As a dutch person i once spend 2 years in Ukraine. Hardly anyone spoke decent english there, so i was forced to learn (russian) the language. Within a year I was able to speak it moderately. Key is to focus on words only. Dont care about gramar. Its not important and will be fine later on. First learn 2000 to 3000 words and you will be able to say a lot of things.
This has been an approach I've seen used to great effect by people learning your language! My wife strings together Dutch words with English grammar (we're both American) and it's a common "mistake" that I experience when visiting a taalcafe.
Our brains are all extremely capable of moving a few words so we can understand things in context. When speaking Dutch, I'm spending a lot of time thinking about a verb, then attempting to string it together into something comprehensible.
What I also found to be almost universally true, is that if you are learning a less "popular" language (like Dutch or Ukrainian), just actually give a shit enough to learn more than "yes/no/please/thank you/my name is" will garner you a lot of good will from native speakers. Some countries get so many tourists that hearing the same 10 words butchered over and over and over and over and over again eventually starts to wear down on locals, making them jaded.
When you can walk into a room and somewhat confidently hold your ground, you become interesting and a novelty that people want to interact with. I went to a block party last weekend and spoke to most of the people there throughout the evening. Sure, everyone knew I was "foreign" and occasionally I had to ask someone to repeat something or re-word it, but that's a minor complaint for them considering the other option is to speak back to me in a language they don't have as good of control over. Despite popular belief, even in many "English friendly" countries, the normal citizens aren't actually that comfortable speaking unless they work in an environment that demands they speak English every day. This goes doubly so for older people. My next door neighbor is about 75 years old and speaks English pretty well (worked at Philips for 20+ years), but the _quality_ of our conversations went up 3x when I could understand enough Dutch for them to speak naturally to me.
All that to say, I agree with you! Vocabulary and basic grammar to get you started and then after that it's all about learning words and practice practice practice.
(As someone who has lived in different countries) Making an effort to learn "enough" of a language of the country you expect to be living in for a while is a gesture of decency. I feel that good will is justified, especially in cultures that see a lot of immigration and tourism. People try to live in a coherent society, which becomes hard if a large group of people is incapable of communicating naturally and reasonably fluently. Most Western European and Northern European people speak excellent English, but it's not nice to force a large group of people to switch to English and hamper natural communication style because somebody is slightly disrespectful and lazy.
You can get away with a lot in Dutch and especially Flemish Dutch though, because the local dialects are so strong (for being a relatively small area). Unless you look exotic, people don't always immediately pick you out as a non-native speaker.
> Key is to focus on words only. Dont care about gramar.
Absolutely! The way they teach foreign languages in school is insane. "OK, you know 20 words and can't say a thing, now it's time to learn past tense".
And before learning words, learning and practicing phonology. Then, add vocabulary while still practicing phonology. It's insane people and institutions assume one could be understood when speaking a language when its most basic building block is not acquired.
Can I ask what language you're thinking of here? When I was taking classes, the A0-A1 level class was all in the present tense for the full length of the course. We might have touched on past tense in the last lesson and most of the books I've seen for this language (Dutch), structure things as present/future tense first, and then past tense after.
These are my memories of learning English in school as a foreign language. French courses that my wife took recently also had past and future tenses in A1.
Even if it's not the tenses, still schools typically put a lot of focus on grammar and order of words but not even nearly enough into speaking. I have an suspicion that these corses are modelled after native-language programs which rightfully focus on grammar because everyone knows how to speak already. But starting from it is madness.
If you can say “subject verb noun” that’s good enough in many cases to at least get your point across.
Anecdotally, I know that I can understand people speaking English with what a school teacher would consider atrocious grammar, as long as the words are pronounced close enough to be recognizable.
As a foreigner a lot more useful to learn russian. Everybody speaks it in Ukraine. And other countries as well. Even at our university in Ukraine, russian was the main language amongst foreign students. Its sensible right now true.
As a foreigner a lot more useful to learn Russian.
Given that the state language is Ukrainian, and its overall dominance in media and culture -- there's no way this statement could possibly make sense.
Everybody speaks it in Ukraine.
This gets repeated a lot, but it's just not true. It's true that virtually everyone has some working comprehension of Russian because of earlier Soviet influences, and because the two languages are so similar (and in many parts of the country, the "Ukrainian" that is spoken is highly Surzhyk-influenced).
But realistically only about 70-80 percent of the population speak Russian fluently and comfortably. Given a choice, the vast majority would clearly prefer to speak Ukrainian (and many people have been switching voluntarily as a matter of preference since 2014; the government's mildly coercive efforts having nothing to do with this, really).
Even at our university in Ukraine, Russian was the main language amongst foreign students.
Probably because it's the only one among the two that they were able to study before coming there (and because they saw Russian as being more useful in other countries, as you say).
And even so, this applies only to certain universities in certain cities.
I spend many years till couple of months before the invasion in Ukraine. I have never met someone who doesnt speak russian. Only the elderly people have sometimes a mixed slang between russian and ukrainian. But other than that everyone speaks it. There are some hardcore nationalists connected to Bandera (pro nazi group) that refuse to speak russian, but remaining people dont care and speak both.
I have never met someone who doesn't speak Russian.
Then you haven't traveled broadly in Ukraine. And more importantly you're missing the point. The vast majority do speak and understand a reasonable amount of Russian (hence they will almost never object when you use it with them; they get that you're a foreigner and are doing the best you can) -- but they don't speak it fluently and comfortably, and it's not their preferred language in everyday use.
Only the elderly people have sometimes a mixed slang
It's more prevalent among the older set of course, but still this is just not true across the board. Surzhyk (or less pejoratively: Russian borrowings/breakings) are everywhere, though they are often subtle and it may take some training to detect them.
Part of the problem is that there are no well-defined boundaries (and there's only a barely defined notion of what constitutes "standard Ukrainian"). They're literally still in the process of cleaning up the nation's preeminent (and clearly Soviet-, if not exactly Surzhyk-influenced) dictionary.
There are some hardcore nationalists connected to Bandera (pro nazi group) that refuse to speak Russian
Now you're getting into pure BS territory.
This is obviously something you've read or something you've heard said a lot, but not something you know from direct observation.
Not a dog in the fight, at least this particular fight, but this might sound to many as "just learn the language of the oppressor". This gets thorny real quickly.
