Well, the language knowledge share in Ukraine is about 95%-95%. 95% of people speak Russian, 95% speak Ukrainian. I have yet to find a person who does not speak Russian in this country. Coming from elsewhere, I haven't had time to properly learn Ukrainian yet, so I need to fall back on Russian occassionaly, no matter whom I talk with. And it absolutely always works, even in the very furthest regions at the western border, where about zero percent of population speaks Russian at home. There some people might answer in Ukrainian, as they feel insecure about their skills in Russian language, but they do understand Russian anyway.
Ukrainian and Russian are such similar languages, maybe a bit like the difference between Italians and Spanish, that one really easily learns to understand the other language, if one is immensed to it all the time. And in Ukraine all signs, advertisements and school books are always in Ukrainian, so Russian-speaking Ukrainians get used to the language there and a lot of television programs, computer games, web sites and so on are in Russian, which means the Ukrainian-speakers get used to the Russian language there.
Asking Russian-speaking Ukrainians for their mother tongue seems to result in "Russian and Ukrainian" as the answer, which is kind of an amazing feat. And that's really how they feel.
0
Well, the language knowledge share in Ukraine is about 95%-95%. 95% of people speak Russian, 95% speak Ukrainian. I have yet to find a person who does not speak Russian in this country. Coming from elsewhere, I haven't had time to properly learn Ukrainian yet, so I need to fall back on Russian occassionaly, no matter whom I talk with. And it absolutely always works, even in the very furthest regions at the western border, where about zero percent of population speaks Russian at home. There some people might answer in Ukrainian, as they feel insecure about their skills in Russian language, but they do understand Russian anyway.
Ukrainian and Russian are such similar languages, maybe a bit like the difference between Italians and Spanish, that one really easily learns to understand the other language, if one is immensed to it all the time. And in Ukraine all signs, advertisements and school books are always in Ukrainian, so Russian-speaking Ukrainians get used to the language there and a lot of television programs, computer games, web sites and so on are in Russian, which means the Ukrainian-speakers get used to the Russian language there.
Asking Russian-speaking Ukrainians for their mother tongue seems to result in "Russian and Ukrainian" as the answer, which is kind of an amazing feat. And that's really how they feel.