І і — i
«i» is a vowel of Ukrainian, the “Ukrainian Cyrillic” script, read as “ee as in "see"”. A pure ee as in "see": ni reads "nee" — no. For example, in the word “ні” — no. The Ukrainian alphabet has 33 letters in total. The other half of the pair: this letter, with its dot, is the plain ee of "see". The dash-letter y without the dot is the tense one. It appears, for example, in the word “привіт” — hi.
In short
| Character | І і |
| Name | i |
| Sound | ee as in "see" |
| What it is | a vowel |
In our course the character comes 12th of 33, its neighbours in the course are и and ї, appears in roughly every fifth word on this site.
How it sounds
A pure ee as in "see": ni reads "nee" — no
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.
- ніno
The character in the “letters english never gave you” group
The heart of the alphabet lesson. The pair y and i looks almost identical but sounds different — one is a pulled-back i, the other a pure ee — and mixing them up mixes up "you" and "no". Add ye and yi, two letters that pack a y-glide plus a vowel into one sign.
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 «i» it is “ee as in "see"”, as in the word “ні”), 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 Ukrainian character і read?
As “ee as in "see"” — it is a vowel of the “Ukrainian Cyrillic” script. A pure ee as in "see": ni reads "nee" — no. For example, in the word “ні” — no.
What is the letter і called?
I. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Ukrainian script: it is called “i” and reads as “ee as in "see"”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.
What can і be confused with?
The other half of the pair: this letter, with its dot, is the plain ee of "see". The dash-letter y without the dot is the tense one. 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.