А а
«а» is a vowel of the Russian script, read as “a as in "father"”. A pure open a as in "father", with no glide into "ay". For example, in the word “мама” — mom. The Russian alphabet has 33 letters in total. It appears, for example, in the word “спасибо” — thank you.
In short
| Character | А а |
| Sound | a as in "father" |
| What it is | a vowel |
In our course the character comes 1st of 33, after it comes б, appears in roughly every other word on this site.
How to type А а
- On a phone: add the Russian keyboard in the keyboard settings (Gboard on Android; Keyboards in the iPhone settings).
- In Word on Windows: type U+0430 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 0430.
- Unicode code points: а — U+0430, А — U+0410. With them, the characters can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A pure open a as in "father", with no glide into "ay"
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.
- мамаmom
The character in the “five letters you get for free” group
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".
Words with this character
- спасибоspasibothank you
- пожалуйстаpozhaluystaplease
- даdayes
- аaand (contrasting)
- как дела?kak dela?how are you?
- до свиданияdo svidaniyagoodbye
- покаpokabye
- как тебя зовут?kak tebya zovut?what is your name?
- онаonashe
- откуда ты?otkuda ty?where are you from?
- я не понимаюya ne ponimayuI do not understand
- повторите, пожалуйстаpovtorite, pozhaluystarepeat, please
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 «а» it is “a as in "father"”, as in the word “мама”), 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 — 33 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 Russian character а read?
As “a as in "father"” — it is a vowel of the Russian script. A pure open a as in "father", with no glide into "ay". For example, in the word “мама” — mom.