Ukrainian (Lonely Planet Phrasebook) (Paperback)

But I have one comment - if you're going out there yourself, make sure you take a Russian phrasebook too, because that's the majority language, not Ukrainian.

The author's claim that Ukrainian is the native tongue of the vast majority of the country is misleading and may be the wishful thinking of a proud patriot in exile .

I spent the first few days in Kyiv frustrated that I hadn't bought the LP Russian phrasebook as well. I just got bemused looks when I tried out the Ukrainian phrases, and even a couple of people asking me tersely to speak Russian. Weirdly, all the public signs are in Ukrainian, so I found myself understanding these but unable to fathom conversations on the metro.

Things got better when I headed out west to Lviv and the Carpathians, where Ukrainian predominates. But I was put off from my original plan of going down to the Crimea and Odessa because apparently it's almost entirely Russian-speaking and I wasn't prepared. I wish Mr Pavlyshyn had given me at least a clue about that before I left.

The fact that the book is useful only for the western corner of the country makes me even more amazed (and pleased) that LP would publish it. I gave the book away to a friendly Ukrainian sharing the compartment on my final train trip back to Kyiv, knowing I wouldn't need it there. I'll be ordering another copy, but with the Russian one too this time.

So I was delighted to discover that the only Ukrainian phrase book on Amazon (and so presumably the market) is a new LP guide. And it seems to be equally good. It has sections on things I'm interested in (hiking, environment, culture, photography) instead of the interminable lists of consumer goods produced by Berlitz, which seems to think all tourists do is shop for souvenirs.

It also has those interesting and vital boxes adding cultural background to words and the language in general. And the explanation of perfective and imperfective verbs (common to other Slavic languages) has the best clarity/concision ratio I've seen. Other phrase books don't even go into these things.

Of course I haven't actually used it yet, so who knows, I may end up telling people in Kyiv that my hovercraft is full of eels.

Some quibbles: the grammar section includes conjugations of key verbs, but inexplicably omits the essential verb "to go". It is introduced later in the book, however. Also, since Ukrainian is written in Cyrillic, it's important to learn this alphabet. But the Ukrainian words and phrases are always introduced with their Latin alphabet transliteration first, before the Cyrillic spelling. This discourages (though only slightly) the reader from getting to know the alphabet by figuring out the pronunciation of the Cyrillic first and then checking with the transliteration. Lastly, in the acknowledgements the publisher thanks the cover artist for her "innovate" illustration. I can't for the life of me see what's innovative about it. It's just a pleasant picture. There's no need to exaggerate.

But these are minor points. For producing such an excellent book, and having the courage to do it for what is still an obscure language (in tourist volume terms) it should get five stars.