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Questions & Answers about Я отримав лист учора.
Why is there no article (like “a” or “the”) before лист?
Ukrainian does not use definite or indefinite articles. Whether you mean “a letter,” “the letter,” or “your letter,” you rely on context or possessive words (e.g. твій лист for “your letter”) instead of adding an article.
What part of speech is отримав, and what does it tell me about the action?
Отримав is a past-tense verb in the perfective aspect. Perfective verbs describe a completed, one-time action (“I have received”/“I received”). The imperfective counterpart would be отримува́в (“I was receiving” or “used to receive”).
Why does отримав end with -в?
In Ukrainian past tense, verbs add gender and number endings to the stem. The ending -в marks masculine singular. If a woman spoke, she would say отримала, with -ла for feminine singular.
What case is лист, and why does it look the same as the nominative?
Here лист (“letter”) is in the accusative case, as the direct object of the verb отримав. For masculine inanimate nouns, the accusative singular form is identical to the nominative singular.
How would a female speaker express the same sentence?
A woman would change the verb ending to feminine:
Я отримала лист учора.
What does учора mean, and can I place it elsewhere in the sentence?
Учора is an adverb meaning “yesterday.” Ukrainian word order is quite flexible, so you could also say:
Учора я отримав лист.
Я учора отримав лист.
All mean “I received a letter yesterday,” with slight shifts in emphasis.
Can I drop я and just say Отримав лист учора?
Yes. Ukrainian often omits the subject pronoun because the verb ending shows person and number. However, without я, it could technically mean “he received” if context isn’t clear—though most listeners will infer “I” if you’re talking about yourself.
What’s the difference between лист (letter) and листок (leaf/sheet)?
Лист can mean a written letter you send via mail or an individual sheet of paper. Листок usually means a sheet or leaf (of paper or a tree) and isn’t used for mail correspondence. To avoid confusion, “letter” in the mail sense is simply лист.
Could I use another verb instead of отримав, like дістав or прийняв?
You can say дістав лист colloquially (“got the letter”), but дістав is more informal. Прийняв лист means “accepted the letter” (e.g. at the post office) rather than “received” in everyday speech. Отримав is the neutral, standard choice.
How would I ask “When did you receive the letter?” in Ukrainian?
You can say:
Коли ти отримав лист? (to a male)
Коли ти отримала лист? (to a female)