Ukrainian vs English: How to be a more Inclusive Listener

I'm helping a displaced Ukrainian national, hosted in Ireland, with his English skills. This week, he was feeling really unmotivated, frustrated, and like his English was regressing rather than progressing.

"Why I not improve? Tell me how to check I improve. No tests!"

Personal and Societal Demand are impacting his confidence.

Now that he’s living in an English-speaking environment, his need for vocabulary and speaking flexibility has increased significantly. Everyone around him is speaking colloquial English, using words and phrases he's never heard before. He’s watching movies and TV shows in accents he’s never heard before. Yet, he expects himself not only to be able to hear and understand, but respond quickly, remember, and reuse the vocabulary immediately.

Our conversation made me reflect on the feelings many displaced Ukrainians are probably experiencing living in English-speaking countries right now. (Other countries too, no doubt. I'm in Ireland, so I can only reflect on here).   

It prompted me to change the focus of this week's article. I'd planned to write about listener-friendly communication, summarising my recent LinkedIn Live. However, I decided to focus instead on communicating with Ukrainian speakers of English.

There are four goals:

1.      Create awareness of how Ukrainian nationals may be feeling.

2.      Spotlight Language Culture.

3.      Highlight some key differences between English and Ukrainian.

4.      Help English-speaking listeners hear and understand more fluently.

In a sense, the theme is still listener-friendly communication. The ideas can be applied to communicating with anyone using multiple language cultures. I hope this article will help readers communicating in English with displaced Ukrainian speakers to understand and converse more inclusively, mindfully, and easily.

War, Displacement, and The Brain:

We all know what’s happening in Ukraine right now. A nation has been disrupted, violated, and its people forced to flee to countries whose cultures, traditions, and languages are completely different.

Many displaced Ukrainian families are being hosted in homes across Europe and further afield. Many are being hosted in English-speaking countries, like Ireland. You may even be one such host. Or you may be interacting in some way with Ukrainian people which requires you to converse.

Some with whom you speak will be highly educated professionals, used to commanding respect in their personal and professional lives, who have run companies, worked alongside governments, or have multiple degrees and qualifications.

They may be used to communicating with a fluency and clarity indicative of their social status, education, or experience, speaking Ukrainian, and possibly Russian.

They may have used English comfortably to some degree in their jobs, but they have likely not had to “live in English”.

What might be happening in their brains?

Shame. Embarrassment. Confusion. Fatigue. Frustration. Loss. Panic. Fear. Survival.

We’ve all just experienced “life in the times of COVID.” Unless you are quite unique, at some stage over the past two years, your brain has panicked.

• Maybe you felt ashamed because you didn’t have enough money to pay salaries or cover your expenses.
• Maybe you felt frustrated and confused because your company was not sure if they were going to furlough or fire you.
• Maybe you felt fear and panic because you could not visit loved ones.

Likely, you went into survival mode, uncertain about what was to come.

But you were not forced to leave your home unsure if you could ever return.

Communication Shame:

When I lived in China and more recently, Poland, I often felt ashamed that I couldn’t use the language faster.

“I’m intelligent. I’ve got qualifications. I’m good at languages,”

I’d tell myself, pondering…

“What’s wrong with me? Why do I feel like I’m not improving? Why can’t I communicate like I can in English?”

I was embarrassed when I made mistakes, couldn’t understand how to conjugate a verb, or remember the vocabulary I had just learned the day before.

Although I knew I was learning new words every day, I still felt frustrated and unintelligent.

Although people were patient with me, I still felt excluded and incapable.

My confidence suffered. I’d try to speak, but people could only listen for what they were used to hearing. I lived in a beautiful, small town in Poland. It wasn't normal for English speakers to be there trying to speak Polish. I would put sentences in the wrong order, choose the wrong form, or the wrong vocabulary set to match the function.

One day, for example, I said to my partner’s 90-year-old Grandmother:

“Mam lekie. Nie mam czasu na jedzenie.”

Translation, “I have drugs. I don’t have time to eat.”

She stopped, and looked at me somewhat puzzled, somewhat annoyed.

I'd confused two words. I had meant to say…

“Mam lekcję.” – I have a lesson.

I am not unique!

Expats often feel frustrated because they cannot speak in the same way as they can in their first language. But expats usually choose to move. Expats usually have money to invest in schools and training to learn more quickly.

Displaced people don’t always have the same choices.

As I said, I’m assisting a highly educated, experienced professional from Ukraine with English. This week, his motivation and confidence plummeted. He’s being very hard on himself (putting a lot of pressure on himself).

We talked about improvement, motivation, and mindset. As best I could, I tried to explain the learning journey in a language, the ebbs and flows as we move into new levels of understanding, and the differences in language culture.

That's what motivated me to write this article.

Monolingual English speakers, those of you who have never learned a language or are new to Slavic languages like Ukrainian, might not understand how to help visitors feel confident and comfortable, or how to decipher what a person is trying to say to you.

So, I thought some comparison might help. Please note, I do not speak Ukrainian. I have learned some Polish (not the same, but some constructs are similar), and have clients from Czechia and Croatia. Again, not the same, but there are elements which help me understand structural patterns.

Language Culture:

It surprises me that we still do not recognise or speak much about Language Culture.

Every country, even state, has its own culture and traditions, and subsets of cultures. We know this. Language is the same. In Brazil, the Portuguese is not the same as in Portugal. In Spain, the Spanish is not the same as in Argentina. In Ireland, the English is not the same as in America. Equally, the Ukrainian spoken in Canada, Brazil, the U.S.A and Argentina is not the same as the Ukrainian in Ukraine. Even the Ukrainian in Ukraine has variations.

The Ukrainian and English languages are obviously different, but there are also similarities.

What people often fail to consider is how impactful it can be to understand the similarities and differences when communicating across languages.

I’ve tried to keep this simple.

Language Comparison – Some Key Differences:

1.      Ukrainian nouns can be masculine, feminine and neutral. Their endings change depending on meaning and other words used. English has singular and plural nouns.

• ENGLISH: I don't have any sisters.
• You might hear: I not have sister.

2.      Ukrainian does not ‘count’ or ‘define’ nouns. English does.

• EX: an egg / a house / the sun.
• You might hear: Sun shines vs The sun is shining.

3.      Ukrainian uses a different alphabet and script to read and write.

• Cyrillic script (Ukrainian Cyrillic is different to Russian) vs Latin script English alphabet.
• English is not written as it's spelled either, making it more difficult to improve quickly.

4.      In Ukrainian, stress can occur on any syllable of a word. In English, there are word stress patterns, but they can change. Stress is decided by the speaker.

ENGLISH:

• I take phOtographs. I’m not a photOgrapher, although I enjoy photOgraphy.
• I tAke photographs. I’m nOt a photographer, although I enjOy photography.
• In the second example, NOT and ENJOY are the words the speaker wants the listener to hear. This is deemed the most important information.

The stress and rhythmical differences between Slavic languages and English can make speech sound stilted and challenging to follow.

HINT: Listen for the actual words spoken, not the musical pattern of speech.

5.      Ukrainian verb forms can express both a completed and progressive action.

• “I eat dinner” for “I am eating dinner.” / "I go walk" vs "I am going for a walk."

6.      Grammar is inflected very differently to English. Adjectives, verbs, nouns and pronouns can all change form.

This can make English seem simplistic to learners who don’t realise that English uses alternative ways to describe things or signify number and sex. Pronouns, articles, gerunds (ing forms), /ed/ endings, auxiliary verbs (be, do, have) may be omitted without awareness of their importance.

7.      English uses a lot of collocation and phrasal verbs.

The concept of English phrases and collocations can be difficult to grasp. When separated, they have different meanings. English speakers often do not realise how much phrasing is used to convey meaning. HINT: monitor your speech. Use simple, single verbs and words.

• Collocations: have a shower / have lunch / make a suggestion / get ready
• Simplify these: take a shower or shower / eat lunch / suggest / prepare.
• Phrasal Verbs:  / go back / go ahead / turn down
• Simplified: return / proceed / decline or refuse

Word Order:

Word order in English and Ukrainian is the same: subject + verb + object. However, in Ukrainian, it’s loose. In other words, it can change. Word order is decided by the topic of sentences, which information is new or old, or which is most important and takes emphasis.

In English, we show emphasis and importance by stressing and inflecting words, as indicated in the ‘photographer’ example above. I don’t know an example in Ukrainian to show the changes, so I’ll give one in Italian. It’s the same concept.

• Il treno arriva alle nove. (The train arrives at nine).
• Il treno alle nove arriva. (The train arrives at nine).

In Italian, ‘arriva’ moves to the end of the sentence to indicate its importance. The sentence structure does not change in English. Instead, we stress, inflect using pitch, and elongate the vowel using pace to create emphasis. Read the sentences aloud and listen to how you naturally change your voice.

When a Ukrainian speaks to you, they may change the order of words in an English sentence to show importance, not realising this is not how we show emphasis.

Top Tips to become a more Inclusive Listener:

1.      When you’re communicating, be mindful and present. Put down your phone.

2.      Without being patronising, imagine you are speaking to a child who is learning to communicate. Apply that level of patience without changing to a baby voice (if you’re one of those people who uses baby voices with children.)

1.      Avoid being patronising by speaking S-L-O-L-W-Y and LOUDLY.

2.      Again, without patronising, show patience with your body and kindness with your face. Keep your eyes and shoulders calm and kind.  

3.      Focus on the context or topic of conversation.

4.      Listen for word order and vocabulary: people, places, things, feelings, characteristics, colours.

5.      To yourself, repeat the words you heard, applying them to the context.

6.      Repeat what you think you heard, using the same words, but add simple structure if it was missing.

• EXAMPLE: I go walk now.
• REPEAT: “You are going for a walk now.” (Let your voice rise at the end to indicate you are checking what you heard.)
• OR REPEAT with understanding. For example,
• “Oh, very nice. You are going for a walk. Enjoy it!”

7.      Do not repeat with error.

• Repeating errors back does not help learning, but neither does highlighting them. Don’t correct unless you have been asked to. If you have been asked to, avoid over-correction. This will lead to emphasis on mistakes rather than improvement and success.

8.      Monitor and Respond:

• Notice frustration, shame, embarrassment, lack of confidence.
• EXAMPLE: head thrown back, heavy sighing breath, gritted teeth, shoulders rise and fall, closed eyes, silence.
• Gently, encourage the person to try again. If they leave the engagement without having communicated, and this happens often, confidence will drop significantly, and it will become a habit to quit.
• Encourage and compliment. Notice new words.

9.      Understand the Learning Journey

• There are levels when learning a language. Think about it like school. You spent 5 or 6 years getting to the highest grade in Primary / Junior school. Then, you moved to Middle / High / Secondary school, into the lowest year. You had to restart.
• As a learner progresses in a language, they move from Elementary level to Pre-intermediate then to Intermediate and so on. Each time a learner progresses to a new level, they are at the lowest stage of that level. This can feel demotivating.

10.  Keep it REAAL: Respect, Engage, Ask, Act, Listen:

1. Avoid assuming you know what anyone else needs better than they do.
2. Avoid assuming they want you to correct or teach them.
3. Avoid assuming they want to be felt sorry for.
4. Avoid assuming they feel sorry for themselves.
5. Ask what they need.
6. Listen to what they express.
7. Respect their needs, even and especially if they do not match your assumptions.
8. Act upon their requests if you have offered to help them.
9. Show interest in their lives, experiences, and languages.

Inclusive Communication:

Overall, aim to listen to hear, not to respond. Listen without judgement, assumption, or a need to fix. You are communicating with adults, just like you and me. They know what they need.

As an Inclusive Communication Coach, I help bilingual tech professionals and online business owners communicate inclusively, clearly and confidently in English using personalised coaching programmes which work on technical speaking and presentation performance skills. If you need to improve your executive communication and presentation skills to make yourself more visible, please contact me.

If you host Ukrainian nationals in Ireland who need help with their English, whatever their level, please contact me to see what we can arrange to help them. I have some capacity to start a group session. I am not charging for this service.

Please #share your comments and experiences. If you are hosting or working with displaced Ukrainians, what has your communication experience been? What tips can you offer?

If you speak Ukrainian, and I’ve got something wrong, please DM and I’ll happily edit.

Thank you for reading and sharing.

#Ukraine #Language #Communication