Я я — ya
«ya» is a vowel of Ukrainian, the “Ukrainian Cyrillic” script, read as “ya as in "yard"”. A y-glide plus a in one letter, as in "yard". For example, in the word “яблуко” — apple. The Ukrainian alphabet has 33 letters in total. It appears, for example, in the word “дякую” — thank you.
In short
| Character | Я я |
| Name | ya |
| Sound | ya as in "yard" |
| What it is | a vowel |
In our course the character comes 33rd of 33, before it comes ю, appears in roughly every fifth word on this site.
How it sounds
A y-glide plus a in one letter, as in "yard"
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.
- яблукоapple
The character in the “read them the way they look” group
Twenty-six letters an English eye decodes within minutes of learning the Cyrillic shapes. Only two habits to pick up: e is always a plain e as in "bet", never "ye", and every o stays a round o — it never fades to "uh" when unstressed.
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 «ya» it is “ya as in "yard"”, as in the word “яблуко”), 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 я read?
As “ya as in "yard"” — it is a vowel of the “Ukrainian Cyrillic” script. A y-glide plus a in one letter, as in "yard". For example, in the word “яблуко” — apple.
What is the letter я called?
Ya. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Ukrainian script: it is called “ya” and reads as “ya as in "yard"”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.