I went to Ukraine to write my report card. Now I want to stay in Prague, says Iryna
With dozens of other Ukrainian women, she is on the fourth day of a two-hour lesson as part of summer language courses for Ukrainians. They take place in a building known as Kolej Arnošta z Pardubice, near the National Theater in Prague.
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When we have to have an interview, the Ukrainian coordinator Olga, who helps the university organize language classes, comes to interpret for us. Iryna asks if she can try it in Czech. “Maybe I’ll see something, that is, know, I’ve only been studying for four days,” she timidly added.
From that moment on, we only talk in Czech and we don’t need to interpret. “I have been coming here for many years to see my husband and I have heard the Czech language. I can speak a little, but I don’t know the grammar, that’s why I’m explaining here.”
The course lasts four weeks and should give its graduates a basic level of Czech. “But I would like to continue even further, I want to be able to speak Czech properly,” she adds. She already knew Latin from Ukraine, because she learned German there. “German letters are very similar,” he smiles. Olga adds that many Slavs learn the honorific quickly by listening, but they lack grammar, so they make mistakes in written speech.
For sons to Lviv
Until the end of June, Iryna taught her Ukrainian high school students online, while her ten-year-old and seventeen-year-old son connected to their lessons via the Internet. Before the holidays, she went to Ukraine to write her students’ report cards and take care of the paperwork, and also brought her children for the holidays to her grandmother and grandfather, who also live near Lviv. “It’s quite calm in Lviv and the surrounding area, but sometimes a Russian rocket will fly there, it’s terrible, you never know where it will end up,” he says.
The Russians fired a rocket directly at Lviv in April and May, and in June they damaged the railway in the Lviv region with a rocket. “It is such a beautiful ancient city, beautiful monuments, architecture, rich history, it reminds me a lot of Prague. A lot of tourists also came to us,” he recalls.
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At the end of the holidays, he will head to Ukraine again and bring his sons to the Czech Republic. The younger one has already registered here for elementary school, the older one would like to study at the university here, but first he also needs to take a course in Czech. They planned to move permanently to Prague with their husband even before the war. “It cost a lot of money to get the necessary papers done. Today it’s easier,” he explains.
In the Czech Republic, she would like to teach Ukrainian or work as an assistant to Czech teachers. “That is, if it were possible. That would be great,” he laughs, clasping his hands together.