How common is the Russian language in Ukraine? How different are the two languages?
Russian and Ukrainian are very close. Like German and English, they have common roots; however they are not so distant as the two other languages since they split about five centuries rather than a dozen centuries ago. Ukrainian has changed less than Russian since then. The languages have very similar vocabulary and grammar and share cyrillic letters and the alphabet although each language has a few unique letters which are not used in the other. Most Russians understand Ukrainian although cannot speak it. As for Ukrainians, they are in a better position. Besides the similarity between the languages, their advantage is that in the USSR Russian was the lingua franca and every citizen was supposed to understand and speak it. Also, a lot of literature (both fiction and technical), TV, radio, manuals are in Russian so Ukrainians deal with the language whether they like it or not, and thus keep it up.
Russian and Ukrainian are very close. Like German and English, they have common roots; however they are not so distant as the two other languages since they split about five centuries rather than a dozen centuries ago. Ukrainian has changed less than Russian since then. The languages have very similar vocabulary and grammar and share cyrillic letters and the alphabet although each language has a few unique letters which are not used in the other. Most Russians understand Ukrainian although cannot speak it. As for Ukrainians, they are in a better position. Besides the similarity between the languages, their advantage is that in the USSR Russian was the lingua franca and every citizen was supposed to understand and speak it. Also, a lot of literature (both fiction and technical), TV, radio, manuals are in Russian so Ukrainians deal with the language whether they like it or not, and thus keep it up. Of course some Ukrainians do not like it and will demand that you speak in Ukrainian but t
