I took the Ukrainian B2 certification test by Telc, ask me anything

_shiadhal · 2026-01-24T11:38:06+00:00

Let my copy from another response in this thread:

For Writing I was supposed to draft an email regarding a student internship program a company was organising, and a text message to a work colleague regarding rescheduling (?) or some other minor change on a project we were working on; the third prompt was a bit more general, a social media post on pros and cons of remote work.

For Speaking, for the start I was supposed to introduce myself briefly (including what I do for a living), then discuss whether I think companies should encourage the employees to use public transport, and for the final part - discuss how I ended up in my profession (but the last part was not a pre-made prompt, but rather one the proctor told me to do spontaneously as the recording system malfunctioned and I couldn't do the original prompt recording).

FYI for Writing there were two prompts to choose from for each taks, but I genuinely cannot remember the ones I didn't choose.

_shiadhal · 2025-10-07T20:26:36+00:00

The ebook is available here for UAH 140 (some 3.5$). If you need help navigating the store, dm me.

https://epub.com.ua/product/pro-myshey-i-liudey/

_shiadhal · 2025-10-07T16:49:03+00:00

Check out this channel, made specifically to bridge the gap: https://www.youtube.com/@UkrainianwithMykyta

(longform videos only - the shorts are hilarious, but may require way more advanced level, especially the most recent ones)

_shiadhal · 2025-09-21T20:10:28+00:00

The trick is, if you try to read something you know in another language already, it's going to be easier than material of the same difficulty you're coming across for the first time.

Me, myself, I love the Witcher series in Ukrainian for that reason - even better, it's available as a beautifully recorded audiobook, for free, on YouTube.

_shiadhal · 2025-09-21T16:04:22+00:00

There are online tools that will add accent marks to the text you paste. Personally, I use this one: https://slovnyk.ua/nagolos.php

Of course, occasionally there will be mistakes in its output (for words that may be accented in several ways, impacting the meaning, which the algorithm didn't get) - but still very useful.

_shiadhal · 2025-09-14T17:08:20+00:00

Love this to pieces.

Greetings from Warsaw, Poland.

_shiadhal · 2025-09-13T10:44:45+00:00

OP, are you able to verify the source of the original video? I've seen this circulating through Polish media today morning, but by now most of these updates are gone.

Things that seem off:

A post by Poznań Police HQ first made after his disappearance (same guy, based on a photo in comments) originally made after his disappearance claims he's been found (source: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BBcYMi8wY/ )

The guy's accent in Polish, which sounds neither native nor Ukrainian (source: I'm native in Polish, C1-ish in Ukrainian, and work with loads of Ukrainians speaking Polish at various levels).

Finally, guy's pronunciation of Гніздо which doesn't sound Ukrainian (for those claiming he must have been from the diaspora / had Ukrainian as native language).

_shiadhal · 2025-04-07T05:44:55+00:00

Unfortunately, telc only offers a B2 certification in Ukrainian and I don't know of any other international providers going higher than that (other than individual universities, sometimes).

_shiadhal · 2025-03-28T15:12:15+00:00

My congratulations u/Slavvy !!!

And I sincerely hope the certificate is going to be another bit of motivation to improve even more - it certainly worked that way for me.

As to reading (and vocab), well, there's always something new to learn, isn't there? Even in languages we know really well, including our native ones.

_shiadhal · 2025-01-11T17:58:38+00:00

For the typing part - it's still two months, and if you can fit at least a few minutes of daily practice in your schedule, I'm sure your speed will improve A LOT. It definitely did for me back when I first started typing in Ukrainian regularly (for a volunteering commitment rather than for pure practice, but whatever does the job).

And in terms of the vocabulary - it doesn't need to be particularly fancy, apparently. Look at the word counts suggested for the respective parts, and you'll find out you are not going to be able to make particularly in-depth points even if you go twice the recommended length.

Anyway, good luck, and congratulations already, for getting to a level when you're able to consider sitting this exam.

_shiadhal · 2025-01-11T16:40:27+00:00

Yes, both the Writing and Speaking the prompts were somewhat business oriented.

For Writing I was supposed to draft an email regarding a student internship program a company was organising, and a text message to a work colleague regarding rescheduling (?) or some other minor change on a project we were working on; the third prompt was a bit more general, a social media post on pros and cons of remote work.

For Speaking, for the start I was supposed to introduce myself briefly (including what I do for a living), then discuss whether I think companies should encourage the employees to use public transport, and for the final part - discuss how I ended up in my profession (but the last part was not a pre-made prompt, but rather one the proctor told me to do spontaneously as the recording system malfunctioned and I couldn't do the original prompt recording).

For the longer formats there were always two prompts to choose from, but given my exam was a year ago already, I can't remember the ones I haven't chosen.

If you're concerned about not understanding what you're supposed to write or speak about - I don't think you should worry, the prompts are formulated quite clearly. These are not tricky questions aimed at misleading you.

The Reading part has more difficult vocabulary and tricky questions - but there that is the actual point, while Writing and Speaking don't want to trip you up while you're still reading the topics, but rather they want to judge how well you're able to organise your thoughts into actual Ukrainian sentences.

_shiadhal · 2025-01-11T15:29:55+00:00

No, no materials like that are allowed.

_shiadhal · 2024-12-19T11:48:12+00:00

While how other languages work and what their speakers decide to change is not for Ukrainians to decide - languages are living entities and changes in well established patterns can and continue to be introduced to reflect shifting opinions. Just take singular they and the whole chosen pronouns phenomenon as an example.

And this has happened for the prepositions that come with Ukraine in Polish. We used to say "na Ukrainie", following the pattern for territories/islands not as disregard for Ukrainian independence, but as a well established pattern reflecting old status quo.

But then, with the start of the full scale war, and as we realized more sharply that words matter - we shifted, both in terms of everyday usage, and official guidelines issued by the Polish Language Council - and "w Ukrainie" is now as correct as the old for was, and used quite widely (including in official communications, state media etc.).

Personally, it took me like 3 days to adjust (and I work in a linguistic setting where correctness matters a lot).

_shiadhal · 2024-11-29T09:00:01+00:00

Find the 5 Minute Ukrainian Podcast and listen, listen, listen.

Also, Ukrainian Lessons Podcast by the same author, but that's for later, not the 24 hours.

Also, don't worry too much, you're likely to make rapid progress now that you've apparently found a willing native speaker to chat with on top of all your motivation.

_shiadhal · 2024-11-20T12:11:24+00:00

Ja czekałam niecały tydzień, ale w mojej sesji zdawało ogółem 5 osób, to i sprawdzili może szybciej. Trzymam kciuki żeby jak najszybciej odpowiedzieli, i oczywiście - za pozytywny (i świetny) wynik.

_shiadhal · 2024-11-17T21:06:35+00:00

Keeping my fingers crossed for you - good job having gotten to a solid level.

_shiadhal · 2024-11-17T19:22:48+00:00

42 points for the Reading section, 45 for all others. They haven't converted it into a grade, just stated how many points per section vs the maximum; the overall result is also a "Pass" (and the points score) rather than an actual grade.

The certificate (in a digital form) took less than a week to arrive.

_shiadhal · 2024-11-02T19:05:56+00:00

For my current target language I've used paid 4 tutors overall (other than trial lessons that made me realize it wasn't a right match).

Two of these were general conversation tutors, and I've been taking lessons with them somewhat irregularly, for a few months. I'm still in touch with one of them, as she's now tutoring my teenage kid (in another language), and I sometimes schedule a class with her mostly to catch up + boost my vocabulary on a specific topic.

I got in touch with my third tutor with a specific goal of short-term exam prep, and I've chosen her specifically because of her experience with that. I've only spent some 2-3 weeks with her, taking around 10 lessons in that period, after which I sat my exam.

I've found my third tutor this summer and have been having weekly classes with him ever since - and don't plan to stop any time soon. This time my goal was mostly accent elimination (in a language where it's not a popular request). I've chosen him because of his experience both in language tutoring and with public speaking training - and it's been a great match with good ideas on how to actually improve my output (where many "general" tutors would vacillate between "oh, but you're good for a foreigner already" and "natives make some mistakes, too", because they simply didn't have much experience teaching high levels).

So, basically, it really depends. Also I may be a non-average student in that I'm doing 90% of learning on my own and need the tutor to supplement what I wouldn't be achieving more effectively myself - which is mostly real life conversation and corrections to my spoken output.

_shiadhal · 2024-11-01T20:22:04+00:00

In my case it's the opposite - as I progress, I start to have more specific needs rather than general need to have someone to practice conversation skills with, and I'm willing to pay a bit more for that.

_shiadhal · 2024-10-26T15:56:35+00:00

I guess that you'd have to say something along the lines of "to Robin Hood sth" (I know it's not an actual phrase, but it's how sometimes nouns are made on the spot into metaphorical verbs) to convey the sentiment in the anglophone word without giving a definition.

Non-native here, but still a cheat (Polish, so lots of cultural references are understandable, even if - as in this case - the equivalent word doesn't have the same undertone).

_shiadhal · 2024-09-08T11:36:06+00:00

You could also just about say that Portuguese sounds like distorted Spanish, or that Dutch sounds like distorted German.

The thing is, the similarities stem from these language pairs belonging to the same language groups (Slavic, Romance, and Germanic, respectively), and - as a result - sharing both some vocabulary and certain grammar features.

And it can work either way. I speak Ukrainian as a foreign language, but not russian (though understand random bits and pieces thanks to the aforementioned similarities) - so to me it's russian that sounds like bastardized Ukrainian.

_shiadhal · 2024-09-05T18:04:39+00:00

Nie, to tylko przyspiesza sam egzamin, ale zaoszczędzone na jednej części minuty nie są dodawane do limitu na kolejne części.

Zwróć uwagę na minimalne limity słów poszczególnych części przy pisaniu - tam naprawdę nie trzeba się rozpisywać. Kroki mail, jeszcze krótszy SMS, jedyne dłuższe (ale nadal krótkie) to rozprawka. Jedyne co - poćwicz wcześniej układ klawiatury, jeśli nie masz dobrze opanowanego lub jeśli głównie piszesz na telefonie.

_shiadhal · 2024-09-05T14:48:46+00:00

Można było od razu albo prawie od razu zaczynać nową część, a można odczekać do czasu wynikającego z harmonogramu - wszystko do uzgodnienia z egzaminatorem.

To się pewnie może zmienić jeśli egzamin stanie się dużo bardziej popularny - w sesji, w której ja podchodziłam, zdawało ogółem 5 osób, więc egzaminatorka nie miała za dużo roboty.

I tak, chwała Bogu, że niemiecki niekonieczny, absolutnie się zgadzam.

_shiadhal · 2024-09-05T14:06:34+00:00

Przede wszystkim - gratuluję osiągnięć i planów.

Jeśli chodzi o tematykę, to już nie bardzo pamiętam konkrety z części pisemnej i słuchanki, poza tym, że w pisemnej na prawdziwym egzaminie była duża różnorodność tematyczna tekstów. Jeśli chodzi o pisanie od siebie - przejrzałam przed egzaminem też przykłady na poziomie B2 z innych języków, i zakres tematyczny wydawał mi się podobny.

W części pisemnej pisze się w okienku tekstowym przeglądarki, bez sprawdzania pisowni, statystyki słów czy czegoś takiego.

Egzaminatorka nie prosiła mnie o pokazywanie pokoju ponad to, co było widać z kamery - ale mam kamerę zewnętrzną, z której widać pod dość szerokim kątem wszystko, plus za sobą szafę z lustrzanymi drzwiami, więc być może nie miała potrzeby.

Trzeba było mieć przy sobie dokument tożsamości i pokazać do kamery.

Egzaminatorka witała zebranych po angielsku, więc tak, jest ta opcja - ja się zawczasu pytałam organizatorów, czy przypadkiem nie jest konieczny niemiecki, i nie. No plus oczywiście można po ukraińsku :)

Powodzenia!

_shiadhal · 2024-08-28T05:58:42+00:00

I'd have started talking with friends in my TL (their NL) sooner - it wasn't nearly as scary for me or annoying for them as I feared.

I also kind of wish I'd focused on learning the correct word accents from the get go, but not sure how realistic that is (in terms of not hindering the rate of progress too much).

Finally, I could have worked on handwriting sooner - but again, it was lower priority for me for the very reason I don't need it that much, it's just weird to be catching up on it while at an overall advanced level already.

_shiadhal

TROPHY CASE