I. Ріпка
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21 animal tales by Franko for B2
Koly shche zviri hovoryly Коли ще звірі говорили
Ivan Franko, 1956
The complete original in Ukrainian, not an adaptation: Ivan Franko’s collection of animal tales, first published in 1899, whose title means “When Animals Still Talked”. It is for B2 learners who want folk Ukrainian with a fox, a wolf and a lion rather than a novel: about 33,200 words in 21 tales, most of them short enough for one evening.
- B2
- 33 245 words
- 6-9 hours
Will this text hold?
B1
Earlier
At B1 the dialogue tales read well, but folk words like рискаль or мервиця and the long tale XX, Як звірі правувалися з людьми, will take many taps.
B1B2
This text
At B2 you can read it tale by tale: dialogue fills most pages, and old forms like в однім лісі or тої soon feel familiar.
Check this passageC1
With room to spare
At C1 the tales read freely; only rare folk words and the rhymed prose of Ріпка will stop you now and then.
Start readingThe average sentence has 12 words, and one word in fourteen (7.1%) has 9 letters or more: close to Kotsiubynsky’s Дорогою ціною (11.7 words, 8.8%), also B2, and well below Franko’s own Boa constrictor (14.9 words, 10%), which is C1. Sentences stay short because 778 of the 1,229 paragraphs are dialogue lines. The work is in the vocabulary: folk and Galician words such as рискаль (spade) or торговиця (marketplace), the rhymed prose of Ріпка, and older forms kept by the 1956 edition, among them about 50 locatives like в однім лісі (standard в одному лісі), 26 forms of ліпший for кращий, and тої and цеї for тієї and цієї. That is far lighter than the Hutsul dialect that puts Тіні забутих предків at C1, hence B2. Only tale XX, Як звірі правувалися з людьми, climbs to 17.6 words per sentence. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 33 245
- words
- 12
- words in an average sentence
- 6-9
- hours of reading
- 1956
- Книгоспілка
Книгоспілка, 1956. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
Twenty-one tales in which animals talk, quarrel and trick each other like the people of a Galician village. A grandfather cannot pull up a giant turnip without the whole household; a Donkey who has run off to the forest tries to bluff a Lion; Fox Mykyta, the slyest thief in the woods, boasts that he will steal a hen from the town market in broad daylight. The longest pieces are a war between the Crows and the Owls in twelve parts and a lawsuit the animals bring against people before King Solomon. What happens next in each tale is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Коли ще звірі говорили
XVIII. Фарбований Лис
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Choose an underlined word.
Read the rhymes aloud
Franko retells this folk tale in rhymed prose: мотику / велику, попринадив / підгромадив, дрібку / ріпку, марно / гарно. Each rhyme closes a clause, so reading aloud shows where one action ends and the next begins. The gardening verbs (попринадив, підгромадив) are rare folk words; tap them rather than looking for them in a learner’s dictionary.
Old forms of the 1956 text
Two forms here are older than today’s standard. Ховаючися is the adverbial participle with the full reflexive -ся; modern Ukrainian writes ховаючись (“hiding”). Не чував is the iterative past of чути: “had never (once) heard”, stronger than plain не чув. Note also й for і after a vowel: збігати на торговицю й вернути назад.
Chapters
- IРіпка
- IIОсел і Лев
- IIIСтаре добро забувається
- IVЛисичка і Журавель
- VЛисичка і Рак
- VIЛис і Дрозд
- VIIЗаяць і Їжак
- VIIIКоролик і Ведмідь
- IXВовк війтом
- XЗаяць і Ведмідь
- XIВорона і Гадюка
- XIIТри міхи хитрощів
- XIIIВовк, Лисиця і Осел
- XIVЛисичка-черничка
- XVМурко й Бурко
- XVIЛисичка кума
- XVIIВійна між Псом і Вовком
- XVIIIФарбований Лис
- XIXВорони і Сови
- XXЯк звірі правувалися з людьми
- XXIБайка про байку
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
Reader
€1 a month
When the town dogs corner Fox Mykyta, Franko writes “Наш Микита скрутився мов муха в окропі” (our Mykyta squirmed like a fly in boiling water): whole-sentence translation in Reader shows the folk image behind the words.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
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Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s abridgement. Ivan Franko’s Коли ще звірі говорили first came out in Lviv in 1899 as a book of tales for children, and later editions added more. MovaReader gives the complete set of 21 tales as printed in volume VII of Franko’s Works in 20 volumes (Knyhospilka, New York, 1956), taken from Wikisource. The spelling is that edition’s, so forms like тої, цеї or в однім лісі stay as printed.
Is there an audiobook?
There is no audiobook on MovaReader: the tales are read on screen, and tapping a word shows its translation. You will want it for folk words such as рискаль (spade) and мервиця (manure mixed with straw), both in the first tale, Ріпка.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps most with folk images and old forms, for example “Наш Микита скрутився мов муха в окропі” (our Mykyta squirmed like a fly in boiling water) in Фарбований Лис. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole collection takes about 6-9 hours at the pace of someone reading with translation of new words. Most tales are short, from about 240 to 2,200 words, so one or two make an evening; the two longest, Ворони і Сови (about 8,000 words in 12 parts) and Як звірі правувалися з людьми (about 5,900), take a few evenings each.
Where does the text get easier?
The first tales are the easiest: Осел і Лев and Лис і Дрозд average under 10 words per sentence, with long words under 5%. Most tales stay between 9 and 16 words per sentence. The hardest is tale XX, Як звірі правувалися з людьми: 17.6 words per sentence and one long word in ten. The last tale, Байка про байку, is easier again at about 11.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. Once you sign in, the reader keeps your last place and the words you opened, so you can come back tale by tale. Any of the 21 tales also opens from the contents on this page, for example XVIII. Фарбований Лис, the story of Fox Mykyta.