Russian alphabet
The Russian alphabet is the Russian Cyrillic: 33 letters. 33 letters: five read the way they look, six only look Latin, two have no sound of their own. The characters are grouped: five letters you get for free, six impostors: familiar shape, foreign sound, twenty new letters. Below is a table with sound and a breakdown by groups.
All 33 letters in one list
а, б, в, г, д, е, ё, ж, з, и, й, к, л, м, н, о, п, р, с, т, у, ф, х, ц, ч, ш, щ, ъ, ы, ь, э, ю, я
Five letters you get for free
а, к, м, о, т look like Latin and sound like it. The only thing to remember: unstressed о fades toward a, so молоко is said "malako".
Six impostors: familiar shape, foreign sound
The most dangerous group: the eye recognizes the letter and reads it wrong. в is v, not B; н is n, not H; р is a rolled r, not P.
с is always s, even before e and i. у is the vowel oo, not a consonant. х is the ch of Scottish "loch" — the slot where borrowed words keep their h.
Twenty new letters
Clean learning material, best taken in pairs: б against п, д against т, ж against ш — voiced against voiceless, same mouth shape.
The iotated е, ё, ю, я write y plus a vowel in one sign, and after a consonant they soften it.
- Б бb as in "book"be
- Г гg as in "go"ge
- Д дd as in "door"de
- Е еe as in "bet", or ye as in "yet"ye
- Ё ёyo as in "yolk"yo
- Ж жzh as in "measure"zhe
- З зz as in "zoo"ze
- И иee as in "see"i
- Й йy as in "yes"yot
- Л лl as in "lamp"el
- П пp as in "pen"pe
- Ф фf as in "fun"ef
- Ц цts as in "cats"tse
- Ч чch as in "church"che
- Ш шsh as in "ship"sha
- Щ щa long soft shshcha
- Ы ыi pulled back, no English twiny
- Э эe as in "bet", never yee
- Ю юyoo as in "you"yu
- Я яya as in "yard"ya
Two signs without a sound
ъ and ь make no sound at all. The first is rare (podyezd), the second is daily bread: sol, den, semya. The whole difference between brat (a brother) and brat (to take) is the soft sign.
What to know about this script
There are 33 letters, and each stands for one steady sound — English spelling changes its mind, this one does not. Four letters pack a y and a vowel into one sign: е, ё, ю, я. Two signs have no sound at all: ь softens the letter before it, ъ separates parts of a word.
Stress is never written, yet it decides both meaning and vowels: unstressed о shrinks almost to a, so молоко sounds like "malako". Learn the stress together with each word.
The letter ё is always printed in this course. In newspapers and on signs it often loses its dots and looks like е, but the two are pronounced differently.
Where this script came from and why it looks the way it does
The “red line” is literal: in Church Slavonic manuscripts the first letter of a line was painted red, and the English rubric, “an item in a set of rules”, is Latin ruber, “red” — “written in red”. The Russian phrase for starting a new indented paragraph, literally “from the red line”, still remembers that paint.
E. F. Karsky, “Slavyanskaya kirillovskaya paleografiya” (Slavic Cyrillic paleography), 1928
Test yourself
Five characters at random. No need to answer aloud — just pick; the answer appears at once.
- Which character reads as “a as in "father"”?
A pure open a as in "father", with no glide into "ay"
- Which character reads as “g as in "go"”?
A plain hard g as in "go", always hard, never a j
- Which character reads as “yo as in "yolk"”?
The one letter print often stamps as plain e, though the two sound different. In this course the dots are always there
- Which character reads as “ee as in "see"”?
Looks like a mirrored N, but it is a vowel. It is the ee of "see", not the short i of "sit" — that one is a letter of its own
- Which character reads as “l as in "lamp"”?
An l between the English light and dark ones: the tongue tip touches the teeth
How to learn letters so they stay
You cannot learn a table by staring at it. What works: see a character, try to recall its sound, get it wrong, see the right answer — and come back to that character in a day, not in an hour.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- 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.
That is why the alphabet in the app is learned a few characters at a time, not all at once: nobody holds 33 signs in one sitting.
Frequently asked
How many letters in the Russian alphabet?
33 letters — Russian Cyrillic: а, б, в, г, д, е, ё, ж, з, и, й, к, л, м, н, о, п, р, с, т, у, ф, х, ц, ч, ш, щ, ъ, ы, ь, э, ю, я. The characters have capital and small forms.
Can I listen to how the Russian letters sound?
Not yet: we have no recordings for this script. That is why there is no sound button either — it would be silent.
How long does it take to learn the Russian alphabet?
A few characters a day — one to two weeks, if you come back to what you covered. The whole alphabet crammed in an evening is remembered for an evening: without reviews the next day and three days later, the characters are almost entirely gone.
Where to start: letters or words?
With the letters. A word in an unfamiliar script cannot be read at all, and a word card tells you no more than a picture.