On November 11th, the volunteers of pewobe organised an interactive language and culture workshop for Ukrainian youth and Kompetenzteam, focusing on learning and sharing Ukrainian, Polish, and German languages. The aim was to build connections, encourage peer-to-peer learning, and explore how our languages and cultures are linked.
We started with an energiser, the Blanket Game, to get to know each other and remember everyone’s names. It was a great way to break the ice and create a friendly atmosphere before diving into the learning part.
The session continued with vocabulary games, where participants looked for similar words in Ukrainian, Polish, and German, discovering shared patterns and roots in word formation. Learning phrases turned out to be easier (and funnier) than expected, especially when we noticed familiar elements across the languages. To test our cultural knowledge, we played a round of Kahoot, full of questions about traditions, food, and folk culture from our three countries.
One of the most engaging parts of the workshop was the “language similarity challenge.” Participants guessed which two languages are most similar: Ukrainian and Polish, Polish and German, or German and Ukrainian. The results showed that Ukrainian and Polish share around 60% similarity, while the other pairs reached about 20%. Everyone had to stand on the “percentage step” they thought was correct, which opened up a great discussion about why we perceive languages the way we do, and how history and culture shape them.
We finished the night with the highlight of the event – a language bingo that focused on vocabulary and pronunciation. It quickly turned into a mix of learning and cooperation, with everyone teaching and helping each other.
Overall, the workshop was a great opportunity not only to learn new words but also to discover how much our languages connect us. It was a day full of teamwork and laughter, proving that learning together is a great way to build bridges between cultures.
