I’ve watched this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btuyMX7AEao) of a Japanese woman in Taiwan only speaking in Japanese while people in Taiwan only spoke Mandarin *(To be clear, both Japanese and Mandarin are not related, thus they are completely different languages.)* As a result, in her case it turns out the staff fully understood what she was saying, they even responded back in Japanese on top of that.

In hindsight, let’s say an visitor from Ukraine only used Ukrainian upon visiting Krakow, can people there understand the following types of conversation from spoken Ukrainian:

* Ordering at a restaurant and asking for the bill
* Enquiring about cakes, pastries or bread at a bakery
* Asking for a bag (at a department store)
* Getting your clothes tailored
* Asking staff at a shoe store to switch sizes
* Asking staff about the product in question
* Asking store clerks (in Ukrainian) – i.e. “Excuse me, can you suggest me any recommendations?”

by Old_North8419

12 comments

  2. It would have to be a very specific sentence in which most of the words are similar. A Slovak would probably have the best chance of succeeding like this.

  3. Not really. Although Ukrainian and Polish share a lot of words and syntax, there is an issue of accent and pronunciation. Words sound similar but not quite. You would have to speak slowly. Some people might get it but mostly not. Some basic words are very different and however hard you try, people will not understand them. Other words are so caller “false friends” and have the same pronunciation in both languages but completely different meaning.
    Things like switching shoe sizes can be conveyed using hand gestures. Tailoring a suit is probably far out of your reach.
    But there is hope. There is a lot of Ukrainians in Kraków so you might actually be served by an Ukrainian.
    Don’t get me wrong, you would still be better off with Ukrainian in Poland than with Portuguese, Italian or French in Poland (assuming the person you talk to did not learn these languages).

  4. We may understand some words as there are some similarities or get context clues, but a lot are different. So I would not bet on it.

  5. Best answer is “depends”. If a person you’re talking to had any contact with Russian language in school, then likely yes, you will be able to communicate, with some gesturing though. Mostly people 50+ (in high school prior to ’89), very few from younger generations. If you try speaking Ukrainian to someone without any prior exposure to Russian/Ukrainian, they likely won’t understand a thing.

  7. Just speak English if you don’t know your host language
    Edit: or use google translate and show what you mean on your phone

  8. Depends on the person I guess.

    I was in a bank once where a Ukrainian man was trying to speak to two bank clerks in Ukrainian and they couldn’t understand him. So I translated for him.

    Mind you I don’t speak Ukrainian but I’m Serbian and can understand Russian and Ukrainian decently and I speak Polish, but even with that I understood him more easily than the ladies working there. Probably because some sounds are more similar to Serbian than Polish.

    Also keep in mind that there are some words that are false friends.

    And then there is an old car mechanic in my neighborhood that apparently can read Cyrillic and understands Russian cause as he told me he learned it in communist times.

    So it depends.

  9. >they even responded back in Japanese on top of that.

    But that implies that they already know some basic Japanese or were at least exposed to popular tourist phrases. I refuse to believe that store clerk picked up Japanese during that exchange unless she a genius lol

  10. I do confirm that most Poles do not understand the Ukrainian speech, it sounds completely foreign.

  11. Most of the time, not really. There are similarities between Polish and Ukrainian for sure but they are very different languages You can kind or understand what the other person is trying to convey sometimes but other times not so much ,so whether you understand each other (while only speaking your language )or not is kind of inconsistent.I’ve actually seen one Ukrainian guy who was not pleased that the polish clerk didn’t understand when he spoke to him in Ukrainian lmao. I do think that the majority of Ukrainians (in Kraków at least) do know at least some Polish expressions even if they don’t speak the language which may not seem like much but it is helpful for both parties.I have heard stories of Ukrainians not speaking a word of Polish and not caring but I have not experienced it personally (beyond that one guy I described)

  12. From experience seeing a Ukrainian woman order ham, no.

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