III. Дитина за ворітьми
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A mother’s secret, told in simple prose
The Servant Girl Наймичка
Taras Shevchenko
This is MovaReader’s own prose retelling, in simple standard Ukrainian, of Taras Shevchenko’s narrative poem Наймичка, not the original verse. It is meant for learners who know the basics and want to follow a whole story told in the past tense: about 3,400 words in 10 short titled chapters, A2 in the catalogue. Shevchenko wrote the poem in 1845 in Pereiaslav, and it was first printed in 1857 without his name, because he was then serving as a soldier in exile and was forbidden to publish. The original poem is not in the catalogue. The story is quiet and sad, written for adults: a farmstead, a boy raised by an old couple, and the hired woman who looks after him for many years.
- A2
- 3 385 words
- 1 hour
Will this text hold?
A1
Earlier
From A1 it is a step up: every chapter is narrated in the past tense, and the longer sentences link two clauses with бо, щоб or який, so expect to tap more often than in a fairy tale.
A1A2
This text
At A2 it is a comfortable read: everyday words about home, work and family, short dialogues, and the old words of village life explained in the text; verbs like проклинала (cursed) or схлипувала (sobbed) translate with a tap.
Check this passageB1
With room to spare
At B1 it goes quickly and almost without translation, and gives you the plot and the main scenes before you try Shevchenko’s verse in the original.
Start readingThe average sentence has 9 words, and the story is narrated in the past tense, with many short lines of dialogue. About one word in 24 has 9 letters or more (4.2%), for example поблагословила (blessed) or облямівкою (with a border). The folk-song and church language of the poem is replaced by modern standard Ukrainian, and the old words of village life are explained in the text where they first appear: хутір (a farmstead), свитка (a long peasant coat), чумак (a salt carter), старости (matchmakers), коровай (the wedding loaf), очіпок (a married woman’s cap). Among the A2 adaptations in the catalogue it has the same sentence length as Тіні забутих предків (9 words) with fewer long words (5.4% there), and slightly shorter sentences than the retelling of Shevchenko’s Катерина (10 words). The chapters range from 6.4 to 10.2 words per sentence: the opening ones describe the field and the farmstead, and the last one is almost all dialogue. Hence A2. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 3 385
- words
- 9
- words in an average sentence
- 1
- hour of reading
MovaReader. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
Early one Sunday morning a young woman stands on an old burial mound in the fog, holding her unbaptised baby son and talking to the fog as if it were her brother. Not far away, on a farmstead by a pond, live Trokhym and Nastia, an old couple who have everything except children and keep asking who will bury them. That same morning they hear crying outside their gate. They raise the foundling as their own and name him Marko, and a year later a young woman with black brows comes asking to work for them. Hanna works from dawn till night, looks after the boy like a mother and weeps where nobody can see her. Marko grows up, carts salt with the chumaks and marries Kateryna, a beauty from a rich family, but Hanna will not sit at the wedding table in his mother’s place and walks to Kyiv on a pilgrimage instead. Years pass, and each trip to Kyiv is harder for her. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Наймичка
V. Невсипуща
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Choose an underlined word.
Тобто: the text explains itself
Тобто means “that is”. This retelling uses it, together with sentences built on це (“is”), to explain old words right where they appear: сповита, тобто загорнута в пелюшки, “swaddled, that is, wrapped in baby cloths”. When you see тобто or це after a new word, read on before you tap: the explanation usually follows.
До-: to the very end
The prefix до- adds the idea of finishing: їсти (to eat) becomes доїдати (to eat up), пити (to drink) becomes допивати (to drink up). So не доїдає і не допиває means she leaves her food and drink unfinished, giving the best to the boy. The same prefix is in діждатися, “to live to see, to wait until”, which comes back later in the story.
Chapters
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
Reader translates whole sentences where the weight lies in a contrast, as in Але ще тяжче старіти без дітей у багатій хаті, де все є, “but it is even harder to grow old without children in a rich house that has everything”.
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Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
An adaptation, not the original text. It is MovaReader’s own prose retelling in simple standard Ukrainian of Taras Shevchenko’s narrative poem Наймичка, written in 1845 in Pereiaslav and first printed, without the author’s name, in 1857 in the almanac Записки о Южной Руси. The source is the poem on Wikisource, read in the Prague edition of Kobzar (1876, volume I). What changed: about 550 lines of verse became prose in modern standard Ukrainian (2019 spelling), with past-tense narration and sentences of about 9 words, and the prologue and eight parts of the poem became 10 titled chapters. The plot, the characters, the order of the scenes and the poet’s own remarks to the reader are kept, in plain prose; the church words and folk-song forms are simplified, and old words of village life such as хутір, свитка and чумак are explained in the text.
Is there an audiobook?
No, there is no audio version on MovaReader: the text is read on screen. Tap an unfamiliar word and its translation appears; at this level that will often be words like сповита (swaddled) or облямівкою (with a border).
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes: whole-sentence translation comes with the Reader plan. With 9 words in an average sentence, you will want it mostly where one sentence carries two thoughts, as in Чужі люди не згадають їх добрим словом, а тільки посміються з них і швидко все розтратять (“strangers will not remember them kindly; they will only laugh at them and soon squander it all”). Single words can be translated without the plan, within a daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
About an hour for the whole story at a learner’s pace, translating new words as you go. The 10 chapters have about 280 to 410 words each, so one takes a few minutes and the book fits into a single evening.
Where does the text get easier?
The difficulty is fairly even, and the sentences get shorter towards the end. The first two chapters, which describe the foggy field, the farmstead and the old couple, have the longest sentences (10.0 and 10.2 words); chapter VIII, “Ганна повертається” (Hanna comes back), has 7.5, and the last chapter, almost all dialogue, has 6.4.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. After you sign in, the reader keeps your place and the words you opened. The contents on this page open any of the 10 chapters directly, for example chapter VI, “Сватання” (The matchmaking), where old Trokhym looks for a bride for Marko.