Ukrainian or Russian Language?

Hi . My advice and experience is if your planningto live in Kyiv or anywhere in the west of the country learn Ukrainian all the younger generation speak it.
Okay old people not so much.
I live further east in Poltava and it's very much a 50/50 mix - and the city's further East ie Kharkov in my limited experience Russian tends to the every day language of use.
Most Ukrainians speak both fluently
And it can be very confusing when listening to people.

sempei took the words out of my mouth!!! It all depends on where you think you are going to end up living long term.  Most Ukrainians learn both languages from childhood...

Thanks. I was already leaning towards Ukrainian from reading about the languages. What you say really helps. I picked Kyiv to start for all the usual reasons.  i.e flights, central(ish) location, transportation, universities, general, etc.

rexroberts wrote:

sempei took the words out of my mouth!!! It all depends on where you think you are going to end up living long term.  Most Ukrainians learn both languages from childhood...

Thanks RexRoberts!

I am going to be in Kyiv to start. Being semi-retired then allows for a bit of flexibility. However, I like to have the internet available. so that does matter.

I just noticed that the National University has a few different classes on Ukrainian and culture. I'll look at that next.