Language is not only about grammar or vocabulary lists. Sometimes, one word carries a whole city, a woman, a memory, a generation. That is the case with Kyivlyanka (киевлянка) — a word made famous by the Ukrainian singer Garik Krychevsky in his iconic song of the 1990s. Try to translate it into English, German, or […]

Author’s Column by Tymur Levitin — founder, director, and senior teacher of Levitin Language School / Start Language School by Tymur Levitin Language. Identity. Choice. Meaning. When learners approach Ukrainian, they often discover that some words look confusingly close — and yet they belong to different worlds of meaning. Today I want to highlight two […]

“Не пишите мне писем, дорогая графиня…”— sung under guitars in courtyards, passed across generations First Encounter: Why This Song Matters I was fifteen, the youngest in a group where the oldest was forty-one.Someone played this under a guitar. Not a concert, a life. And I didn’t hear the ceremonial “не хочу умирать” (I don’t want […]

Author’s Column by Tymur Levitin «О, не лети так, жизнь, слегка замедли шаг…»— Rauf Kubaev, О, не лети так, жизнь «Не лети так, життє…»— Ukrainian rendering Some songs are about women.Some are about years already lived.But this one is about life itself. When sung in Ukrainian, the plea becomes a prayer — softer, closer, more […]

Author’s Column by Tymur Levitin «О, не лети так, жизнь, слегка замедли шаг…»— Rauf Kubaev, О, не лети так, жизнь «Flieg nicht so schnell, Leben…»— German rendering There are songs where a man begs for love.There are songs where he thanks for the years that passed.And then there are songs like this one — where […]

Author’s Column by Tymur Levitin «О, не лети так, жизнь, слегка замедли шаг…»— Rauf Kubaev, О, не лети так, жизнь There are songs where a man begs for love.There are songs where he says thank you for the years that passed.And then there are songs like this one — where a man is not talking […]

What They Say, How They Feel, and Why It’s Not the Same in Every Language “И я тебя обожаю — а у счастья тоже слёзы солёные…”(Sergey Kurenkov – «Обожаю») Sometimes a man says “Don’t write to me.”And sometimes he says “I’ll steal you from summer and run.”Sometimes he’s silent, sometimes he sings.But the words are […]

Choose your language → https://levitintymur.com/#language There’s a song by Lenny Kravitz called “Again.” But what struck me most was not the melody — it was the word itself. More Than “Once More” The English word again looks simple. Just “once more,” right? But behind it lies a whole world of meanings. In Ukrainian, знов is […]

Author’s Column by Tymur Levitin • Levitin Language School 🔗 Choose your language🔗 Meet the Author “Not everything that touches the soul fits into grammar.And not everything worth saying can be translated.”— Tymur Levitin “Pomolimsya za roditeley” — Let us pray for our parents — is a Russian song that speaks, not to the ear, […]

👉 Choose your language MUST vs HAVE TO vs NEED TO in Business English: Obligation or Necessity? In business communication, obligations and necessities are everywhere: contracts, negotiations, presentations, emails. But English offers several ways to express them — must, have to, need to. At first glance, they seem interchangeable. In reality, each carries a different […]