"Ти бачила площу в Одесі?"

Translation: Did you see the square in Odesa?

[GraemeOlson]

Does that mean the shape, the place (like plaza or town square), or both like in English?

[sagitta145]

Note: it also means "area" (mathematical)

[deactivated user]

«Пло́ща» means 'town square'. The shape would be «квадра́т».

[mph.vgc]

The correct spelling is OdeSSa. The name Odessa came from Greak Ὀδησσός

[sagitta145]

The historical name from the past is Одесса. The correct spelling in the modern Ukrainian is Одеса.

In English we don't spell city names the way they used to be spelled in the original language either (e.g. "Rome" vs "Roma"). A name of a city in a certain language ≠ the original name.

Also: assuming "Одеса" is a foreign word (coming from Greek), it obeys the same rules other foreign words follow. Which is, we do not keep the double consonants e.g. маса (and not масса), каса (and not касса or like in German, Kasse), піца (and not піцца as in pizza).

[Weylin366674]

That rule about the double consonants is useful. In English we have a rule for the sound /s/ between two vowels we use double s and for the sound /z/ one s.

[Gregory693653]

In Ukrainian it is Одеса, in English it is Odessa