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English and Ukrainian: false friends

English and Ukrainian share thousands of words that came from Latin, Greek, French and German, and since the 1990s many more taken straight from English. Most of them mean in Ukrainian what they mean in English; a few hundred do not, or only in some senses, registers or domains, and these are the ones a translator in a hurry gets wrong (magazine is not магазин, ambulance is not амбулаторія). Ukrainian adds two further channels of interference that English–French translation does not know: Russian, whose look-alikes (неделя "week" beside Ukrainian неділя "Sunday") pull both the translator who reads through Russian and the writer whose Ukrainian is Russian-coloured; and Polish, whose words live on in Galician and diaspora usage (склеп "shop" against standard склеп "crypt"). This list covers both directions: English words whose Ukrainian look-alike misleads, and Ukrainian words whose English look-alike misleads. It also covers the grammar that does not carry over (countability, gender, aspect, prepositions) and the opposite mistake, the false enemy: a true cognate a translator avoids for no reason (ефективний for effective, спеціаліст beside фахівець). Russianisms and surzhyk are described, not condemned: the norm's choice is right in neutral and official prose, and the criticised form can be exactly right in a character's speech (into-uk.md §3.6 and §4).

Data and method

The list is our own, hand-made: it copies no published false-friend list, dictionary definition or Wiktionary text. Each row gives the source word, its look-alike, the kind of trap (total, partial, register, countability, preposition, false-enemy… combined with +), the senses in which the two words do match, the right renderings, a note with a constructed ✗ rendering and its ✓ fix, and source and target patterns. tools/parallel choices counted the rows on 2026-11-06 over Tatoeba EN–UK (217 646 sentence pairs) and the Kulish/Puluj Bible of 1905 against the WEB (29 655 verses), both described in README.md. For each entry, n_src is the number of sentence pairs whose source side matches the source pattern, n_good those whose target also contains a recommended rendering, n_bad those whose target contains the look-alike or the form to avoid. These are co-occurrence counts, not alignments: a target may contain тиждень for some other word of the sentence, and the counts are only as precise as the patterns. Entries are sorted by n_src within each section; the frequency rank is over the whole list.

The tool picked one example per entry (the shortest quotable pair with the source word and a recommended rendering and without the look-alike); 287 of the 428 entries have one. We read every picked example and checked that the target renders the source word, in the entry's sense, with a recommended rendering; 17 were replaced (by tightening a pattern or by giving a verified id from the corpus), for example where the target used the very calque the entry warns against (прийняв участь, офіцер поліції, сміятися над), had a typo, or showed another sense (sentence in grammar for sentence in court). Tatoeba is everyday and short, and partly translated through Russian or Esperanto; the Kulish Bible is in its own old spelling (хлїб, казанї). Legal, IT and medical entries therefore often have no example; we leave them without one rather than force a bad match. For those entries we plan to write our own source sentences and have them translated by the Codex teachers through mova-teacher (Terra for entries marked plain, Sol for those marked hard:<reason>), with gates of back-translation agreement, Mova's parse and pragmatics of both sides and a hand-checked sample; accepted pairs will carry ids ours-tr:en-uk:<n>. None exists yet.

Everyday words

English → Ukrainian

The classic traps are here: an English everyday word whose Ukrainian look-alike names another thing of everyday life (magazine/магазин, fabric/фабрика, clay/клей, balloon/балон, biscuit/бісквіт) or another quality (sympathetic/симпатичний, accurate/акуратний, genial/геніальний, familiar/фамільярний). Most are total; the partial ones (box, cabinet, artist, conductor, comfortable) match in one sense and must be read in context.

<!-- entries domain=everyday src_lang=en --> <!-- /entries -->

Ukrainian → English

The same pairs seen from the other side, and the ones only a Ukrainian source raises: конкурс (competition), пломба (a filling), мармелад (fruit jellies), котлета (a patty), компот (a drink). Food and household words are where back-translation into a look-alike most often slips through, because the English word exists and looks plausible.

<!-- entries domain=everyday src_lang=uk --> <!-- /entries -->

Academic life

English → Ukrainian

The two systems of degrees and schools do not map: thesis and dissertation differ by level, faculty and professor by country, and academic is a person in English but академік only a member of an academy. Paper vocabulary has its own traps: abstract is анотація, reference is посилання, a running-text paragraph is абзац.

<!-- entries domain=academic src_lang=en --> <!-- /entries -->

Ukrainian → English

From Ukrainian, school and university names need a functional equivalent, not a look-alike: гімназія is not a gym, кафедра is a department, аспірант a doctoral student, реферат a student essay.

<!-- entries domain=academic src_lang=uk --> <!-- /entries -->

Law and the EU

English → Ukrainian

Legal English uses Latin and French words in senses Ukrainian law does not: provision (положення), statute (закон), sentence (вирок), execution (виконання), arbitrary (свавільний), an EU Regulation (регламент). Some are good cognates in one sense only (appeal, claim, instance, competence, licence, certificate), and the document type decides.

<!-- entries domain=law-eu src_lang=en --> <!-- /entries -->

Ukrainian → English

<!-- entries domain=law-eu src_lang=uk --> <!-- /entries -->

Medicine

English → Ukrainian

Medical traps are dangerous: angina is heart pain, ангіна a sore throat; a therapist is usually a psychotherapist, a терапевт a general physician. Organisation words differ because the health systems differ (clinic, reception, doctor).

<!-- entries domain=medicine src_lang=en --> <!-- /entries -->

Ukrainian → English

From Ukrainian the trap is often a look-alike that English has but in a narrower or older sense: реанімація is intensive care, наркоз anaesthesia, препарат a drug, у мене температура a fever, санаторій a health resort.

<!-- entries domain=medicine src_lang=uk --> <!-- /entries -->

IT and software

English → Ukrainian

Ukrainian IT prose has both standard terms (застосунок, реалізація, за замовчуванням, екземпляр, символ, запис) and office jargon (фіча, юзер, лінк, дефолтний). Documentation takes the standard term; dialogue between developers may keep the jargon. Бібліотека and аргумент are false enemies: true cognates and the right terms.

<!-- entries domain=it src_lang=en --> <!-- /entries -->

Ukrainian → English

<!-- entries domain=it src_lang=uk --> <!-- /entries -->

Politics

English → Ukrainian

Political words carry different institutions: a deputy is a deputy head, a speaker at a conference a доповідач, nationality in a passport form is citizenship. In Ukraine is в Україні; на Україні reads as a regional view.

<!-- entries domain=politics src_lang=en --> <!-- /entries -->

Ukrainian → English

Пропаганда and агітація can be neutral in Ukrainian (promotion, campaigning), while English propaganda and agitation are not. Національність is ethnicity; депутат is a member of parliament or a councillor; фракція is a parliamentary group.

<!-- entries domain=politics src_lang=uk --> <!-- /entries -->

Economy and business

English → Ukrainian

Economy is економіка, not економія (saving); billion is мільярд; obligation is not облігація (a bond); emission is not емісія (issue of money). Speculation is pejorative in Ukrainian, a guess is припущення.

<!-- entries domain=economy src_lang=en --> <!-- /entries -->

Ukrainian → English

From Ukrainian: акція is often a share or a special offer, каса a checkout or ticket office, чек a receipt, продукти groceries, кон'юнктура market conditions.

<!-- entries domain=economy src_lang=uk --> <!-- /entries -->

Latin and French borrowings

English → Ukrainian

English and Ukrainian took many of the same Latin and French words, often through different routes (English directly from French, Ukrainian through Polish, German or Russian) and at different times, so the meanings drifted: ambulance/амбулаторія, billion/більйон, affair/афера, benefit/бенефіс, direction/дирекція, etiquette/етикетка, brilliant/брильянт, resume/резюме.

<!-- entries domain=latin-french src_lang=en --> <!-- /entries -->

Ukrainian → English

<!-- entries domain=latin-french src_lang=uk --> <!-- /entries -->

Grammar: countability, gender, aspect, prepositions

English → Ukrainian

English uncountables (news, money, advice, furniture, research, hair) become Ukrainian plurals, countables or collectives, and agreement follows the Ukrainian noun. Gender is grammatical in Ukrainian (особа and дитина are feminine whoever they are; Death is feminine). English prepositions and objects do not map: depend on is залежати від, listen to takes a plain accusative, thank a dative. Aspect has to be chosen on every past verb.

<!-- entries domain=grammar src_lang=en --> <!-- /entries -->

Ukrainian → English

The same contrasts back into English: plural-only Ukrainian nouns (двері, гроші) become English singulars, Ukrainian countable поради, дослідження, знання become uncountables, and the Ukrainian preposition is often dropped (відповідати на питання → answer the question) or changed (у понеділок → on Monday).

<!-- entries domain=grammar src_lang=uk --> <!-- /entries -->

Russian interference

English → Ukrainian

These are Ukrainian renderings that a translator or writer reaches for through Russian: calques (мати місце, приймати участь, на протязі, в якості, слідуючий, приймати міри), Russian words in Ukrainian dress (неділя for "week", рахувати for "consider", мішати for "disturb") and constructions (самий кращий, із-за, в п'ять часів). The verdict is by register and house style (into-uk.md §4): in neutral and official prose the norm's form; in a character's speech the criticised form may be right, and the Wikisource counts there show how long some of them were in written use. The strength varies: мати рацію against бути правим or ставити запитання against задавати питання are editors' preferences, тиждень against неділя is a meaning.

<!-- entries domain=russian src_lang=en --> <!-- /entries -->

Ukrainian → English

The reverse risk is a reader of Ukrainian who knows Russian and reads a Ukrainian word with its Russian meaning: неділя (Sunday, not week), родина (family, not homeland), вродливий (handsome; Russian уродливый is ugly), наглий (sudden), уважний and увага (attentive, attention; not respect), лічити (count, not treat), час (time, not hour).

<!-- entries domain=russian src_lang=uk --> <!-- /entries -->

Surzhyk

English → Ukrainian

Surzhyk items are of two kinds. Some only carry a social signal (канєшно, ладно, шас, вкусний, бувший): right in the speech of a character whose English is socially placed in a comparable way, wrong in narration and neutral text (pairs/en-uk.md §8.3, into-uk.md §3.6). Others also mean something else in standard Ukrainian, and a standard reader will read that meaning: город (vegetable garden), любий (dear), часи (times).

<!-- entries domain=surzhyk src_lang=en --> <!-- /entries -->

Ukrainian → English

From a surzhyk-speaking source, read the speaker: город, любий, мішати, рахувати may carry their Russian sense. The social signal goes into the character's English, through non-local colloquial means, not into a foreign dialect.

<!-- entries domain=surzhyk src_lang=uk --> <!-- /entries -->

Polish channel: Galician and diaspora usage

English → Ukrainian

Western Ukrainian and diaspora Ukrainian keep words that came through Polish (and through German into Polish): вакації, ровер, трускавки, уродини, пательня, урльоп, фризієр. They are regional and often dated colour, right for a Lviv character or a diaspora memoir, not for neutral prose.

<!-- entries domain=polish src_lang=en --> <!-- /entries -->

Ukrainian → English

In a Galician or diaspora source, a standard reading can mislead: склеп may be a shop, not a crypt; шпиталь any hospital; тішитися is "be glad", as in standard Ukrainian. Уродини is not Russian уродина.

<!-- entries domain=polish src_lang=uk --> <!-- /entries -->

Limits

See also: the translation manuals, the pair manual pairs/en-uk.md (§7.1 is the short version of this list) and the companion context list context/en-uk.md.

The Elamur team

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/translation/false-friends/en-uk/