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Ukrainian for babies and toddlers

First words in Ukrainian, with transliteration so anyone in the family can read them aloud.

For the Ukrainian families who arrived in Germany and Poland since 2022, the language question arrived faster and harder than it does for most diaspora communities. Children picked up German or Polish within a year. Keeping Ukrainian alive at home became something parents had to actively work at rather than something that simply happened.

Every Ukrainian word here appears in Cyrillic with a Latin transliteration underneath, which matters when a German-speaking partner, a Polish grandparent or a childminder wants to join in at bedtime.

There are two editions: Ukrainian with German for families in Germany and Austria, and Ukrainian with Polish for families in Poland.

The Ukrainian wordbook

🇺🇦🇩🇪 100

Мої перші 100 слів

Meine ersten 100 Wörter

  • 100 first words across 10 themes
  • Hand-painted watercolour by the artist Digitalartsi
  • Latin transliteration under every word
  • Board format, 8.5 by 8.5 inches, 26 pages
  • Every word cross-checked against dialect dictionaries
See the book

Other editions in Ukrainian

Pronunciation

Every word in the book has a written pronunciation. The full guide for the Ukrainian edition, including the sounds that have no direct equivalent in English, lives on its own page.

Open the pronunciation guide

Questions Ukrainian families ask

Is this real spoken Ukrainian?

This is standard literary Ukrainian, the form used in Ukrainian schools, books and media. Unlike the Arabic editions there is no dialect split to navigate here.

Is this Ukrainian or Russian?

Ukrainian, throughout. Every word, the theme headings and the book titles are Ukrainian. There is no Russian anywhere in these books.

Which edition should I buy, the German one or the Polish one?

Pick the language your child is growing up surrounded by outside the home. Families in Germany and Austria want the Ukrainian and German edition; families in Poland want the Ukrainian and Polish edition. Both contain the same 100 Ukrainian words and the same illustrations.

Where are most Ukrainian readers of these books?

Mostly Poland, Germany, Czechia, Canada and the United States. Books print on demand in each Amazon marketplace, so a grandparent ordering from one country can have the book delivered locally in another without international postage or customs.