The Cyrillic alphabet, the alphabet of Russian and some other languages, is quite different from that of English. There are some characters that do mirror English pronunciation, while others do not; however, most of the characters you will see will be completely foreign. Follow the table below and practice often, because understanding Russian hinges on being able to read and speak it.
| Cyrillic | English | Example Pronunciation |
|---|---|---|
| А а | a | car |
| Б б | b | boy |
| В в | v | verse |
| Г г | g | go |
| Д д | d | dog |
| Е е | ye | yell |
| Ё ё | yo | your |
| Ж ж | zh | measure |
| З з | z | zoo |
| И и | i | street |
| Й й | y | boy |
| К к | k | bake |
| Л л | l | long |
| М м | m | many |
| Н н | n | no |
| О о | o | for |
| П п | p | sport |
| Р р | r | run (r is rolled) |
| С с | s | sun |
| Т т | t | time |
| У у | u | soon |
| Ф ф | f | fun |
| Х х | kh | hat (h is phlegmy) |
| Ц ц | ts | bats |
| Ч ч | ch | chase |
| Ш ш | sh | shape |
| Щ щ | shch | dish chips |
| ъ | N/A | N/A |
| ы | y | pig |
| ь | N/A | N/A |
| Э э | e | get |
| Ю ю | yu | you |
| Я я | ya | yarn |
When italicized or in cursive, some Cyrillic characters do not resemble the forms above:
As you will note above, the characters ъ and ь (the hard sign [твёрдый знак] and soft sign [мягкий знак] respectively) do not have a sound in English. Similar to the silent "e" in English, which changes the pronunciation of vowels in words with it, the hard and soft signs change the pronunciation of the consonents that precede them. This concept is foreign to the average English speaker, so learning this has to be done by careful listening to native Russian speakers.
While the letter "ё" has a different pronunciation from the letter "е," in actual Russian writing, they are both written as "е." For example, the word "её" (her [yeyo]) is written as "ее." It is up to the Russian learner to remember the correct pronunciations of words despite how they are written.
Similarly, the letter "г" is pronounced as "в" in certain situations. This will be discussed in later pages.
There are also several spelling rules that have to be learned. Certain vowels cannot be writen after certain consonents.
| After: | Do not write: | Write: |
|---|---|---|
| к, г, х, ж, ч, ш, щ | я, ю, ы | а, у, и |
| ц | я, ю | а, у |
Once all of this is memorized, you are ready to proceed and learn some Russian!