Why Ukrainian to English is harder than it looks
Ukrainian is not Russian, and translators sometimes assume it is. The alphabets differ — Ukrainian has і, ї, є and ґ, and lacks ы, э and ъ — and so does much of the vocabulary. A system trained mostly on Russian produces English that is subtly off, which is why the language has to be identified before it is translated.
There are no articles, and seven cases instead. The ending of a noun does the work “a,” “the,” “to” and “with” do in English. Those little words have to be inferred from context that a short message may not give, which is where careless translation shows.
Verb aspect marks completion, not time. Писав is “was writing” and написав is “wrote and finished.” English chooses a different verb form for each, and getting it wrong changes whether something is done or ongoing.
Ти and ви carry the relationship. Ukrainian marks closeness and respect in the pronoun and the verb. English flattens both into “you,” so a warm message and a formal one arrive looking identical unless the tone is set on the English side.
Written by Hardik Vegad, Co-founder, Translatify. Last updated .
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