Я я — ya
«ya» is a vowel of Kazakh, the “Kazakh Cyrillic” script, read as “ya as in "yard"”. A combination: y plus ah, like the start of "yard". For example, in the word “ая” — palm (of the hand). The Kazakh alphabet has 42 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. It appears, for example, in the word “Аяқ” — leg.
In short
| Character | Я я |
| Name | ya |
| Sound | ya as in "yard" |
| What it is | a vowel |
In our course the character comes 42nd of 42, before it comes ю, appears in 113 words of this site.
How it sounds
A combination: y plus ah, like the start of "yard"
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.
- аяpalm (of the hand)
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 «ya» it is “ya as in "yard"”, as in the word “ая”), 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 я read?
As “ya as in "yard"” — it is a vowel of the “Kazakh Cyrillic” script. A combination: y plus ah, like the start of "yard". For example, in the word “ая” — palm (of the hand).
What is the letter я called?
Ya. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Kazakh script: it is called “ya” and reads as “ya as in "yard"”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.