It's not about the jaw: a 23-year-old student from Equatorial Guinea proved that it is possible to learn Ukrainian from scratch in a few years

While some Ukrainians refuse to switch to Ukrainian in public because of the "wrong jaw," foreigners are actively learning and enjoying the language. Blas Mba Nzang, a 23-year-old from Equatorial Guinea, has been living in Rivne for more than five years, where he went to study, and now he speaks fluent Ukrainian, has made many friends, and is even a member of the local football team.

The impetus for moving to Ukraine was his desire to obtain a higher professional education in hydropower, he told Suspilne. A company that builds hydroelectric power plants in Equatorial Guinea sent him to the Rivne University of Water and Environmental Management to get a quality education.

"I want to be a hydropower engineer. They told me: "If you want to be a good specialist, you need to study at a water institute," he recalled.

Blas Mba Nzang said that his classmates, including another foreigner, helped him learn Ukrainian. In particular, he has been living in a dormitory for almost six years, which also gives him an incentive to master the language better.

"I can't say that I spent a lot of time learning it. When you want to learn a language, the first thing you need is the desire. And the second thing is to talk to people who know the language. I wasn't ashamed to say that I didn't understand something, I was inquisitive like a child," the student shared his advice.

Mba Nzang is actively involved in sports and is a member of the university football team. This socialization helps him learn the language even better.

"We immediately started to understand him on the soccer field. In the first year, when we started playing on the same team, it was a little unusual, because he was just starting to learn Ukrainian. We got used to him, and now we understand him at a glance," said team captain Illia Zhygunov.

However, the 23-year-old student has no plans to stay in Ukraine. He wants to return home after graduate school to work at a hydroelectric power plant. But his memories of Ukraine and his knowledge of the language will remain with him for life.

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