Russian Alphabet
This is the Absolute Russian rapid guide to the Russian alphabet. We hope that this concise breakdown of the simple, but powerful Cyrillic script will help you take your first bold strides into the magical world of the Russian language! We’ve broken the alphabet down into several groups (and a final trio), so you can focus on nailing each section one at a time, rather than trying to take in all 33 new symbols at once!
Most letters have a very close equivalent in the Latin alphabet. For those that don’t, we’ve tried to explain them as best we can.
Learning this alphabet opens up a whole new world to you and we think that reading your first word in another script is one of the most rewarding experiences around. Good luck, we’re with you all the way!
The first group is a friendly bunch and shouldn’t pose too much of a challenge. They’re all sounds you already use in English but represented with different letters! Just remember to go at your own pace and play around with them.
Click on any of the Russian letters in the table below to see its English sound equivalent and an example of the sound in an English word.
A
FARM
B
BAT
V
VAN
G
GOB
D
DOG
YE
YES
YO
YOUR
Е and Ё: the breakdown
Here we come to our first lookalike pair. Don’t be alarmed! There’s no subtle difference in pronunciation here, each makes a very different sound. The difficulty with these two only arises in real-world written Russian because… the two dots over Ё are often not printed. We know what you’re thinking – ‘But… that’s not f***ing fair!’ – and you’re right.
ZH
MIRAGE
Z
LIZARD
EE
CREEP
Y
WAY
И and Й: the breakdown
Й usually comes after vowels and works like a Y after a vowel in English.
For example: Boy, Way, Coy
So, Russian АЙ sounds like the ‘AI’ sound in HIGH and ЕЙ sounds like the ‘YAY’ sound in CREATE.
But in Russian, Й often comes after И as well (e.g. Чайковский — Tchaikovsky). It’s an unusual sound, but it can, in fact, be found in English – if you know where to look. For the first time, Absolute Russian has managed to capture the rare bird and is proud to present it to the world:
Three years
If you take just the ‘ee y’ (retaining that slight Y tightening of the mouth), you yourself can produce this elusive sound.
K
KID
L
LAMP
M
MAN
N
NAG
O
BOARD
P
PUNT
R
REST
S
SIT
T
TAP
Don’t be intimidated by the formidable size of this group – these are all sounds you know, love, and use on a daily basis, just with different symbols representing them. Now get them in your memory!
Р: the breakdown
In Russian, Р is rolled, that’s how Russian rolls… If you are familiar with how R is pronounced in Spanish, for example, you’re good to go. If you need to work on trrrilling your R, try this:
Say any word starting with ‘THR’, for example ‘thrive’, ‘through’, or ‘three’. Make the transition from TH to R really forceful, pushing air out of your mouth while pronouncing the sounds. This should help you flap your tongue against your palate to roll the R.
OO
BOOTH
F
FARM
KH
—
TS
Х: the breakdown
This is a harder H sound. It isn’t as harsh as the forceful, throaty KH used in Arabic or Spanish, but it’s a bit meatier than the English H. You want to give your H a quick squeeze with your tongue on its way out, to produce a nice, healthy KH!
CH
CHEEKY
SH
SHRIMP
SH
SHEER
Щ: the breakdown
You can think of Щ as a softer version of Ш. The example (‘sheer’) is supposed to reflect this, building on the idea that the ‘SH’ sound in English in ‘sheer’ is slightly different and softer than the ‘SH’ in ‘shrimp’. Щ could take a while to nail down, so don’t get frustrated and work at your own pace.
—
—
—
—
—
—
Right, let’s meet this head-on.
Ы: the breakdown
Time for an experiment:
- Say ‘board’ but continue saying the ‘OA’ sound.
- While continuously pronouncing ‘OA’, give a big smile.
- You should now be pronouncing the Ы sound or one similar to it.
You don’t have to smile to pronounce Ы, but this guideline is a way to get you up and running on Ы. The most simplistic way to transcribe the sound using Latin letters would be UY – and you could think of it as the sound you’d make if someone hit you in the stomach.
Ъ and Ь: the breakdown
The good news is that neither of these letters produces an actual sound. Ъ is a ‘hard sign’ and Ь is a ‘soft sign’. They make the consonant before them hard or soft.
Ь (soft sign) often appears at the end of the word and means you should pronounce the preceding consonant softly. For example, the kind of ‘N’ sound in ‘nya nya nya’ that Cartman occasionally does in South Park is an excellent example of a soft N (e.g. июнь — june). If you have any experience with Spanish, Ñ is also an exemplary НЬ.
Ъ almost never appears in modern Russian, but it’s certainly worth being aware of it, so you don’t get caught with your trousers down. It’s also worth noting that Ъ is a dick in Russian Scrabble.
And here it is, the final stretch – almost too easy after everything you’ve already learned!
E
BET
YU
UNIT
YA
YARD
After all that excitement, you must be champing at the bit to have a go at some words!
Try and work out what the words below say. (These are all real, acceptable words used in modern Russian!). Press on a word to reveal its English translation.