CHEEV, the author of the hit song "Harno tak", who was born and raised in Belarus, revealed an unexpected life hack of switching to Ukrainian

Born and built his career in Belarus, CHEEV (Vladislav Chyzhykov) learned Ukrainian perfectly thanks to a life hack and became a star with his song "Harno Tak", which has garnered 4.7 million streams on the Spotify streaming platform and 21 million views on YouTube. He began creating Ukrainian-language songs long before he switched to Nightingale, and he often posted covers of Ukrainian artists on his social media.

This is how the singer gained experience. In an interview with the Weekend Show, CHEEV explained how he managed to remove his accent and learn the language perfectly. He tried to automatically translate any song he listened to in English or Russian in his head.

"I used to practice listening to some foreign songs in English and translating them into Ukrainian in my head. That's how I practice. Even with Russian songs. I always listen and find the equivalent in Ukrainian. And it's fun," the singer said.

Chyzhykov started creating his tracks in Ukrainian in 2019. Before that, he even participated in the Eurovision Song Contest twice and won the Belarusian national selection in 2016 and 2018. However, Ukrainians could see him on the X-Factor show in 2016 and The Voice in 2019. At that time, CHEEV actively collaborated with Ukrainian singers and wrote songs for Monatic, The Hardkiss, MamaRika, and TAYANNA.

His hit song "Harno tak" was released in 2019, but it was only after Russia's full-scale invasion began that he gained real recognition. Chyzhykov now lives in Kyiv and is fluent in Ukrainian.

"I never learned it, I just started speaking it and that was it. It is very similar to Belarusian, my mother tongue. Besides, I am a translator by training, so it was easy. I started speaking Ukrainian in everyday life in 2021, and before that I spoke Russian. And it's interesting: when I started speaking more Ukrainian, I began to forget Russian and Belarusian. Sometimes even some surzhyk slips in: one word in Ukrainian, the other in Belarusian," the singer told OBOZ.UA.

In July 2022, he published a post on Instagram in which he explained his attitude to the war and how much it had broken him: "Not a single day goes by when I don't think about the war that Russia has unleashed in Ukraine. In the first months, I felt only helplessness and guilt for everything that was happening. After 5 months, I finally had the desire to write songs. Perhaps with my music I can help Ukrainians survive this terrible time at least a little bit. Glory to Ukraine!"

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