"Вчора був вівторок."

Translation: It was Tuesday yesterday.

[piznajko]

Shouldn't it also translate as "Tuesday was yesterday."

[ttyieu]

I believe that would be "Вівторок був учора" no?

[thezerech]

Ukrainian likes to loose with word order, I'm sure for almost any Ukrainian sentence there's a myriad of ways to order it! It's one of the reasons why Ukrainian is such a beautiful language.

[sagitta145]

No, in this case it's clear :)

"Вівторок був учора" -> Tuesday was yesterday (Tuesday is the subject)

"Вчора був вівторок" -> Yesterday [it] was Tuesday (Yesterday or "it" is the subject)

Given a very specific intonation and given a specific context, a pre-existing conversation, the second one could mean the first one, it would emphasize that Tuesday is still the subject, just shuffled around.

Edit: WAIT

In case of п'ятниця it's "Вчора була п'ятниця", so the verb corresponds to the day of the week, not "yesterday", so... Yesterday is not a subject.... But the two sentences still do sound different... But... * leaves tired and confused *

[Josh354721]

Couldn't it also translate as "Yesterday it was Tuesday?"

[sagitta145]

Yes :)

[nadine29]

I'm assuming the verb is modified by the day of the week, and not the word for yesterday based on other examples. Is that correct?

[sagitta145]

Yes!

[BarryLord1]

I'm just waiting for a troll to claim that a valid answer is "Сьогодні - середа".