November 9 marks the Day of Ukrainian Writing and Language. A day that is symbolized both by the development of the state language and by the literacy of all those in Ukraine. 

Using the day of honoring the language as an informational occasion, we asked the teachers of the Department of Journalism and Philology of the Faculty of FPSC SSU to share their observations and tell what are the most annoying mistakes in the speech of Ukrainians.

Alla Yarova: In my hit parade of annoying mistakes at the highest levels of the so-called “fashionable” language flaws. Speakers usually know how to speak and write correctly, but with a zeal worthy of astonishment, they break through the advice and guidance of Ukrainian language culture specialists and teachers, proudly carrying tracing paper. For example, it is said and translated that Ukrainian has prepositions of conformity ЗГІДНО З and ВІДПОВІДНО ДО. However, we still read in the documents the wrong versions of these official words: згідно розпорядження, відповідно наказу. Participate in leaders and phrases. In our language УЧАСТЬ БЕРУТЬ, а хліб святий, віру, статті до друку, краплі чи ліки приймають. For many years in a row, orthoepic flaws, including the soft pronunciation of our hissing, have not reached the bottom of the rankings. Instead of чАшки, чАсу маємо чЯшку й чЯс. I ask everyone to remember that the most vulnerable part of speech is the pronunciation, intonation, melody of the language. It is easiest to lose and mutilate them. Vocabulary, grammar will survive, but the sound shell of the language, its intonation is difficult to restore.

Inna Sypchenko: We are people, so we are all more or less wrong. What upsets me the most are the mistakes in the emphasis on words. Apparently, they are not so much upset as they assaults my ears. Such mistakes are not a problem when it comes to rarely used words or complex cases of stress. But when I hear something like this among my colleagues in the field of education: teaching, publishing, professional, I usually notice it. And the most sad thing is that such speakers do not see any problem in their mistakes, they say, it’s still clear!? In my opinion, speech is a portrait of a person. I fully share the opinion of Socrates: “Speak, so that I may see you”.

Tetiana Kovalova: The most impressive thing is that Ukrainians often do not speak Ukrainian. As for mistakes, I will highlight the incorrect emphasis of commonly used words, the inability to cancel numerals, the use of literal translations from Russian, when we have accurate Ukrainian expressions. Also disappointing is the active borrowing of foreign words, which leads to the same active withdrawal from the use of Ukrainian tokens.

Olena Ishchenko: Unfortunately, the problem of violating the norms of literary language remains relevant. I consider lexical “most annoying mistakes” in the speech of contemporary Ukrainians: unmotivated use of words in their uncharacteristic meaning, poor choice of synonyms, confusion of different meanings but similar in sound design of words, violation of lexical compatibility of words, tracing of Russian words and phrases speech, meaningless words. Nowadays, the problem of misuse and abuse of foreign language vocabulary becomes especially important.

Volodymyr Sadivnychy: Do not allow yourself to be deleted: neither from lists, nor from registers, nor from members of society, nor from protection; do not deleted from the diet lard and cucumbers, dumplings and garlic; do not exclude the mind as a whole and its individual segments. Pay attention to the exceptions that are constantly and regularly found in everyone’s professional activity, which we make from the rules and regulations by which we get out of situations. This, the use of “deleted” instead of “exceptions” in speech, is, in my opinion, one of the biggest annoyances of recent years…

So, ladies and gentlemen, let’s respect ourselves – we speak and write correctly! And not only on holidays, but every day and every second. How do teachers, graduates, students of the Department of Journalism and Philology, FPSC SSU.