Kazakh
Kazakh — Turkic family, about 13–14 million speakers (estimate, Ethnologue). Script: the Cyrillic alphabet, 42 letters, nine of them exclusively Kazakh. This site has 4039 words and 42 letters with audio.
Where to start
A young course: the words, the lessons and the recordings are all here, but a native speaker has not read it end to end yet. Spot a rough edge — tell us and we will fix it.
First words
Every conversation starts with them — and so does the first impression: one greeting in the local language and you stop being a stranger within a second.
- Сәлеметсіз беhello (formal)The full polite greeting. The "be" at the end is a question particle, so literally "are you well?"
- СәлемhiFor your own people. An Arabic loan for "peace" — the same word you hear in "salaam" and "shalom".
- Рақметthank youq is a deep k made in the very back of the throat: raq-MET
- Өтінемінplease (making a request)Literally "I beg": a form of the verb otinu, "to ask", not a particle. The answer to thanks is oqasy zhoq.
- Сау болыңызgoodbyeLiterally "be healthy". Among your own, the short sau bol does the job.
- Қайырлы таңgood morning"Qairly" means "auspicious". Evening is qairly kesh, night is qairly tun — the same frame, a different word.
- Қалайсың?how are you?The same word on first-name terms: the polite -syz swaps to -syñ. The pair works exactly like sau bolyñyz and sau bol, the farewells the course knows.
- Қалайсыз?how are you (polite)?"Qalai" is "how" and -syz is the polite "you" — the pronoun lives inside the word, the way it does in Turkish.
How it sounds
Five words spoken aloud: click the speaker and pick the translation. The sound works on any phone, and nothing needs to be installed.
- What is this word?
It is Сәлеметсіз бе — hello (formal).
- What is this word?
It is Қайырлы таң — good morning.
- What is this word?
It is Сен — you (informal).
- What is this word?
It is Танысқаныма қуаныштымын — nice to meet you.
- What is this word?
It is Иә — yes.
About the language
| Native name | Қазақша · qazaqşa |
| Official in | Kazakhstan |
| Also spoken in | China, Uzbekistan, Russia and Mongolia |
| How many speakers | about 13–14 million speakers (estimate, Ethnologue) |
| Family | Turkic family, Kipchak group |
| Writing | the Cyrillic alphabet, 42 letters, nine of them exclusively Kazakh |
| Writing direction | left to right |
Hard: vowel harmony and long chains of endings.
Easy: no gender, regular spelling, transparent word-building.
What Russian speakers most often take it up for: work and study in Kazakhstan, public service, family.
How lessons work
A lesson is up to half an hour a day, split into three to five short sessions. A word comes back not on the course's schedule but at the moment you are about to forget it: the interval is computed by an algorithm from your own answers.
- The longer you want to keep a word, the rarer its repetitions should be. To hold it for a week, review every day; to hold it for a year, about once a month.checked many timesCepeda et al., 2008, Psychological Science 19(11) · Over 1,350 participants, tested after delays of up to a year. The best gap is about 20% of the target interval on a horizon of weeks, and 5–10% on a horizon of a year.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- Pay someone to study and they study less, not more. Praise and a clear explanation of their mistakes do the opposite — they help.checked many timesDeci, Koestner & Ryan, 1999, Psychological Bulletin 125(6) · 128 experiments. Material reward: d = −0.40 for taking part, −0.36 for finishing. Praise and feedback: +0.33.
Frequently asked
Where to start learning Kazakh?
With the script: 42 letters are worked through in a week or two, and after that words stop being pictures.
How many people speak it in Kazakh?
About 13–14 million speakers — an estimate from Ethnologue. Nobody runs an exact census of languages, and sources disagree by noticeable amounts.
Is Kazakh hard?
Vowel harmony and long chains of endings. At the same time, no gender, regular spelling, transparent word-building.
Where is it spoken in Kazakh?
An official language in: Kazakhstan. Noticeable communities: China, Uzbekistan, Russia and Mongolia.
Is Kazakh in Duolingo?
No. As of September 18, 2026, Duolingo’s catalogue has no such course at all, from any language. We have Kazakh in full: 4039 words, with audio, the script explained, a phrasebook and grammar in plain words.