"Ваша дружина"

Translation: Your wife

[emes01]

Дружина/drużyna in Polish means "team" and this is so wholesome to see it means "spouse/wife" in Ukrainian.

[MaryKalyna]

I translated this as "Your spouse," which I believe is also correct. Thoughts?

[Sosnytskiy]

'Spouse' can mean either 'wife' or 'husband', while 'дружина' always means 'wife'.

[MaryKalyna]

Growing up speaking Ukrainian in the US, I recall that we used "дружина" to refer to either husband or wife. It was considered the polite form, whereas "чоловік" (man) was considered a cruder form ("my man" vs "my husband"). I checked an older Ukrainian/Eng dictionary, printed in Kyiv in 1957, and the first entry for "дружина" is husband! I think this is good example of the ever-changing nature of language.

[Sosnytskiy]

I have checked a few online dictionaries. You are right, in the older ones дружина can mean 'spouse'. The newer dictionaries mark this meaning as old-fashioned.

[sagitta145]

Wow, that's a really cool fact!

[sagitta145]

Hmm, but since Ukrainian doesn't have a single word for "spouse", if one had to translate "spouse" we'd have to use either чоловік or дружина/жінка. Therefore I'd say дружина in turn can be translated as "spouse"...