LingoflyЩ щ — shcha
«shcha» is a consonant of the Kazakh script, read as “a long sh”. An sh held a moment longer. The Kazakh alphabet has 42 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. Mostly in borrowed words, but also in a few native ones, such as the word for "bitter". It appears, for example, in the word “Ащы” (Ashchy) — bitter.
In short
| Character | Щ щ |
| Name | shcha |
| Sound | a long sh |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 35th of 42, its neighbours in the course are ш and ъ, appears in 3 words of this site.
How to type Щ щ
- 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+0449 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 0449.
- Unicode code points: щ — U+0449, Щ — U+0429. With them, the characters can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
An sh held a moment longer
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 щ read?
As “a long sh” — it is a consonant of the Kazakh script. An sh held a moment longer.
What is the letter щ called?
Shcha. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Kazakh script: it is called “shcha” and reads as “a long sh”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.