Ы ы — y
«y» is a vowel of Kazakh, the “Kazakh Cyrillic” script, read as “a short deep i, like the u of "just" tightened”. A short vowel between the i of "bit" and the u of "put", said from deeper in the mouth. The back partner of dotted i. For example, in the word “қыз” — girl. The Kazakh alphabet has 42 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. It appears, for example, in the word “Сау болыңыз” — goodbye.
In short
| Character | Ы ы |
| Name | y |
| Sound | a short deep i, like the u of "just" tightened |
| What it is | a vowel |
In our course the character comes 37th of 42, its neighbours in the course are ъ and і, appears in roughly every fifth word on this site.
How it sounds
A short vowel between the i of "bit" and the u of "put", said from deeper in the mouth. The back partner of dotted i
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.
- қызgirl
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 «y» it is “a short deep i, like the u of "just" tightened”, as in the word “қыз”), 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 ы read?
As “a short deep i, like the u of "just" tightened” — it is a vowel of the “Kazakh Cyrillic” script. A short vowel between the i of "bit" and the u of "put", said from deeper in the mouth. The back partner of dotted i. For example, in the word “қыз” — girl.
What is the letter ы called?
Y. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Kazakh script: it is called “y” and reads as “a short deep i, like the u of "just" tightened”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.