Home / Best apps to learn a language / Ukrainian
Prices and language coverage checked in September 2026.
Ukrainian has about 39 million speakers, 32 million of them native, by Ethnologue’s count as cited by Wikipedia, and it is the state language of Ukraine. The share of Ukrainians speaking it at home rose from 52% in 2020 to 63% in 2025, by KIIS surveys, and 4.43 million people who fled Ukraine were under temporary protection in the EU on 31 July 2026, per Eurostat. What Ukrainian asks of an app is an alphabet of 33 letters, a stress the spelling does not show, seven cases with a vocative, and voices that are Ukrainian, not Russian.
The big apps give Ukrainian little. Babbel, Busuu, Rosetta Stone, Speak, Lingopie and Language Transfer have no Ukrainian course, Duolingo’s is A1 by an unofficial tracker’s label, Pimsleur sells one level, and UkrainianPod101 does not exist. The best Ukrainian-only material comes from one teacher, Anna Ohoiko’s Ukrainian Lessons, and from free projects such as Prometheus’ course and the Open University’s. So the apps below are compared on whether they teach the alphabet and the cases, where they stop, what is left free on day 30, how much Ukrainian you hear and whether a person corrects you.
The US Foreign Service Institute puts Ukrainian in category III (of I to IV), about 1,100 class hours for an English speaker to reach professional working proficiency.
Ukrainian shares 62% of its vocabulary with Russian, against 84% with Belarusian and 70% with Polish, by the linguist Tyshchenko’s count, as cited by Ukrainian Wikipedia. The alphabet has four letters Russian lacks (ґ, є, і, ї) and lacks four of Russian’s (ы, э, ё, ъ), г is a different sound, unstressed vowels are not reduced the way they are in Russian, and there is a vocative case. Babbel and Rosetta Stone sell Russian and no Ukrainian. Choose apps with a Ukrainian course, and check that the voices are Ukrainian.
The alphabet has 33 letters: Duolingo opens with an Intro section of 9 units, Memrise’s course has a Cyrillic topic, Anki has shared 33 card alphabet decks, and Ukrainian Lessons posted free cursive worksheets in August 2026. A week is enough for the letters, by our estimate. The harder part is stress: it is phonemic and not predictable (плачу́ is “I pay”, пла́чу is “I cry”), and printed Ukrainian does not mark it. Slovnyk.ua’s Наголоси tool marks the stress on any text you paste, and Goroh, Wiktionary and Forvo give it word by word. Learn every word with its stress.
Ukrainian nouns, adjectives and pronouns change their endings across seven cases, the vocative included (Іване, Оксано), most verbs come in aspect pairs, numerals bring case rules of their own, and there are no articles. Ukrainian Lessons explains the grammar in English in its podcast and its A1 workbook, UkrAcademia has a course and tables on the cases, LingQ has a Ukrainian grammar guide, and Goroh and Wiktionary show every word’s declension; Duolingo, Memrise, Pimsleur and Drops leave the cases to patterns. Learn every noun with its gender, and every verb with its aspect partner.
Duolingo’s Ukrainian is A1 by an unofficial tracker’s label, 51 units last updated in July 2025, and Ukrainian was not among the 9 courses Duolingo took to B2 in April 2026. Pimsleur has one level of 30 lessons and no Level 2. Memrise gives no level for its 300+ lessons, and Mango prints neither a lesson count nor a level. Prometheus’ free course is A1 to A2 by its label. Past A2, the path runs through Ukrainian Lessons’ later seasons, intermediate to advanced by its labels, a tutor, Ukrainian YouTube and books. Plan for that from the start.
Ukraine’s National Commission on State Language Standards has run two exams since July 2021: one for officials and civil servants, one for citizenship applicants, who need B1, pay 9,984 hryvnias in 2026 (three subsistence minimums), pass at 70% of the points and may retake the language part once every four months. Since the 2025 reform they also sit a Constitution test of 20 questions and a history test of 25. No app is an exam course; mova.gov.ua publishes video explanations, and Lviv’s Ivan Franko University issues its own certificate from A1 to C2. Book the exam your office names.
Best free daily course
The Ukrainian course from English is 51 units and 826 lessons, A1 by an unofficial tracker’s label, with 1,920 words and no content update since July 2025. It has no Stories, per the tracker, and Ukrainian was not among the 9 courses Duolingo took to B2 in April 2026. It builds a daily habit and the alphabet, then stops.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A free daily Ukrainian habit from zero to A1; on a laptop, without the Energy cap.
Best podcast course
Anna Ohoiko’s podcast is 240 episodes in 6 seasons, beginner to advanced by its season labels, with the grammar explained in English, plus 60 dialogues in 5 Minute Ukrainian. The numbered series ended at episode 240 in 2023 or 2024. Among the picks it goes furthest for free, from zero to about B2 by our estimate.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Anyone from zero who wants the whole path by audio, with a Ukrainian teacher explaining the grammar in English, free to listen.
Best live tutors
Preply lists 330 Ukrainian tutors, rated 4.94 on average by 5,077 customers, and the company itself was founded in Ukraine in 2012. Below B1, pick a trained teacher who can explain the cases in your language; from B1 on, a weekly lesson gives you a person who hears your Ukrainian and corrects it.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Anyone from A1 who needs a person to talk to and to explain the cases.
Best for phrases with native video
Memrise has an official Ukrainian course of 300+ lessons and 4,000+ words, each pronounced by native speakers, with 180+ videos of Ukrainians saying the phrases and 75+ AI conversations, free with limits and ads. It gives no CEFR level and teaches no grammar, so it sits beside a course or the podcast, not in place of one.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: The first few thousand Ukrainian words and phrases with real voices, free or at the yearly price.
Best free course with a library card
Mango’s Ukrainian course is built on conversations, with grammar, culture and pronunciation notes inside the lessons, and many US public libraries give it free with a library card. Mango prints no lesson count and no level for Ukrainian, so we place it at A0 to A2 by our estimate, a second free course beside Duolingo.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Beginners with a US library card who want a guided start at no cost.
Best free course taught in Ukrainian
Prometheus’ free course, made by the Є-мова team and the NGO Український світ, is 27 video lessons with transcripts, tests, a final exam and a certificate, A1 to A2 by its own label. It is taught entirely in Ukrainian, with no English, so it suits a learner who already has the alphabet and first words, or a Slavic language.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A1 learners who can already read the alphabet and want a free, structured course from Ukraine with a certificate at the end.
Best for reading real books
Lingo7 puts a translation in your own language under every sentence of a Ukrainian book (49 languages), reads it aloud and drills saved words in 12 kinds of exercise. It has no Ukrainian shelf, so you read its Stories, then the classics you import, free as EPUB from Ukrainian Wikisource. It is our app, and it has no course.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A2 learners reading the Stories, and B1 and up readers who import Franko or Nechuy-Levytsky from Ukrainian Wikisource and want their own language under the text.
Best for speaking from lesson one
Pimsleur’s Ukrainian is one level of 30 audio lessons in what it calls “Standard Ukrainian, the official state language”: you answer out loud, and words come back at spaced intervals. Pimsleur publishes no CEFR level and sells no Ukrainian Level 2. A month at one lesson a day covers the course, and then there is nothing.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A trip in a month, a commute, or anyone who wants to say their first Ukrainian sentences out loud before they read.
Best for reading with audio
LingQ has a Ukrainian library page promising “1000’s of hours” of audio lessons with matching transcripts, in the vendor’s words, plus a Ukrainian grammar guide, and its importer turns any Ukrainian article, ebook or YouTube video into a lesson with lookups. It does not publish the size of the Ukrainian library, and the free tier is a demo.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A2 and up, reading and listening with lookups, from the library to whatever you import, with the budget for it.
Best for video input
Ukrainian subtitles and a translation into your language side by side on YouTube, with a dictionary on click; the subtitles and lookups cost nothing. It works on any Ukrainian YouTube video that has subtitles, from Ukraïner to Suspilne. The Netflix side broke in June 2026 and in September works with known bugs.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: B1 and up with a laptop, turning Ukrainian YouTube into listening practice.
Best tutors without a subscription
italki lists 141 Ukrainian tutors with trial lessons from US$5 to US$60 and sells lessons one at a time, with no subscription: community tutors from about US$4 a lesson and professional teachers from about US$10, per its blog. It is the tutor market for anyone who will not use 4 lessons every 28 days.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Anyone from A1 who wants a Ukrainian tutor once a week without a plan, at their own price.
Best vocabulary trainer
Free spaced repetition with shared Ukrainian decks on AnkiWeb: 6,294 beginner sentences with audio, 19,978 words for English speakers and several 33 card alphabet decks; Ukrainian Lessons sells 4 decks a season with its notes. It is the cheapest way to keep the words you meet, and it teaches nothing on its own.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Keeping the words you met in videos, books and lessons, at any level.
Duolingo + Memrise + Ukrainian Lessons
Learn the 33 letters first, with Duolingo’s Intro section, Memrise’s Cyrillic topic or an Anki alphabet deck, then pick one free course and do it every day: Duolingo if the game keeps you going, Memrise for the phrases with native video, Mango if your library has it. Listen to Season 1 of Ukrainian Lessons beside it for the grammar explained in English, and check the stress of every new word on Slovnyk.ua. Pimsleur is the paid choice if you want to speak before you read.
Українська за 27 уроків (Prometheus) + Anki + Preply
Keep the podcast going through Seasons 2 and 3, elementary to intermediate by its labels, since Duolingo stops at A1. Take Prometheus’ Українська за 27 уроків, 27 lessons taught in Ukrainian with transcripts, put every new word in Anki, and book a Preply tutor once a week to explain the cases and correct you. Start reading with Lingo7’s Stories at A2, then Franko’s tales you import, since it has no Ukrainian shelf.
Lingo7 + Language Reactor + Preply
Courses thin out here. Read Nechuy-Levytsky, Kotsiubynsky or Pidmohylny in Lingo7 from free Ukrainian Wikisource EPUBs or your own books, watch Ukraïner and Suspilne with Language Reactor, move from the podcast’s advanced season to LingQ’s library, and talk about all of it with your tutor. With a state exam date, book a tutor who has taught it.
| App | Role | Levels | Coverage for Ukrainian | Free | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duolingo | Best free daily course | A0 to A1 | Standard Ukrainian; A1 by an unofficial tracker’s label; 51 units, 826 lessons and 1,920 words by that tracker, no Stories | Every lesson; Energy cap on a phone | US$13 to 17 a month, US$7 to 10 a month yearly |
| Ukrainian Lessons | Best podcast course | A0 to B2 | 240 episodes in 6 seasons, beginner to advanced by its labels; 60 dialogues in 5 Minute Ukrainian; notes and Anki decks paid | All 300 episodes | Free podcast; notes €59 a season |
| Preply | Best live tutors | A1 to C2 | 330 Ukrainian tutors; native speakers average US$20 an hour; founded in Ukraine in 2012 | None | Native tutors US$20 an hour, subscription only |
| Memrise | Best for phrases with native video | A0 to A2 | Official course, 300+ lessons, 4,000+ words, 180+ native videos, 75+ AI conversations; no CEFR mapping | Limited, with ads | US$25 a month, US$5 a month yearly |
| Mango Languages | Best free course with a library card | A0 to A2 | Conversation course with grammar, culture and pronunciation notes; no lesson count or level stated | Free through many US libraries | Free via many libraries; US$10 a month yearly |
| Українська за 27 уроків (Prometheus) | Best free course taught in Ukrainian | A1 to A2 | 27 video lessons with transcripts; A1 to A2 by its label; tests, exam and certificate; Ukrainian only | All of it | Free |
| Lingo7 | Best for reading real books | A2 to C1 | No Ukrainian public domain shelf; Stories in two versions, adapted for A1 to A2 and original for B1 to B2; your own books in 7 formats (EPUB, PDF, FB2, DOCX, TXT, Markdown, HTML); native audio in a Ukraine accent; translation into 49 languages | First page of each book | US$5 a month, US$2.50 a month yearly |
| Pimsleur | Best for speaking from lesson one | A0 to A1 | Level 1 only: 30 lessons; “Standard Ukrainian, the official state language”; no vendor CEFR claim | 7 day trial | US$150 once, or All Access US$21 a month |
| LingQ | Best for reading with audio | A2 to C1 | Ukrainian library with audio and transcripts, size not published; a grammar guide; imports of any text or YouTube video | 20 saved words | US$15 a month, US$10 a month yearly |
| Language Reactor | Best for video input | B1 to C2 | Any Ukrainian YouTube video with subtitles; Netflix working with known bugs in September 2026 | Most of it | US$6 a month, US$3.33 a month yearly |
| italki | Best tutors without a subscription | A1 to C2 | 141 Ukrainian tutors; trial lessons US$5 to US$60; no subscription | None | US$4 to 40 a lesson |
| Anki | Best vocabulary trainer | A1 to C1 | Shared Ukrainian decks: 6,294 sentences with audio, 19,978 words, alphabet decks; Ukrainian Lessons’ paid decks | All of it (iOS US$24.99) | Free; iOS US$25 once |
Prices are US store or vendor prices as of September 2026, yearly plans shown as the monthly equivalent. The same app often costs less on its own site than in the App Store, and more in Europe than in the US.
Free on this site: short Ukrainian texts at A1, A2 and B1 with a translation.
We have no affiliate deals with any app named here, and none of the links pay us. Prices and coverage come from the vendor’s own help or pricing pages or its US store listing, checked in September 2026, and every other figure names its source in the text; the judgement calls lean on independent reviews, and on the one star reviews for the parts a landing page never shows, like what happens on renewal. Where a vendor’s pages contradict each other, the card says so.
Refund rules, the traps to avoid and the same apps compared by level for every language are on the best apps to learn a language page.
For a start, yes, and it is free: the Ukrainian course from English is 51 units and 826 lessons with 1,920 words, by an unofficial tracker’s count. On its own it is not enough: the tracker labels it A1 and dates its last update to July 2025 and lists no Stories for Ukrainian, Ukrainian was not among the 9 courses Duolingo took to B2 in April 2026, and on a phone Energy stops free study after about 2 to 3 lessons a day, by a third-party count (the web version runs on hearts). Add Ukrainian Lessons for the grammar, Memrise for the words and a tutor once you can put a few sentences together.
No: they are two languages, and a Russian course teaches Russian. Ukrainian shares 62% of its vocabulary with Russian, against 84% with Belarusian and 70% with Polish, by Tyshchenko’s count; its alphabet has ґ, є, і and ї and lacks ы, э, ё and ъ; г is a different sound; unstressed vowels are not reduced the way they are in Russian; and it has a vocative case. Babbel and Rosetta Stone sell Russian and no Ukrainian. Knowing Russian helps with reading, but the sounds, the endings and the other 38% of the words have to be learned. Use the Ukrainian courses above, and Ukrainian voices.
Yes. The National Commission on State Language Standards has run the state exam since July 2021, in two forms: for officials and civil servants, and for citizenship applicants, who need B1 by the Commission’s decision of 24 June 2021, pay 9,984 hryvnias in 2026 (three subsistence minimums), pass at 70% and may retake the language part once every four months; since the 2025 reform they also sit a Constitution test of 20 questions and a history test of 25. Combat veterans and recognised refugees pay no fee. For a certificate without citizenship, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv examines from A1 to C2 on its own standard. We found no Ukrainian exam sat abroad.
Reading grows your vocabulary and shows you the case endings in every sentence, but printed Ukrainian does not mark the stress, so the page alone will not tell you how a word sounds. Read with audio. Lingo7, our app, puts a translation under each sentence of a Ukrainian book, reads it aloud in a Ukraine accent and drills the words you save in 12 kinds of exercise, for US$5 a month or US$30 a year. It has no Ukrainian shelf, so begin with its Stories, then import the classics as EPUB from Ukrainian Wikisource, such as Franko’s Фарбований Лис or Nechuy-Levytsky’s Кайдашева сім’я; Chtyvo announced its closure in March 2026, and Project Gutenberg has no Ukrainian shelf.
For a course, Duolingo, with every lesson free and Energy capping study on a phone, to A1 by an unofficial tracker’s label, or Memrise’s official course of 300+ lessons and 4,000+ words with native video, free with limits and ads; with a US library card, Mango. For the grammar, Ukrainian Lessons’ 240 podcast episodes, free to listen, and Prometheus’ Українська за 27 уроків, free and taught in Ukrainian. For words, Anki’s shared decks and Goroh. For listening, Ukraïner and Suspilne with Language Reactor. For a tutor you pay: Preply on a subscription, or italki with none.
Yes, in the first week: 33 letters, four of them (ґ, є, і, ї) missing from Russian, and an apostrophe that counts as a sign, not a letter. Duolingo opens with an Intro section of 9 units, Memrise’s course has a Cyrillic topic, and Anki has shared 33 card alphabet decks for free. For handwriting, Ukrainian Lessons posted free cursive worksheets on 17 August 2026 and sells a handwriting book. Learn the letters before any app that makes you read: LingQ, Language Reactor and Lingo7 assume you can.
Duolingo, Memrise, Pimsleur and Drops leave the seven cases to patterns, and Mango adds grammar notes inside its lessons. Ukrainian Lessons explains the grammar in English in its podcast and its paid notes, and sells an A1 grammar workbook; UkrAcademia has a course on the cases with tables and exercises; LingQ has a Ukrainian grammar guide. Goroh (441,000 word-form tables) and Wiktionary show every word’s declension for free, and Clozemaster drills endings in real sentences, 30 a day free, though it publishes no Ukrainian sentence count. A Preply tutor who teaches Ukrainian as a foreign language will explain them fastest.
Read your first page free, in Ukrainian.