May God bless you and your youthful zeal in our Ukrainian Catholic Church. I have a lot to learn as well.
The 1988 Synodal translation is basically a more modern Ukrainian translation. The content is the same, but the more modern Ukrainian vocabulary is used - for example the initial petition of the deacon "V miri Hospodu pomolimsja" becomes "V miri Hospodevi pomolimsja". You can sort of think of it like the difference between the English used by Dickens and the English used by a more modern writer, say C.S. Lewis for example.
The translation of Patriarch Josyp is more archaic and closer to Slavonic than the 1988. As a deacon I find the older easier to chant, but that is probably because I was a diak for many years and used Patriarch Josyp's texts with very few exceptions when Slavonic or English were used. So it is probably for me more a matter of familiarity.
The opposite is true for English (at least in my opinion). The English is much better in the 1988, as the 1973 is basically a literal translation and as I understand was meant more for non-Ukrainians to follow in the pew book rather than to be used for an all-English celebration.
And as I mentioned there are other more obscure English versions floating around - Fr. Casimir Kucharek's, Metropolitan Ambrose (Senyshyn) published a nice older English translation in "Christos mizh Nami", the Redemptorist "My Divine Friend", etc. but you won't find these often.
