Ш ш — sh
«sh» is a consonant of Kazakh, the “Kazakh Cyrillic” script, read as “sh as in "shut"”. An ordinary sh. For example, in the word “шай” — tea. The Kazakh alphabet has 42 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. It appears, for example, in the word “Танысқаныма қуаныштымын” — nice to meet you.
In short
| Character | Ш ш |
| Name | sh |
| Sound | sh as in "shut" |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 34th of 42, its neighbours in the course are ч and щ, appears in 708 words of this site.
How it sounds
An ordinary sh
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.
- шайtea
The character in the “read them as written” group
Twenty-two letters that read exactly as you would guess. There is nothing to learn in them.
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 «sh» it is “sh as in "shut"”, as in the word “шай”), 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 ш read?
As “sh as in "shut"” — it is a consonant of the “Kazakh Cyrillic” script. An ordinary sh. For example, in the word “шай” — tea.
What is the letter ш called?
Sh. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Kazakh script: it is called “sh” and reads as “sh as in "shut"”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.