The speakers whose voices you hear in the Interactive Online Workbook were chosen to represent a variety of characteristics of the Modern Ukrainian Standard Pronunciation and give the learners an opportunity to hear how Ukrainian pronunciation naturally varies depending on the region of the country, the gender, age, and social status of the speaker. Therefore the selected speakers cover all major dialectal regions of the nation. They come from Kyiv, the Provinces of Lviv in the west, Vinnytsia in the center, Rivne in the north-west, Luhansk in the east, Sicheslav in the south, and Trans-Carpathia in the extreme west. They include women and men. Their age brackets vary from eleven, twenty-five, and thirty-six to forty-five, fifty-one, and sixty-eight years. By profession, they are farmers, actors, film directors, journalists, philologists, and even radio hosts. They come from big cities like Kyiv, Lviv, and Zaporizhzhia, as well as the rural areas of Polissia, Podillia, and the Carpathians.

Such a wide range of characteristics is designed to help the learners get accustomed to various peculiarities of Ukrainian pronunciation and be better equipped to comprehend Ukrainian speech in real-life settings. All speakers were asked to annunciate at a natural tempo, i.e. not too slow and not too fast. Towards the end of the Workbook, their speech tempo may accelerate a little. Sometimes one and the same text is read by different speakers so that a curious learner has the opportunity to compare the pronunciation idiosyncrasies of such speakers and, in that way, expand her own hearing comprehension range. The current age of speakers may differ from their age at the moment of recording.

Ruslan Batytsky, 24. Born and grew up in the steppe part of Ukraine the Province of Dnipro (Sicheslav). He is a film director. Says Ruslan, “I like reality and genuine people. I like to get to know the unknown. My initial education is in cybernetics and that’s why I learned many interesting stories in biographical books written by mathematicians and scientists. I Am a Mathematician by Norbert Winner, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman are my favorite books. My greatest passion is science fiction, in particular, books by Stanislaw Lem, Isaac Azimov, and Peter Watts. I’d like to thank everybody who decided to explore the world by learning Ukrainian and hope that this language reveals new facets and hues of life. If somebody would like to ask me a question you should write to instagram.com/mustectvo/” Ruslan lives in Ukraine and continues to make films.

Oksana Blashkiv, 35. Was born and grew up in the ancient city of Drohobych in the Province of Lviv. She teaches English language and literature and does research on the history of Slavic studies via the personal intellectual history of emigrant scholars. She also studies the Slavic campus novel from a comparative perspective to the Anglo-American campus novel. “I like to read, travel, and make jokes. The latter is a bit challenging in a foreign language, but if I succeed it brings a lot of joy not only to me. A good company is a guarantee of a successful trip. I like to return to Krakow, Poland, but it's better still to get to new cities so as to get lost and found in the maze of their streets, particularly when I can find a cup of delicious coffee and an old book store. In American literature, I like Edith Wharton, Philip Roth, Richard Russo, and Askold Melnyczuk. In Ukrainian literature, my favorite writers are Larysa Denysenko, Halyna Vdovychenko and Dorje Batuu. To those who decide to learn Ukrainian, Oksana has a piece of advice, “Try to remain curious and open-minded while learning a foreign language because, through it, you’re opening yourself to a whole new world. [In Ukrainian] pay attention to word stresses! Sometimes they are more important than commas. Read books in Ukrainian however outdated it may sound.”

Oles Cherniuk, 18. Born and grew up in the nation’s capital Kyiv. Currently, he is a film director and political scientist. “I like both my professions, says Oles, because cinema includes theater, painting, architecture, music, psychology, and dramaturgy. Political science provides answers to such questions as who are we as people, where have we come from and where are we heading? My favorite book is The Grand Chessboard by Zbigniew Brzezinski. My favorite movie is All the Mornings of the World, 1992 [directed by Alain Corneau].”

Olha (Olia) Hodovanets, 34. Started her career as a journalist in Kyiv. Moved with her family to a picturesque village in Central Ukraine, historically known as Podillia. There, together with her husband, she is raising two kids. “Currently I am working full-time as a mom. Together with my husband, whom I met at the Russian-Ukrainian War in 2014, we are running our own small carpentry business, manufacturing “old-fashioned curiosities” and museum replicas of household objects of yore. I “collect” people for they are the best you have in Life. I choose to do things that stir my heart! I very much like to take pictures of people’s happiness! My favorite book is Many Blessed Years. Commandments of the 100-Year-Old Carpathian Sage on How to Live Long in Happiness and Joy. My favorite movie is Fudzhou [1993] directed by Mykhailo Illienko. It is also about dreaming, perseverance, and the capacity of being oneself. That is what I wish to those who learn Ukrainian: to be genuine, love life despite and thanks to circumstances.

Kateryna (Katrusia) Shama, 11. Grew up in the rural North-West of Ukraine traditionally known as Polissia (the Woodlands). Her family and friends affectionately call her Katrusia. She is a sixth-grader in a secondary school. “I very much like to travel. My favorite city is Lviv. My favorite movie is [the comedy] The Infernal Banner or Cossack Christmas [2019, directed by Mykhailo Kostrov] as well as the fantasy The Stronghold [2017, directed by Yurii Kovaliov]. I also like to play with my Sphynx cat Kukusia.”

Olha (Olia) Shama-Maksymchuk, 36. Katrusia’s mom also grew up in Polissia. She is a private entrepreneur, running a driving school. “My favorite book is And There Will Be People by Anatolii Dimarov. I like to travel in Ukraine, especially to Lviv. My favorite pastime is sleeping.” Olha is a volunteer helping the Ukrainian war effort, and organizing humanitarian aid for Ukrainian war refugees and the Armed Forces.

Serhii Shama, 38. Katrusia’s dad was born and grew up in the Province of Rivne (Polissia and Volyn). Serhii is a businessman and a farmer. “My favorite writer is Maks Kidruk, my favorite city is Lviv in any season of the year. I love carpentry.” Serhii serves in the local unit of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense. Together with his wife Oila he also volunteers in organizing humanitarian aid for Ukrainian war refugees and the Armed Forces.

Natalia Shama, 68, Katrusia’s grandma, grew up in the Province of Rivne (Polissia). She is a farmer, she loves flowers and her Japanese garden. Her side job, and she is quite brilliant at it, is being a chef at private events. Her favorite book is Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Her favorite city is Lviv. She likes to watch biographical films.

Tetiana Shestopalova, 51. She grew up in the industrial part of the Province of Luhansk. She is a Ukrainian literary scholar, who taught at the Taras Shevchenko National University in Luhansk. The Russian aggression forced her to abandon her home twice. In 2014 when the Russian troops invaded Luhansk, she fled to Mykolaiv and joined the faculty of the National Petro Mohyla University. After the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, she fled to Germany as a refugee. Now she is teaching the Ukrainian language and literature at the University of Saarland. “I like quietude. I like to think in solitude with my Sphynx cat Katia purring beside me. I don’t have a favorite author or book. I take pleasure in revisiting, at different moments in time, different books. The same is with movies. I also like what [the folk singer] Mariana Sadovska performs on stage. As to my favorite city, I think each has its own voice. Before the war, I had visited Kherson several times. While there, I felt that this was exactly the city I’d like to live in. It did not come to pass…” [Kherson is under Russian occupation]

Vasyl Shandro, 37. He was born and grew up in the Trans-Carpathian Province of Ukraine. By profession, Vasyl is a director of drama theater. Over the last fifteen years, he has worked as a radio host for the Ukrainian National Radio and the Hromadske Radio. Says Vasyl, “Earlier I dabbled in painting and played music a little. I don’t seem to have any particular hobbies. I am currently serving in the Armed Forces. I learned the Ukrainian language I speak at secondary school and university. I continue to learn it even now.”

Khrystyna Syvolap, 19. She was born and grew up in Rivne (Volyn) and is a film director by training. She is now in a forced evacuation in Canada. Because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she had to flee with her daughter leaving the rest of her family behind. “Before the outbreak of the war, I made films and read books. Of Ukrainian writers, I love to read Sofiia Andrukhovych, and as to English-language ones, Sally Rooney. It brings me joy to meet people who learn the Ukrainian language. Learning it is particularly valuable and important today. Thank you for that!”

Iryna Ustelentseva, 24. She was born and grew up in the Province of Vinnytsia, Central Ukraine, also known as Podillia. She was trained as a narrative film director. “Currently I live in Mexico and understand how important it is for language students to hear a native speaker and constantly speak [the language they are learning] despite their fear. It is when we speak a new language that we start to master it for real. It doesn’t matter that, at first, you make mistakes and you’re sometimes hard to understand. It’s important to simply practice, give yourself the opportunity to err, and feel no shame about it. My favorite book is The Journey Home. The Story of Michael Thomas and the Seven Angels by Lee Carroll. Unfortunately, the Russian aggression split my multi-ethnic family. Almost all of my relatives in Russia support their president. The information war proved to be stronger than human feelings and morality.”