LingoflyЭ э — reversed e
«reversed e» is a vowel of the Kazakh script, read as “e as in "met", loanwords only”. A plain e. The Kazakh alphabet has 42 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. Native words write this sound with the ordinary e. It appears, for example, in the word “Электр қуаты” (Elektr quaty) — electricity.
In short
| Character | Э э |
| Name | reversed e |
| Sound | e as in "met", loanwords only |
| What it is | a vowel |
In our course the character comes 40th of 42, its neighbours in the course are ь and ю, appears in 17 words of this site.
How to type Э э
- On a phone: add the Kazakh keyboard in the keyboard settings (Gboard on Android; Keyboards in the iPhone settings).
- In Word on Windows: type U+044D and press Alt+X right after it — the code turns into the character.
- On a Mac: switch to the Unicode Hex Input source, hold Option and type 044D.
- Unicode code points: э — U+044D, Э — U+042D. With them, the characters can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A plain e
The character in the “only in loanwords” group
Six signs that came in with Russian words: ё ц щ ъ ь э. Native Kazakh words do without them, apart from a handful with щ, and the new Latin alphabet has no letters for them. в, ф and ч also live almost only in loanwords, but they stand with the common letters.
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, 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 э read?
As “e as in "met", loanwords only” — it is a vowel of the Kazakh script. A plain e.
What is the letter э called?
Reversed e. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Kazakh script: it is called “reversed e” and reads as “e as in "met", loanwords only”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.