И и — i
«i» is a vowel of Kazakh, the “Kazakh Cyrillic” script, read as “long ee as a glide (yee)”. Not one sound but a combination: y plus ee, like the start of "eagle" held longer. For example, in the word “кино” — cinema. The Kazakh alphabet has 42 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. Do not confuse it with dotted i: this one is long and made of two sounds, while the dotted one is short and native. It appears, for example, in the word “Иә” — yes.
In short
| Character | И и |
| Name | i |
| Sound | long ee as a glide (yee) |
| What it is | a vowel |
In our course the character comes 12th of 42, its neighbours in the course are з and й, appears in 381 words of this site.
How it sounds
Not one sound but a combination: y plus ee, like the start of "eagle" held longer
The character in a word
A lone character is hard to remember: memory holds on to meaning, and a letter has none. The word it stands in provides that anchor.
- киноcinema
The character in the “the letters that trick you” group
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.
Words with this character
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound (for «i» it is “long ee as a glide (yee)”, as in the word “кино”), see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 42 letters — at once.
- 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.
Frequently asked
How does the Kazakh character и read?
As “long ee as a glide (yee)” — it is a vowel of the “Kazakh Cyrillic” script. Not one sound but a combination: y plus ee, like the start of "eagle" held longer. For example, in the word “кино” — cinema.
What is the letter и called?
I. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Kazakh script: it is called “i” and reads as “long ee as a glide (yee)”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.
What can и be confused with?
Do not confuse it with dotted i: this one is long and made of two sounds, while the dotted one is short and native. Similar characters are best studied side by side and deliberately compared: learned on different days, they stay separate and get mixed up at their first meeting inside a word.