@Cardinal Interesting! My father told me that Ukrainians would just start singing while walking the streets. That they love singing in choirs spontaneously. My Ukrainian friend told me the same a couple of days ago.
For me, it's like a submersion into a new culture.
I used to think of Ukrainian as a mangled version of Russian, but suddenly it's a whole new world. A million songs, and beautiful poetry. A different culture. Hypochoristic endings make the songs hard to translate. In Ukrainian, they are everywhere, it they look beautiful there.
But if you translate it word for word, it would be way, way too sugary. Somehow in Ukrainian it all sounds natural.
Take the song about Mary for instance.
> В’ється, наче змійка, неспокійна річка, Тулиться близенько до підніжжя гір; А на тому боці – там живе Марічка, В хаті, що сховалась у зелений бір.
Verbatim it goes like
> See this river[y] wind like a little snake[y] See it hug the foothills close[y] And on the other bank[y] - there lives [Marichka] (little Mary) In a hut that hides in the green woods.
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