soloviy: an ecosystem for learning Ukrainian

Dictionary, word game and exam course in one ecosystem for learning Ukrainian as it is really spoken

soloviy is one ecosystem for learning Ukrainian. Every teen must pass Ukrainian at the national exam, but lessons show only the standard language and tutoring is expensive. soloviy links the standard with the living language: an open dialect dictionary with a map (17,000+ words from 1,700+ places), a word game and an exam prep course, all connected. 41,500+ installs since 2023.

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Overview

Information on this page is provided by the innovator and has not been evaluated by HundrED.

Updated October 2026

Web presence

2023

Established

41.5K 2026

1

Countries

Students upper

Target group

We want every Ukrainian teenager to feel that Ukrainian is a living, rich and personal language, not only a set of exam rules. We hope to see language education in Ukraine that starts from what learners already bring: the words of their grandparents, their region and their online life. When a student discovers that the word their grandmother uses is recorded on a map next to words from hundreds of other villages, the standard language stops being foreign and becomes a shared system they want to master. We also want quality exam preparation to be available to every family, not only to those who can pay for a tutor. Free tools, an open dictionary and a free trial test lower the barrier, and the paid course stays far cheaper than private lessons. Finally, we want the living language to be documented and open. Many local words disappear with the older generation. An open dataset of dialect words with places and examples helps teachers, researchers and future learners, and keeps this heritage part of modern education.

About the innovation

Why did you create this innovation?

soloviy began with words we heard only at home: words our grandparents used that no school textbook or dictionary explained.

Ukrainian is changing fast. The share of Ukrainian in social media posts in Ukraine grew from 14% in 2020 to 70% in 2025, and since March 2026 the Ukrainian Orthography has the status of the state language standard. At the same time, every one of the 355,000+ teenagers who sit the national university entrance exam (NMT) each year must pass Ukrainian. One season with a private tutor in one subject costs 12,000 to 14,000 UAH, and in 2026 only 16.6% of test-takers got the punctuation task right.

Teens learn the standard language as a list of rules that feels far from the language they hear at home and online. We created soloviy to connect the two: to show that the living language of villages and towns is part of Ukrainian, and to turn that interest into daily practice that helps teens master the standard and pass the exam, for free or at a fraction of the cost of tutoring.

What does your innovation look like in practice?

soloviy is one ecosystem with three connected parts built on the same content.

1. Open dictionary of living Ukrainian (soloviy.app, iOS and Android apps). 17,304 dialect words recorded in 1,758 villages and towns. Each word has a meaning, usage examples, the standard Ukrainian equivalent and points on an interactive map. Readers suggest new words and places, and the data is published openly under CC BY 4.0.

2. Word game. Short daily rounds built on the dictionary that turn new words into a habit.

3. Exam course (education.soloviy.app). Preparation for the Ukrainian part of the NMT with lessons and practice tasks, and a free trial test in the exam format.

Around them, our editorial team publishes research articles on Ukrainian dialects (soloviy.app/articles) and short videos on Ukrainian language on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. A learner can come for a surprising dialect word from a video or a search, keep playing with words in the game, and move on to the free trial test and the course.

How has it been spreading?

The dictionary app has been available since January 2023 and has 41,500+ lifetime installs (App Store 20,249 and Google Play 21,297, October 2026), with ratings of 4.5 on Google Play (750 reviews) and 4.6 on the App Store.

Growth has been organic: search, word pages, research articles and short videos. In October 2026 the dictionary was included in the official list of online resources for learning Ukrainian of the State Language Protection Commissioner of Ukraine.

The exam course opened on 31 August 2026, and the number of monthly active users of its Android app is growing. We are in contact with dialectologists at Ukrainian universities and research institutes and with the Ukrainian EdTech community, and the open data can be reused by teachers, researchers and other projects.

How have you modified or added to your innovation?

We started in 2023 as a dictionary and a map of dialect words. In 2026 we added the exam course with a free trial test, launched the editorial section with research articles and regular short videos, and we are now launching the word game. Today the same content feeds all products, so every new word in the dictionary also becomes material for the game, the articles and exam practice.

If I want to try it, what should I do?

Open soloviy.app in any browser or download the soloviy dictionary app from the App Store or Google Play. Search any Ukrainian word or open the map to see the words recorded in your region, and suggest a word you know.

Teens preparing for the NMT can take the free trial test at education.soloviy.app.

Teachers can use the open data (CC BY 4.0) and the research articles in class.

Contact: hera@soloviy.app

Implementation steps

Find the words of your region

Open soloviy.app or the soloviy app and search a word you heard at home, or open the map and look at your region. For each word you see its meaning, usage examples, the standard Ukrainian equivalent and the places where it was recorded.

Add a word you know

Suggest a word and the place where you heard it. Teachers can turn this into a class task: students ask their grandparents for local words, add them and compare them on the map with words from other regions.

Practise with the word game

Play short daily rounds of the word game built on the dictionary to remember new words and practise spelling.

Check yourself for the exam

Take the free trial test at education.soloviy.app to see your level in the NMT format, then continue with the lessons and practice tasks of the course on the topics where you made mistakes.