Can Czechs and Slovaks understand Ukrainian? | Mutual Intelligibility Challenge 

Я італієць, вивчаю українську мову і можу добре розуміти словацьку та чеську, якщо вони говорять повільно. Слов'янські мови прекрасні 🇨🇿🇺🇦🥰🥰🥰

Thanks Slovaks and Czechs for supporting Ukrainians. We are very grateful and appreciate it!!!❤️🇺🇦🇨🇿🇸🇰

Loveeeed this, I’ve been learning Ukrainian and actually live in a Czech majority town. This was super interesting!

Z polskiej perspektywy wszystkie te trzy języki są zrozumiałe :)

Дякую, Норберте! Обожнюю відео зі слов'янськими мовами.

can't get enough of Ukrainian videos, please do more :)

Jestem Ukraińcem, znam Polski. Słowacki jest dla mnie więcej zrozumiały) Дякую, Норберт за цей фільмік. Дівчата файні))

It would be nice to have a video about different Turkic languages (Turkish, Uzbek, Kazakh, Turkmen, Kyrgyz, etc) and see how mutually intelligible they are.

Dziękuję bardzo Robert za filmiki. Robią mi duże szczęśliwym 🎉

Thanks for another video involving a speaker of my mother tongue, Ukrainian. It was a pleasure to watch, love Slavic languages! Taking into account that I know also Russian and basic Polish (understand ~95% of Polish speech, because I was living for almost a year in Poland), I've understood quite a lot in Czech and Slovak.

Jsem čech a učím se ukrajinsky, rozuměl jsem prakticky všemu - jen jsem nepochytil že zvíře má roh, myslel jsem, že je to hroch 🙂 Я вивчаю українську, завдяки тому я зрозумив майже все. Я лише не помитив, що тварина мала мати ріг, я подумав що цйа тварина була бегемотом.

Tbh that was a surprise for me that they will understand Ukrainian that good. Thanks for the episode!

Wow! Skvělé video! Bravo Vendy a Radko! A Norbertovi díky za tohle video! Za celý tým slowczech zdraví Eliška

in macedonian: `svadba` is the whole ceremony, `veselba` is the party and it is the most common word for party or celebration (still using, it is not archaic), `venchanje` is the church ceremony, `priem` is the reception and `registracija na brak` is the notary ceremony (legal wed arrangements). marital status is called `brachen status`. the other words: `1. nosorog, 2. nokjnica (spavacha - dialect and serbism), 3. pravnik (advokat), 4. zemjotres, 5. svadba`.

I started studying Ukrainian in January and much to my surprise I got 2 words right. 😂 No chance with Czech and Slovak though, as I'm not fluent in any Slavic language.

Thanks for the nice video! 💙💛 For me, as a Ukrainian, both Slovak and Czech are quite understandable. Polish and Belarusian too.

In Serbian, the ceremony is venčanje, the party ıs svadba, we can say svadbeno veselje but veselje ıs any kind of celebration with music, dances, food and beverage. I'm pretty much into languages, but it's only now, thanks to you, girls, that I made the connection between venčanje and venac! 😊 This was very nice all together, thank you girls, i dziekuje Norbert ❤

Ukrainian also has word Pravnyk (Правник), but it is less common than Juryst (Юрист) or Pravozahystyk (Правозахисник). For the word wedding we use Vesillia (Весілля), this is a general concept, there is also Shlyubna ceremonia (Шлюбна церемонія) (the legal part of the wedding). Shlyub (Шлюб) itself is a marriage.

All three languages underwent the g > h sound shift so that should help 😊 щиро дякую за цей епізод! 🤝

Молодці! Люблю канал Еколінгвіста. Приємно бачити українську знову на каналі.

If you included Polish speaker in this video, our circle would be complete. In many comments in multiple videos I read Belarusians, Russians, southern Slavic speakers find Slovak language quite comprehendible, more than Polish or Czech. Would be interesting to see Slovak as pivot language in your videos Norbert :)

Great video! The Slovak language is very easy to understand, Czech a little less. I am Polish

Все логічно: словацька мова (разом з білоруською) одна з набличих до української - тому словаки і українці розуміють одне одного чудово

As a romanian I didn't understand anything but most of the words in ukrainian have a similar meaning in romanian: 1.' Nas' means nose but for nose relate things we use the prefix 'rino' so the word becames 'rinocer'. 2 "rochie" means simply dress . 3 for lawyer we use both 'avocat' and 'jurist', jurist being a more like a general term for a specialist in law , 'ispravnic' was a clerk in middle ages similar to a judge . 5 'vesel/veselie' , read exactly as in polish, means 'happy/happiness'

Дякую за відео. Люблю слов'янські мови.

thats so cool to be ukrainian and understanding nearly 50% of every slavic language) some even like 70%

I speak Latvian , Russian , English and understand Ukrainian. My mom's half Ukrainian. Greetings from Latvia 🇱🇻

I am Ukrainian and I studied Czech language at the university. Can't say I did it well =) I remember it was pretty hard, because some words I could guess naturally, others sounded somewhat like polish (which I knew a bit). So my brain was constantly confusing the 3 different languages. To my great surprise, understanding Slovak here was easier then Chech which I spent 2 years with

It's fascinating how the Slavic languages are similar. I'm Ukrainian, I've never learnt Czech or Slovak, but I was able to understand most of what the girls were saying, with subtitles though.

I am Slovak. I speak Russian and uderstand Polish quite well, but watching news in Ukrainian on youtube, I understand maybe only 50%. Basic communication would be OK.

Zrozumiałem wszystko. Pozdrawiam 😊

❤️🙌🇺🇦🇨🇿🇸🇰🇵🇱

Super video!

You should have participated in this one Norbie!

great video! veselka is btw a word in ukrainian (веселка) and it means rainbow

Nice filmik. Ukrainian speaker is very good, please invite her more often ;) Вітання зі Львова.

Пані Дарина так детально і влучно розписала пояснення загаданих слів, що їх відгадали би носії японської і арабської мов 👍

tak interesno ))) mnogo vrozumeyu ! ❤

Дякую за творчість! Вдачі та бережіть себе.

Yes,in Eastern Slovakia in Šariš and Spiš regions there is a version - Vešeľe - which is the wedding party, but it's a wedding in general as well

Very good participants - speak slowly and clearly, that is essential. As for the questions: for me as Czech from the generation which had Russian at school, it is supereasy with the Ukrainian subtitles. But if I close my eyes, I may be lost for a long time, until I catch one decisive word. The earthquake was the hardest: i was not sure, got only something geological and negative, but then the epicentre was mentioned and obviously it gave away everything. Great video, thank you!

Právnik in Slovak, not právník. We have something called the rhythmic rule where two long syllables can't be next to each other. :) (there are exceptions tho :D) This is something that distinguishes Slovak from Czech. Plus, it's svaDba in Slovak, not svaTba. :)

V serbskom jezike mi mame : svadba (glavno slovo/reč), svadbeni obred ( za svadbenu ceremoniju) i veselje (slovo koje se isto mnogo koristi, najviše za svadbu ali i za druga veselja koja se slave). Razumeo sam skoro sve/všetko/vsično! 😊🤗

It's so nice how well they could understand each other

Belarusian here. I am impress that I anderstand Slovak language ❤!! Best regards for all in video!

Molim za mir med vsemi slovanskimi državami 🙏...Imejmo se radi ❤️...Pozdrav iz Slovenije 🇸🇮

I love how Serbian has similarities to both Czech and Slovak Rhino-Nosorog,Dress-Suknja,Earthquake-Zemljotres,Wedding-Svadba and although we use different words for lawyer(in Serbian it's "advokat"/in Croatian "odvjetnik")"pravnik" is broader term that includes judges(which we say sudija/sudac),lawyers,prosecutors etc. While Ukrainian word for wedding,in Serbian could be any kind of celebration(veselje)

Well, as an alumni of Legal faculty that is called in Ukrainian "Факультет правничих наук" (Facultet pravnychykh nauk) I can assure you that in Ukrainian we also have "pravnyk" ("правник") meaning a lawyer :) "jurist"/"юрист" is just a universal Latin term that came to our language thanks to German legal scholars, whose works were learnt in Ukraine for quite a while + Soviet Union was eager to eliminate the differences between Ukrainian and Russian so the term "pravnyk" was excluded from the academia's vocabulary during Soviet times. Now it's back, but some old-fashioned lawyers produced by Soviet education happen to argue that "pravnyk" is not the same term as "jurist". Even though, Ukrainian Bar Association is called "Асоціація правників України" (Assotsiatsia pravnykiv Ukrainy)

Дякую за відео, дуже цікаво)

Absolutely perfect episode, as I speak 2 of languages and can understand 3d one. As for Ukrainian native speaker, 2nd word for me also was confusing, in the end I also thought its a "dress", even though I had also option for "night shirt" in the beginning. From all I have seen here on the channel, this episod was easiest, with almost no questions. Also I think in Ukrainian we also have word "svad'ba, but we are afraid of using it because its similar to respective russian word, which is pity. In general, good job and thanx to everyone!

The lawyer (which I guessed) reminded me of a line in a Russian textbook: Юрий юрист. Он любит юриспруденцию. I live east of Uree and say this whenever I pass through.

Som z Ukrajiny, ale študujem slovenčinu, takže mi bolo všetko jasne😅

Musím říct, že si vedli velice dobře :) Někdy to bylo docela těžké rozeznat😅 jinak zdravím z České republiky😄

I can confirm that for Bulgarians everything is understood.❤

Надто детальні пояснення :) забагато натяків :)

Дуже гарна ведуча дівчина українка .І її дівчата слухачки з інших західнословянських країн з Чехії і Словаччини теж дуже симпатичні!

Jako rusky mluvící, který mluví i česky a pasivně rozumí slovensky, byl ukrajinský jazyk v tomto videu docela srozumitelný, i když předtím jsem mu rozuměl velmi špatně, nyní díky češtině rozumím na 90%, asi o kousek líp než polsky. Děkuji Norbertovi za sjednocení Slovanů a posílení kulturních vazeb mezi našimi národy ✌️

Класно, дякую

Восхитительный украинский язык, как люблю его, осваиваю с русского. Почти все понятно, особенно с текстом. А вот чешский и словацкий и половину трудно понять

"I work as a product manager in the high-tech industry and I forgot how much cost a good cam for videomaking".

Люблю чешский🥰, их R с гачеком так прекрасно звучит!

дякую, дуже цікаво!

As for me the "words" were too easy - explained with many details. It was really hard not to catch the meaning. As a result there were almost no questions and we heard Ukrainian 90% of the time. It would be more interesting to hear conversation. Maybe the better idea is if each of participants prepare their "words" and others have too catch the meaning.

In Serbian: 1. Rhinoceros - "Носорог / Nosorog" 2. Nightgown - "Спаваћица / Spavaćica" (for women); "Ноћна кошуља / Noćna košulja" (for men, but this term is rarely used today because men generally don't wear nightgowns anymore, they wore them sometime until the first world war maybe even until the second); Pajamas /Nightsuit - "Пиџама / Pidžama" or "Пижама / Pižama" (two piece suit); Summer pajamas for woman / girls - "Беби дол / Bebi dol" 3. Lawyer / Attorney - "Pravnik" (someone who has a law degree or Juris Doctor (JD) from a law school, but is not necessarily licensed); "Адвокат / Advokat, (Јавни ) Бранитељ / Бранилац - (Javni) Branitelj / Branilac, Одветник / Odvetnik" (someone who has a law degree and license to practice law. Therefore, all "advokati" are "pravnici", but not all "pravnici" are "advokati") 4. Earthquake - "Земљотрес / Zemljotres" 5. Wedding - "Венчање / Venčanje", "Свадба / Svadba"; the word "Весеље / Veselje" is general term for any type of celebration, festivity including wedding one ("свадбено весеље / svadbeno veselje")

Slovakia, situated in Central Europe, is bordered by several Slavic nations. Historically, the Slovak language has maintained many features typical of Slavic languages, making it relatively comprehensible to speakers of these languages. This has led some to liken it to a ‘Slavic Esperanto.’ As a Slovak, I can confirm that I am able to understand many Slavic languages to a certain extent.

Завжди прикольно говорити з Поляками чи Чехами чи Словаками чи іншими носіями слов'янськіх мов 🙂(окрім росії). бо кожен говорить своєю мовою але мозок якось знаходить відповідники і все стає зрозуміло) Дякую за відео)

як же це мило і цікаво звучить. цей букет мов..і зрозуміло.. просто гімнастика для мізків.

Does anybody here know why Ukrainian is classified as a Eastern Slavic language? If I look at the vocabulary I see many similarities with e.g. Polish or Czech - in words that are very different in Russian. What are the criteria for this classification?

I got the lawyer and the wedding. The word nr. 2 I did also understand thats a clothing for woman, going also to the knees so I guessed a dress. I understood also some description about the animal but I did not understand enough to guess which animal. The other one I did not understand what its about. Im Bulgarian. I love Norberts channel, big up ✌️🙌

Subtitles rule :) Russian is here. Ukrainian is understandable by ear, Slovak is harder, Czech is the hardest one. Just tried to stay away from computer with headphones :) Should be really slowed down to understand by ear. Subtitles + sound - quite understandable all of them. Quite obvious from linguistical point of view, but love this channel for real experience instead of theory :)

@ 16:16-16:19 In Ukrainian, there is a word shlyub (шлюб) meaning a marriage ceremony.

Super! Diakuyu)

"cununie/logodna" engagement(ENG) si "nunta"/ wedding(ENG) in romanian, is like pomolvka /zaluceniya and svadiba = veseliya wich in romanin direct traduction mean "veselie"

I think for clarity of the experiment You should invite people, who knows only their native language. Knowing multiple languages gives an advantage for understanding unknown ones.

16:15 The same svatьba «wedding» in Ukrainian, but veselьje «wedding party» is more common for some reason. Whereas sъljubъ means «marriage», not «wedding».

Прохання до словаків: надавайте стусанів своєму прем'єру за відмову підтримки України. Третє слово, правник, ми могли би і в себе запровадити (можливо тільки з наголосом на другий склад). Раніше було сватання, заручини, вінчання, а відтак весілля. Зараз хіба що розпис у РАЦС (укладання шлюбу органі реєстрації актів цивільного стану), можливо вінчання в церкві та весілля. Дуже подібні мови, усі чотири, з польською включно.

I am Slovak, the word Radka is trying to remember is "veselica". But it can mean any "celebration party" with drinking and eating, that takes place after some formal ceremony. It is not tied to a wedding. But the word is pretty old and has been replaced by "hostina" in most cases. For me, hostina is not related to any formal ceremony (wedding or graduation, etc.), but veselica is associated with something formal beforehand. Like the act of opening a new railroad, bridge, monument, building, or personal things like weddings, graduation or any important big "once in a lifetime" formal event. I understood almost everything, but I was not sure about the rhinoceros (I missed the horn clue, but I know it is rih, as I visited Krivij Rih city in Ukraine), thought it might be an elephant as well. I also misunderstood the 2nd word, I also thought it is šaty, completely missed the part that it is for the bed/sleep. Maybe because the Ukrainian word associated with the clothing means "dream" in Slovak, not "night" or "sleep" or "bed". So it might be a clothes somebody dreams of, not wears to "dream in" them. I have visited Ukraine a couple of times, also Belarus. If people talk slowly and clearly, I can understand them. Same in Poland, especially close to the border of Slovakia. Further north it was harder to understand Polish.

Three languages that made "h" out of "g".

Норберте, ти дуже гарно обговорив останнє запитання, і було б добре так само обговорити друге, бо дівчата дали неправильні відповіді, а відповідь була на поверхні. Вони швиденько перейшли до 3 питання.

In this video Daryna speaks in standart Ukrainian, but there are many ukrainian dialects more similar to western slavic languages. I as a speaker of western ukrainian dialect would say many words from this video more unerstadible for czech, slovak or polish people. Version of ukrainian language from this video is used more like official language on tv or press. This version was one of dialects in central Ukraine, and become the standart language. However there are still many different local versions and this one from video doesnt sound like a real live language. In real life nobody speaks like that.

Na hrvatskom: Nosorog Spavačica Pravnik / Odvjetnik /Advokat Zemljotres / Potres Vjenčanje (obred) / Svadba (veselje poslije vjenčanja,zabava) Uglavnom sam razumio sve jezika prilično dobro!

Svatba, Venchavka, Svatben obriad, Svatbena Ceremonia, Jenitba - in Bulgarian

Люблю канал.Завжди дивлюсяЦікаво старатися зрозуміти західних і південних слов'ян.Але про ночнушку,сам не зразу зрозумів.

Ir always amazes me how close Czech and Skovak are. I know some words?differ but other than that, it's only the accent that changes.

правник є українське слово теж

Має проходити ПОВІЛЬНІШЕ! Тоді буде ефективніше... Але чудово все ж таки. :-)

In Russian, the ceremony is 'бракосочетание' [brakosochetanie], from 'брак + сочетание'. And the party is 'свадьба' [svad'ba] with guests, food, champagne and cake)

Ech! Szkoda, że nie było Polaka! Byłaby cała nasza zachodnio-słowiańska grupa. Wspaniale byłoby patrzeć jak Polacy/Słowacy/Czesi doskonale się rozumieją :)

Молодец девчонки. Впорились направду чудово

Let’s have more Rusyn and Belorusyn in this channel! Rusyn vs. Serbian or Croatian for example?

Jako Polak rozumiem wszystko, ale też dzięki temu że wszystkie dziewczyny mówią bardzo wyraźnie i wolno.

I just remarked, that the Czech and Slovak word "svatba" is similar to the Lowersorbian word "swajźba". But in Uppersorbian language is an other word for that: "kwas".

Pane Norbert, you made a great choice by asking this woman to represent the Ukrainian language. She spoke like people do in everyday life. Greetings from Ivano-Frankis'k, Ukraine. Also, Czech and Slovak languages sound pretty similar between each other and to Polish and Ukrainian, and real Belarussian. I hope, Slovak government will not help the russia. Thanks a lot!

We love Slovakia 🇸🇰 from Russia 🇷🇺 our brothers. Peace ☮

I'm a Czech and I was completely lost during the first three questions. I was shocked how well the participants understood her, because it sounded just like a gibberish to me. I couldn't recognize pretty much a single word. During the 4th challenge, "earthquake" just randomly poped up in my head, but that was based on a pure intuition and I wouldn't be able to explain how I guessed that. The 5th question was the only one that I felt comfortable with and I think I understood most of what she said. My final score is 2/5, but 1/5 would be more accurate, because the earthquake wasn't even a proper guess. However, I didn't look at the Ukrainian subtitles. I'm pretty sure I'd do better if I either looked at the transcript or if she talked slower. I think she was reading a script and her voice was pretty monotonous.

especially parasolka and gelicopter.

Actually, for the last word svadba and the discussion about it. In Slovak, "svadba" in general means the party/lunch and "sobáš" is the ceremony. "Sobáš" and "svadobný obrad" is the same.

Zviečenie uwięczenie czyli ukoronowanie czegos. Zakonczenie czegos.

Ще є слово "одруження" бо після церемоніі, наречена стає - дружиною, а разом із чоловіком - подружжям!

Veselia mean cheerfulness in romanian. I guess it came from the Slavic word of wedding