After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a lot of Ukrainians fled their country to the EU. At first, the thought was that it was going to be temporary; however, the war has been happening for more than three years, and there is no near solution to it. For this reason, Ukrainians are trying to integrate into Dutch society, one of the processes is learning the language.
Like many refugees, Lina Lomakina came to the Netherlands at the start of the war. For her, speaking Dutch at first wasn’t a priority. “It’s not about analysing that I’m not going to learn it, because I’m not staying here, but because you’re figuring out things, what your tomorrow is going to be,” Lina said.
Later, she attended a Dutch government-provided course. Right now, she speaks at an A2 level of Dutch, but it took her a while to get there. “The waiting list was pretty long. I joined in summer 2024, and I took exams in summer 2025,” Lina said. She also adds that her life was “really unstable” to learn Dutch more quickly. “Locations are shifting, people around you are shifting, you can’t really understand if you are able to learn something, you should also work,” she said.
Asked if she’s planning on staying in the Netherlands even if the war is over, Lina said that “it’s the most complicated question for everyone”. “I feel like even more connected to Ukraine than when I was living there. I feel like coming back to Ukraine. … Since I look at this as an investment to spend more than 3 years here and having met a lot of beautiful people here, maybe I would do something together with Netherlands, maybe I would live for 2 countries, if it is possible,” Lina said.
Another Ukrainian, Liudmyla Hoida, took a different step in learning Dutch. At first, Liudmyla took private courses because she was influenced by her colleagues. “It was a first step, because I was absolutely zero about Dutch. For me, it was very hard because there are some people who already have a bit of knowledge of the Dutch language, and I decided to stop the study there. I looked for something different,” she said.
Liudmyla then started learning Dutch at Volksuniversiteit. “I wanted more professional courses,” she adds.
To her, learning Dutch was a way to get “to know a little bit about culture, about people,” and try to speak with Dutch people.
Asked the same question about staying in the Netherlands, L. Hoida said that if it were “possible to stay and work”, she would do that.
Another interviewed Ukrainian, Mykola Tryfonov, who is from Mariupol, said that his job provided language lessons. “I had a teacher, I had an individual course. My work organised a course for me and for my friend,” he said.
Now Mykola is planning on getting the B2 level of the Dutch language.
Asked about reasons for learning Dutch, he said that he needs Dutch for work and also for his sons, because they go to a Dutch school. “Sometimes at home I speak Dutch, because my son sometimes changes language at home and speaks Dutch,” he adds.
When talking about the future, M. Tryfonov said that he’s not planning to go back to Ukraine. “My home destroyed, part of my family killed in Mariupol,” M. Tryfonov said. He adds that he might go to another European country, but coming back to Ukraine is “very difficult”.
