У у — u
«u» is a vowel of Kazakh, the “Kazakh Cyrillic” script, read as “a glide: yu-hooked ("ew" in "new")”. Not a plain oo but a combination: oo with a w-glide after it, as in "new" finished with rounded lips. For example, in the word “су” — water. The Kazakh alphabet has 42 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. Like i, a compound letter. The short plain oo is ū. It appears, for example, in the word “Сау болыңыз” — goodbye.
In short
| Character | У у |
| Name | u |
| Sound | a glide: yu-hooked ("ew" in "new") |
| What it is | a vowel |
In our course the character comes 26th of 42, its neighbours in the course are т and ұ, appears in roughly every fifth word on this site.
How it sounds
Not a plain oo but a combination: oo with a w-glide after it, as in "new" finished with rounded lips
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.
- суwater
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 «u» it is “a glide: yu-hooked ("ew" in "new")”, as in the word “су”), 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 у read?
As “a glide: yu-hooked ("ew" in "new")” — it is a vowel of the “Kazakh Cyrillic” script. Not a plain oo but a combination: oo with a w-glide after it, as in "new" finished with rounded lips. For example, in the word “су” — water.
What is the letter у called?
U. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Kazakh script: it is called “u” and reads as “a glide: yu-hooked ("ew" in "new")”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.
What can у be confused with?
Like i, a compound letter. The short plain oo is ū. 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.