Although grammatic forms in the two languages are different, the grammatic meaning is the same: we know about the action (the verb) but we don’t know (or don’t care) who did it.

Exercise 2. Please translate using our Ukrainian-English glossary. Remember that you have to look up the infinitives of verbs and nouns in the nominative case.

1) Мій друг -- бізнесмен.
2) Це мій стіл.
3) Прохід дозволено до першої години.
4) Моє пальто чорне.
5) Підручник уже перекладено.

Key to the exercise

With a few exceptions, we’ve until now had only simple sentences, i.e. sentences with one subject only. But we often use complex sentences like "I called my sister and she picked me up at the train station" or "I know that you don’t like me" which can be broken up into two separate sentences each: "I called my sister," "She picked me up at the train station" and "I know," "You don’t like me." The second split, although possible, affects the meaning much more than the first. In grammar terms, here you have an independent clause (I know) and another part of the sentence that is integrally connected to it -- a dependent clause. There are conjunctions that connect dependent and indpenendent clauses in sentences:

that	що	Я знаю, що сьогодні збори. I know that there’s a meeting today.
because	тому що бо	Микола не прийде, тому що (бо) він захворів. Mykola won’t come because he fell ill.
when	коли	Я зателефоную, коли дізнаюся більше. I’ll call when I find out more.
where (place)	де	Він не знає, де ми зустрічаємося. He doesn’t know where we meet.
where (direction)	куди	На карті позначено, куди ми повинні їхати. It is shown on the map where we have to go.

These are basic conjunctions between independent and dependent clauses. There are more of them, and some of them even decline like adjectives, but these will be enough to begin with. Moreover, you will now recognize some of these conjunctions in a different role -- as question words.

It is very simple to ask a question in Ukrainian. You would build a general question exactly like an affirmative sentence, only say it with questioning intonation stressing the word that is particularly "under question." Listen and compare:

(68)

Ти тут навчаєшся? Ти тут навчаєшся? Ти тут навчаєшся?

Do you study here? Do you study here? Is it you who studies here?

Asking a question with a question word, just add it in front of the sentence. Emphasize the question word. To finish the lesson, review the following question words and do this simple exercise:

Exercise 3. Put questions to the following sentences (put the question word in front and omit the part about which you’re asking). Read them out loud.

Who?	хто? (question about an animate subject)	Наталка закінчує роботу.
What?	що? (question about inanimate subject or object)	Він вчить українську мову.
When?	коли?	Ми зустрінемося о шостій годині.
Where?	де?	Він бачив мене в метро.
Where from?	звідки?	Вони приїхали з України.
How much/many?	скільки	Хліб кошутє одну гривню дванадцять копійок.

Key to the exercise