"To speak... or not to speak... or which to speak?"

Ever since we arrived the true "bilingual" nature of Ukraine has been apparent. I guess I knew that people had all spoken Russian under the Soviet Union, but I figured that now most people spoke Ukrainian. Well... it's a bit more complicated. We made the decision to buy Ukrainian language books before leaving the States and learned how to say "please" and "thank you" and a few other critical utterances. People smiled when we said them, and seemed to appreciate our efforts. However, when we first started looking for an apartment and went out with various rental agency representatives, we could not recognize one word they said in "Ukrainian". Especially, when they would thank the owners of the apartments for showing them to us. They said something that sounded like "placebo" (actually 'spasibah')... nothing like the "d'yakuyu" we had so diligently practiced. Well, turns out they were speaking Russian - not Ukrainian at all! Then it started to click, that often when people speak to us and each other, they are speaking Russian. Another example is when we learned the word for "together"..."rah-zom". When we got to the cashier at the local cafeteria, we waited to hear some version of "are you together" .... but nothing registered. They were using a completely different word which, again, was Russian. It is a bit disheartening to get less than a little comprehensible input as a language learner.

Not to mention, the debate over which language to speak has become a heated political one. The country is somewhat in the throes of deciding whether to identify more with it's former Russian sphere, or move in a European direction. Therefore, it has become quite the point of discussion in the newspapers. At my university, the president has officially declared that students and teachers will speak Ukrainian and English. (In which case the choice is easy!)

In a daring experiment, yesterday I posed a question to my workshop participants, teachers of English from various institutions throughout Kyiv, as part of a "problem-solving" activity. After a couple of activities in which I introduced myself, I mentioned my dilemma: "Which language should I learn first, Ukrainian or Russian?" As you can see from the photos, they had little trouble engaging in discussion with their peers. In the end, I had a representative from each group present their advice... and opinions were truly split. They ranged from, "You should learn Russian because everyone understands it and you can visit other former-Soviet Republics without a problem" to "You should learn Ukrainian because you are in Ukraine; if people don't understand you, you will shame them for not knowing the language." Interesting stuff. Fortunately, everyone was quite respectful of others' opinions and it turned out well to illustrate the technique - even though I'm not sure that the problem is truly solved. I think one gentleman's advice probably makes the most sense: Your husband should learn one language and you should learn the other! We just may do that!!