Вас vs Ви and one transliteration question.

[Huculak]

Background: I'm a beginner at the Ukrainian language; I was adopted by a Ukrainian-Canadian family and English was spoken exclusively while I was growing up. I no longer live anywhere near a part of Canada where Ukrainian is spoken or taught, and the last family member I had who spoke Ukrainian died in 1998, so I have few resources to work with, other than McGraw-Hill's "Teach Yourself" book.

I'm having difficulty understanding when to use Вас and when to use Ви (or ти vs тебе). I've studied other languages casually, and I initially thought that ти was the equivalent of "thee" in Elizabethan English and тебе was the equivalent of "thou," until I saw a dialogue section in my book where someone said "а як ти?"; In correct Elizabethan English, that would be "And how art thou?" I find that people who don't understand Elizabethan English would say something like "How art thee" and that sounds jarring to me, like fingernails on a chalkboard. I don't want to be the one doing that in Ukrainian.

My command of when to use "thee" and "thou" in English is purely intuitive. I always get it right, because I've read a lot of Shakespeare and have learned how to use them, I just don't know how I know how to use them, if that makes any sense.

tl;dr version: When do I use ти/Ви and when do I use тебе/Вас? Is there a good online grammar tutorial that teaches this in a natural fashion, rather than using linguistic jargon like "accusative," "dative," and "nominative?" I don't grasp these jargon terms.

Secondly; My last name is Huculak; I know this is a fully Ukrainian name. In Alberta, where I grew up, there is an Archbishop Lawrence Huculak, and the University of Alberta sports a Huculak Chair of Ukrainian studies, after Orest Huculak (I am not related to either to the best of my knowledge, even by adoption). The first "u" and the "a" in Huculak is pronounced like the "u" in "duck," and I don't know how to transliterate this into Ukrainian. I don't see any cyrillic character that sounds like the "u" in "duck," so I don't know how to transliterate my own name. The rest, I can figure out, I just don't know what to use in place of the ?s in Г?кил?к.

(On a somewhat related note, one of the few phrases I learned in Ukrainian before my grandfather died was "malenkiy himno," or "little ****" (used in a playful manner, of course.) I think "himno" is only used in Canadian Ukrainian--in cyrillics, is it spelled with a Г or a Х?)

I'll probably have further Ukrainian-learning questions for this forum, for lack of any other place where I can ask questions. Of course, given the speed at which I learn languages, it is entirely possible that someone will have perfected a method to communicate with the dead or travel back in time before I'm fluent, and I'll be able to ask my family again. Time will tell.

[Serhii]

Welcome to the forum and thank you for the interesting letter. It’s always a great pleasure to meet people coming to their roots.

I do like your example from Elizabethan English. Yes it is like thou-thee in it. The only problem is that English successfully dropped all cases/ flections ., etc but Ukrainian treasures and carefully preserves all of them.

As far as I understand Elizabethan English , you confused that pair of pronouns a little. Thou is Ти and thee is Тебе ( understand ? ). Then the phrase ‘ а як ти ? ‘ is absolutely correct and fully corresponds with ‘How art thou ? ‘

Ти – Ви are used in phrases like ‘ What do you see/want/read ….’ Sorry but it is nominative case. Ти - is a singular, you – a plural ( or a very polite addressing to someone ) form.

Тебе, тобі, тобою … are different variants of ty in different cases. Examples - I told you – Я говорив тобі , he saw you - він бачив тебе ,I’ll go with you – я піду з тобою ….

We have the same situation with ВИ.

Your last name in correct Ukrainian is Г У Ц У Л Я К. There aren’t any sounds like U in duck or K (like cook ) in it. It comes from the word hutsul (= ethnical group of Ukrainians). Try to find and read as much as you can about them. Perhaps it was changed or twisted in Canada but in origin it is like I wrote above. There are still a lot of such names in Ukraine.

Oh my, the first letter in himno is Ukrainian G – Г, we pronounce it very softly and it sounds like H – X . Hope you know that it is a bad word so I won’t write it here

Hello from Ukraine and good luck to you – Бажаю тобі успіхів, ти написав гарного лист. Як твоє ім'я ? Будь ласка, напиши його тут . Моє ім'я _________ Гуцуляк.

[Huculak]

Ah, I was confused by an example that said "Мене звуть ______," which is apparently supposed to translate literally as "Me, I am called _____" the way they do in French instead of "I am called _____" as is done in English.

EDIT: Also, thanks for the info on the origin of my name--There's a surprisingly large amount of information available on Hutsuls even in English. (I'm nowhere near good enough at Ukrainian to go to Ukrainian-language sources) All of this is information that I didn't learn from my family members. I suppose they thought I wasn't interested.

[Hannia]

I have been teaching my husband Ukrainian and this is the simplest I could make it.
___________________________________________________________

In Ukrainian, a pronoun is declined just like noun in the
seven cases/declenations and in the singular and plural mode.

Nominative (subject of sentence)
Genitive (governed by FROM - AT - FOR)
Dative ( governed by TO)
Accusative (direct object of a verb)
Vocative (used in calling)
Instrumental (governed by WITH)
Locative (place IN or ON )

N = singular ти----------------plural ви
G = singular тебе--------------plural вас
D = singular тобі---------------plural вам
A = singular тебе--------------plural вас
V = singular ти----------------plural ви
I = singular тобою------------plural вами
L = singular (на) тобі---------plural (на) вас

PS> When in Ukraine, remember that ви becomes singular polite form and ти is singular informal form.