3.2 - More letter combinations
In Units 1 and 2 you practised the sounds of the consonants, the hard and soft vowels, and how the consonants are affected by a following soft vowel or soft sign (palatalisation).
When reading Ukrainian you will notice that a number of the consonants can occur as double letters (usually in the endings of nouns):
| життя | life |
| піддашшя | porch |
| десятиріччя | decade, tenth anniversary |
| волосся | hair |
| спання | (process of) sleeping |
| весілля | wedding |
| лівобережжя | left bank (of river) |
| передгроззя | (calm) before the storm |
| суддя | judge |
In normal speech the double letter is slightly longer than the single one, but this need not concern us too much here.
The meanings of words with the above endings will be addressed later.
There are also a small number of other consonant combinations:
| дж – джаз (jazz) | |
| дз – дзеркало (mirror) | |
| дзь – дзьоб (beak, bill of a bird) |