LingoflyУ у — u
«u» is a vowel of the Kazakh script, read as “w, or a short vowel plus w”. After a vowel it is a w: taw, mountain, rhymes with "cow". After a consonant a short vowel comes before the w, as in suw, water. For example, in the word “су” (Su) — water. The Kazakh alphabet has 42 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. Looks like a Latin y. The plain short oo is a different letter, ū.
In short
| Character | У у |
| Name | u |
| Sound | w, or a short vowel plus w |
| 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 to type У у
- 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+0443 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 0443.
- Unicode code points: у — U+0443, У — U+0423. With them, the characters can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
After a vowel it is a w: taw, mountain, rhymes with "cow". After a consonant a short vowel comes before the w, as in suw, water
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.
- су (Su)water
The character in the “letters for two sounds” group
Each of them hides a second sound. е gets a y before it at the start of a word, and ю and я are y plus a vowel. и is a short vowel plus y, and у is w, or a short vowel plus w.
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 “w, or a short vowel plus w”, as in the word “су” (Su)), 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 “w, or a short vowel plus w” — it is a vowel of the Kazakh script. After a vowel it is a w: taw, mountain, rhymes with "cow". After a consonant a short vowel comes before the w, as in suw, water. For example, in the word “су” (Su) — 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 “w, or a short vowel plus w”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.
What can у be confused with?
Looks like a Latin y. The plain short oo is a different letter, 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.