Pronunciation(ru)

Alphabet (Алфавит, alfavit)

Russian uses a version of the Cyrillic Alphabet. Many letters look similar to their Latin counterparts. As Cyrillic typography was remodeled around 300 years ago, both alphabets have a similar style.

Captilize	Lowercase	Latin / Greek
1. А	а	A / Α α
2. Б	б	B / Β β
3. В	в	V
4. Г	г	G / Γ γ
5. Д	д	D / Δ δ
6. Е	е	E / Ε ε
7. Ё	ё	Yo
8. Ж	ж	Zh
9. З	з	Z - Ζ ζ / Η η
10. И	и	I / Ι ι
11. Й	й
12. К	к	K / Κ κ
13. Л	д	L / Λ λ
14. М	м	M / Μ μ
15. Н	н	N / Ν ν - Ξ ξ
16. О	о	O / Ο ο
17. П	п	P / Π π
18. Р	р	R / Ρ ρ
19. С	с	S / Σ σ ( ς )
20. Т	т	T / Τ τ
21. У	у	U / Υ υ
22. Ф	ф	F / Φ φ
23. Х	х	Kh / Χ χ
24. Ц	ц	Ts / Ψ ψ
25. Ч	ч	Ch - Ω ω
26. Ш	ш	Sh
27. Щ	щ	Sch
28. Ъ	ъ
29. Ы	ы	Y
30. Ь	ь
31. Э	э	E
32. Ю	ю	Yu
33. Я	я	Ya

LETTERS AND SOUNDS

К, О, М, Т, А sound similar to their Latin counterparts (to be more precise, "о" is the sound in "more"). However, in handwriting and typed italics, the letter Т can look rather like a lower case 'm' in the Latin alphabet. E.g. in the verb просить (to ask for, to request), т = t.

Е actually sounds more like "ye", as in "yell", not as in "Hear ye, hear ye!" (this will work for now; it's more complicated after a consonant).

В sounds like 'v', Б sounds like 'b'. Н is "n" and И is "i" ('eeh'). The remaining letters are included in the table below:

Ёё⁰ (your)	Вв (vase)	Бб (bed)
Ээ (red)	Нн¹ (nap)	Дд¹ (dab)
Уу (soon)	Хх² (Bach)	Гг (gap)
Ии (meet)	Йй (yes)	Лл¹ (nil)
Юю (you)	Рр (trilled R)	Пп (poor)
Ыы³ (hit)	Сс (Sam)	Зз (zebra)
Яя (yard)	Фф (photon)	Цц (cats)
Жж⁴ (seizure)	Шш⁴ (shun)	Щщ⁴
Чч (cheer)		Ъ and Ь⁵

• ⁰ Ёё The umlaut-like double dots are optional in writing. Syllables containing this letter are always stressed.

• ¹ т, д, н, л are pronounced near your teeth

• ² х('kh') is somewhat similar to the H in "hue". It is like making the "sh" sound, only it is pronounced where you make the "K" sound.

• ³ ы has no equivalent in English. It is an "eeh"-like sound, but less distinct, sounds closer to "e" in "lover", and has your tongue deeper that in "heat" or "hit".

• ⁴ for ш and ж your tongue is lower than in English and slightly bent back. Щ has all your tongue raised—it is a longer and more hissy sound. Ч corresponds to щ (i.e. a bit different than "ch")

• ⁵ ъ and ь are separators and have no sound.

  Л can have a flat top, like П, or a pointy top like А (it comes from the Greek Λ). Д and Л have a similar top in many fonts, though it's up to the designer. Handwritten Д looks like D, and д like a g or a д (the last two affect the italic shapes).

  An Italic Г in lower case usually looks this: г.

a picture with a table of Russian letters

P.S. In the notes, we use an acute accent to show you the stress (e.g., ра́дио). It is a standard practice in Russian textbooks for little children or foreign learners—and, generally, the most common way of marking the position of the stress.

VOWEL REDUCTION

Like in English, vowel letters aren't all pronounced just like in the alphabet. In Russian, unstressed syllables have vowels reduced:

• А and О become the same uh-sound

• И and Е (Э) become the same sound similar to "i" in "hit"

• Я actually becomes an i-like sound, not an uh-like (except in a few words). This also affects "а" after ч,ш,щ,ж or ц in many words (sadly, not all).

So, when a vowel is not stressed, it becomes weaker, somewhat shorter, and also some vowels become indistinguishable.

The unstressed syllable is strongest just before the stress. In all other places it is even weaker than that (though, some long words, especially compounds, may acquire a secondary stress). This makes the system different from the English one, where stronger and weaker syllables tend to alternate.

Hard and soft

Russian consonants are split into two groups of 15, which are pronounced in two different ways, palatalized (aka "soft") and non-palatalized (aka "hard"). We'll stick to the shorter "soft" and "hard" (sorry).

When a consonant is "soft" it means than you pronounce it with you tongue raised high; for "non-palatalized" consonants it stays low. Russian orthography has its history but, long story short, you can tell the "softness" of a consonant from a vowel letter spelled afterwards:

• А, Ы, У, Э, О follow "hard" consonants

• Я, И, Ю, Е, Ё follow palatalized ones

If there is nothing after a consonant, the soft sign Ь is used to show the softness. In consonant clusters palatalization is predictable from the softness of the last consonant. We aren't teaching it here. These days the trend is to only "soften" the last consonant in most clusters, while a hundred years ago some clusters were palatalized even without any obvious reason.

To show you how it works, here is an example, using an ad-hoc transcription:

• же́нщина = [жэнʲщиᵉна]

• стена́ = [стʲиᵉна] or [сʲтʲиᵉна]

There are dictionaries («орфоэпический словарь») that show the recommended pronunciation of words and contain general pronunciation rules, too.

Voicing

Some consonants let your voice come out immediately (voiced) while others wait for the release of the consonant and only then let your voice escape (unvoiced). In Russian there are 6 pairs of such consonants: Б/П, В/Ф, Г/К, Д/Т, Ж/Ш, З/С.

• whenever one of these consonants (except В) follows another, the second overrides or reverses the voicing of the first: сд = [зд], вс= [фс]

• the end of the phrase is unvoiced: этот клуб [клуп]

• rules apply between the word boundaries, too

• Х, Ч, Ц, Щ also play this game, even though Russian lacks letters for their voiced partners ([ɣ], [дж'], [дз], [ж'ж']). They will devoice the preceding consonant or become voiced themselves.

UNLIKE UKRAINIAN, RUSSIAN ONLY USES [Ɣ], [ДЖ'] AND [ДЗ] AS VOICED VARIANTS OF Х, Ч, Ц. UKRAINIAN HAS THEM AS FULL-FLEDGED CONSONANTS—THE ONES THAT ARE AN INTRINSIC PART OF A WORD AND CAN APPEAR ANYWHERE.