Ukrainian Phrasebook and Dictionary (Hippocrene Language Studies) [Paperback]

I note the two very negative reviews of this book by the two previous reviewers, citing many phonetic mistakes and even some grammatical ones, such as the author stating that Ukrainian has six cases, like Russian, whereas it actually has seven, which is the vocative case. I'm not as knowledgeable as these two people, so I defer to them here, but I would point out that technically Latin has the vocative case also, but it's hardly ever used. If you look in Latin texts, you'll only see the six cases mentioned.

Appropos of the grammar, I would have liked to verify if the verbal system has directive and non-directive verbs also, like Russian, but there's no mention of this, but that's perhaps a minor technical point.

Since this is the only book on the language I've ever seen, I picked it up to see what it was like, having had some previous background in Russian. Had it not been for the problems cited, this might have been a decent book. It's divided into 15 chapters of useful phrases in practical and dynamic situations, using the now very familiar and successful Berlitz strategy, pioneered by the great Maximilian Berlitz back in the late 19th century as an alternative to the traditional rote memorization of languages. So there are chapters on Transportation, Shopping, Food and Drink, At the Restaurant, etc. There is a 5-page section on essential phrases, and a phonetic and pronunciation guide. Finally, there is a 3000 word mini-dictionary in the back.

The book uses phonetic equivalents to aid in pronunciation, and the book is quite readable being in the large, trade paperback size with a good-size font. The book also includes the Cyrillic alphabet and a transliteration for the words. At just over 200 pages it would be a lot of information for the price, since it's only 12 dollars, had it not been for the problems cited by the two previous reviewers. Despite those, I give it a slightly better rating at 2 stars for being the only book I've ever seen on the subject, which will still be useful to you if you keep in mind the corrections in the two earlier reviews. And the price is a consideration too since Hippocrene's books are usually cheaper than the competition.

In that sense, I guess you get what you pay for. The quality of Hippocrene's books can be uneven, it's true, but they're also capable of putting out very good language books for a realtively modest price, so they can offer a lot of value for the money, such as their concise of grammar of Spanish, which I thought excellent. You just have to pick and choose a little bit. And sometimes, as in this book, they're often just about the only books available on the subject in a typical bookstore, without access to a university library with an extensive language and linguistics section, such as their Beginner's Assyrian and Beginner's Armenian books.

The book's greatest weaknesses are its size and layout. The book is a trade paperback, very inconvenient for travelling. Because it will not fit in a pocket, one may be forced to carry it, which will instantly identify one as a tourist. The book's layout is atrocious, apparently set on a personal computer, with a typeface that is not pleasing to the eye and section changes that are not well marked. And instead of simply typing an accented character in each word, the authors went and used a pen to mark the accent in each word, which looks extremely amateurish.

As for the content, the Ukrainian phrases are accurate and reliable. However, the tourist information included in each section is mostly out-of-date now. There are references to Soviet institutions that disappeared a few years after independence, and Ukrainian modernization means that, for example, Western film can be developed with no problem in Kyiv.

Incidentally, the traveller to Ukraine cannot rely on a Ukrainian phrasebook, as in Kyiv and the eastern half of the country (as well as the Crimean), most people speak Russian. Thus, the traveller should ideally have a Russian phrasebook in addition to a Ukrainian one, unless he or she will be spending the entire trip in the western half of the country.

I cannot recommend Hippocrene's UKRAINIAN PHRASEBOOK AND DICTIONARY. The traveller to Ukraine is better off with a phrasebook that isn't so outdated and poorly produced. I think that the Lonely Planet Ukrainian phrasebook is the one to get.