Transcript
Let’s look closer on these words. As you have noticed, most female versions of professions finish with -ka, like shkoliarka, likarka, perukarka. Some of them end on -nytsia, like in manikiurnytsia.
Words shkoliar, shkoliarka resemble English word ‘scholar’ but denote quite different stage of education and mean ‘schoolboy’ and ‘schoolgirl’.
Word ‘nurse’ in Ukrainian literally means ‘medical sister’ (medsestra) or ‘medical brother’ (medbrat).
Since nail technicians in Ukraine are women (at least I have never seen a male nail technician there), word manikiurnytsia is used in female form, while budivelnyk (‘builder’) is normally used in male form because this job is usually performed by men. Inzhener (‘engineer’) is a foreign word which is normally used in a male form. Many female engineers prefer to be called inzhener, because inzhenerka sounds colloquial. Although women work as cooks, female version of this profession kukharka sounds colloquial and not very respectful, in terms of their professional level as female cooks. Female chefs prefer to be called kukhar as well as their male colleagues.
Word перукар perukar comes from Italian where parrucca means wig.
I hope these comments will help you to understand and remember names of professions in Ukrainian!