Kazakh alphabet
Kazakh alphabet is Kazakh Cyrillic, 42 letters. 42 signs: 33 familiar shapes, 9 of its own — plus six that live only in loanwords. The characters are grouped: the nine letters of their own, the letters that trick you, only in loanwords. Every character on this page can be played: the sound is stored as a file and does not depend on the voices installed on your system.
The nine letters of their own
Everything the familiar alphabet lacks. Six of them are vowels, and vowel harmony rests on them: a word is spoken all-back or all-front, and the ending adjusts to it.
The letters that trick you
They look like plain vowels but sound like two sounds in a row — the way English sneaks a y-glide into "yes" or "yule". Read one as a single sound and the word goes wrong at once.
Only in loanwords
Six signs that never occur in native Kazakh words. They came in with borrowed vocabulary, and the new Latin alphabet has already dropped them.
Read them as written
Twenty-two letters that read exactly as you would guess. There is nothing to learn in them.
- А аa as in "father"a
- Б бb as in "bat"be
- В вv as in "van"ve
- Г гg as in "get"ge
- Д дd as in "dog"de
- Ж жzh as in "measure"zhe
- З зz as in "zoo"ze
- Й йy as in "boy" (a glide)y
- К кk as in "key"ka
- Л лl as in "lamp"el
- М мm as in "map"em
- Н нn as in "nap"en
- О оo as in "more"o
- П пp as in "pin"pe
- Р рa rolled rer
- С сs as in "sun"es
- Т тt as in "top"te
- Ф фf as in "fun"ef
- Х хkh as in "Bach"kh
- Ч чch as in "chat"ch
- Ш шsh as in "shut"sh
- Ы ыa short deep i, like the u of "just" tightenedy
What to know about the “Kazakh Cyrillic” script
There are 42 signs — the biggest alphabet in the app. The order is the alphabetical one: the own letters stand right after their familiar relatives (ä after a, q after k, ö after o). Kazakhstan has been switching to a Latin alphabet since 2017, and the version has been redrawn several times since, yet everyday life, school and the internet still write in Cyrillic — so the course does too.
Test yourself
Five characters at random. No need to answer aloud — just pick; the answer appears at once.
- Which character reads as “a as in "father"”?
A pure open a, like the a of "father" — it never wanders toward "uh" the way an unstressed English a can. The back-vowel partner of ä
- Which character reads as “v as in "van"”?
An ordinary v. Never occurs in native words — loanwords only
- Which character reads as “d as in "dog"”?
An ordinary d
- Which character reads as “zh as in "measure"”?
Like the s of "measure" or the g of "beige"
- Which character reads as “y as in "boy" (a glide)”?
An ordinary y glide, like the y at the end of "boy"
How to learn letters so they stay
You cannot learn a table by staring at it. What works: see a character, try to recall its sound, get it wrong, see the right answer — and come back to that character in a day, not in an hour.
- 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.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
That is why the alphabet in the app is learned a few characters at a time, not all at once: nobody holds 42 signs in one sitting.
Frequently asked
How many letters in the Kazakh alphabet?
42 letters — Kazakh Cyrillic. The characters have capital and small forms.
Can I listen to how the Kazakh letters sound?
Yes. 42 signs on this page have sound: click a character to hear it. The sound works on any phone, and nothing needs to be installed.
How long does it take to learn the Kazakh alphabet?
A few characters a day — one to two weeks, if you come back to what you covered. The whole alphabet crammed in an evening is remembered for an evening: without reviews the next day and three days later, the characters are almost entirely gone.
Where to start: letters or words?
With the letters. A word in an unfamiliar script cannot be read at all, and a word card tells you no more than a picture.