How to read in Russian
Cyrillic from scratch: five letters you know from Latin, six more that only look familiar. The alphabet has 33 letters. The writing course covers them all. The characters come a few per session — in two or three weeks a shop sign stops being a picture.
Five letters that do not lie
You already know а, к, м, о, т: they read the way they look. The lowercase к, м, т look like small capitals K, M, T, and that is exactly what they are.
The vowels stay steady. а is the open a of "father", and о is a round o. One caveat on о: unstressed, it fades toward a, so молоко is said "malako".
Six letters that pretend to be Latin
They look like the Latin B, H, P, C, Y, X, but read differently. The eye recognizes the familiar shape and supplies the Latin sound.
That is how the sign МЕТРО turns into the nonsense METPO. It actually says metro.
р is the sneakiest: a rolled r, not p. с is always s, even before e and i. And х is the ch of Scottish "loch" — the slot where loanwords keep their h.
| letter | looks like | reads as |
|---|---|---|
| В в | B | v as in "van" |
| Н н | H | n as in "no" |
| Р р | P | a rolled r |
| С с | C | s as in "sun" |
| У у | Y | oo as in "food" |
| Х х | X | the ch of Scottish "loch" |
Familiar sounds, new shapes
The letters б, п, д, з, л look unfamiliar, but their sounds are ordinary: in Latin letters they are b, p, d, z, l.
Learn them in pairs: б against п, д against т, з against с. In each pair the left one is voiced and the right one voiceless. The mouth makes the same move; only the voice switches off.
Familiar signs help you remember the shapes. П is the π of math class, the lowercase б is the digit 6, and з is the digit 3. One trap: the lowercase п looks like n but reads p.
| letter | in Latin letters |
|---|---|
| Б б | b |
| П п | p |
| Д д | d |
| З з | z |
| Л л | l |
Г, И, Й and Ы
Г is a plain g as in "go", with no surprises: gde reads "gde".
И is the pure ee of "see", and after a consonant it softens that consonant: mir is said with a soft m.
й is a short y, as in "yes" or "boy": half a breath, never a syllable of its own.
ы is a sound English does not have: an i with the tongue pulled far back, deeper than any English vowel. Words rarely start with it — it lives inside: syr, ty.
| letter | sound |
|---|---|
| Г г | g as in "go" |
| И и | the ee of "see" |
| Й й | y as in "yes" |
| Ы ы | i with the tongue pulled back |
How to read ж, ч, ш, ц, щ and ф
ж, ч, ш and ц read zh, ch, sh and ts. Latin letters need two signs for each of these sounds, while Cyrillic has one letter for each.
The lowercase ш looks like a Latin w, but reads sh. щ is not "shch", though transliterations write it that way: it is one long soft sh, stretched over half a syllable. And ф is a plain f.
| letter | sound |
|---|---|
| Ж ж | zh as in "measure" |
| Ч ч | ch as in "church" |
| Ш ш | sh as in "ship" |
| Ц ц | ts as in "cats" |
| Щ щ | one long soft sh |
| Ф ф | f as in "fun" |
Е, Ё, Ю, Я: one letter, two sounds
е, ё, ю and я write y plus a vowel in one sign: ye, yo, yu and ya. That is how they sound at the start of a word and after a vowel: yeda, moyo, yug.
After a consonant the same letter softens it, and you hear only the vowel. In net you hear a soft n and e, not "nyet". The letter ё is always stressed yo: myod reads "myot". Print often drops its dots, but the two letters sound different; this course always writes the dots.
| letter | at the start | after a consonant |
|---|---|---|
| Е е | ye | soft consonant + e |
| Ё ё | yo | soft consonant + o |
| Ю ю | yu | soft consonant + u |
| Я я | ya | soft consonant + a |
Ь, Ъ and Э
ь has no sound of its own. It softens the consonant before it: the middle of the tongue rises toward the palate. It is as if about to say y. In sol the final л sounds that way, in den the n. The whole difference between brat (a brother) and brat (to take) is this sign.
ъ is silent too, and rare: it separates a prefix from the root before е, ё, ю, я — podyezd, obyavlenie. After it the vowel keeps its full ye, yo, yu, ya, as at the start of a word.
э is a plain e as in "bet", with no y in front: the sound е only has after a consonant. Few words start with it, and almost all came from other languages: poet, etazh.
| sign | what it does |
|---|---|
| Ь ь | no sound, softens the letter before it |
| Ъ ъ | no sound, separates prefix and root |
| Э э | a plain e, as in "bet" |
What order to take the characters in
The writing course is split into 6 steps: one step is one lesson, a few characters at a time. Nobody takes the whole script at once out of mercy: 33 signs in an evening stay in memory for exactly that, an evening.
- 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.
- 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.
Frequently asked
How many characters do you need to learn to read in Russian?
33 signs. The writing course covers them all. After that a word stops being a picture — even when its meaning is still unknown.
What to learn first: letters or words?
Letters. A word in an unfamiliar script cannot be read at all, and a “word — translation” card tells you no more than a picture does.
How long does it take to learn to read in Russian?
One step a day — 6 days. That is about recognizing characters, not understanding: you will start reading aloud before you understand what you read.