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The Russian Alphabet
a.k.a Cyrillic Alphabet

You will find it relatively easy to get started with the Cyrillic alphabet because many letters remind those in English. There are six exact sound and look-alikes (A, E, K, M, O, T) while many other Russian letters are similar to their English counterparts by either how they look or sound. However, keep in mind that Russian and English sounds are never absolutely identical and only constant practice will help you acquire the perfect Russian accent.

The Russian alphabet is traditionally listed in the order from A to Я as shown here. To help you learn the alphabet faster, we have grouped the letters by look and sound and compared them with their English counterparts below.

Letters grouped by form and pronunciation

Group 1: Same look and sound as in English

There are six Russian letters that match their English counterparts by both pronunciation and form -- A, E, K, M, O and T.

Group 2: Sound-alikes but different look

There are sixteen Russian letters that do not exist in English but have familiar pronunciation. The include Б, Г, Д, ё, Ж, П, Ф, И, й, Л, Ц, Ш, Щ, Э, Ю and Я.

Group 3: Look-alikes but different sound

The following eight Russian letters look like their English counterparts (or even digits) but have different pronunciation--В, З, Н, Р, С, У, Ч, Х.

Group 4: New look and sound (or no sound)

The last group includes letters that do not exist in English and either represent unfamiliar sounds or have no sound value (Ы, Ъ, Ь).

Reading and Stressed vowels

If you join the sounds of individual letters together you will be able to read the majority of words in Russian.

One vowel in each word is always emphasized greater than the rest– it is called the stressed vowel and marked with the acute accent ´. While stressed vowels are pronounced rather distinctly, unstressed vowels undergo reduction and changes. For example, the vowels ‘A’ and ‘O’ are reduced to the “u”-sound as in “under” when they occur in unstressed positions.

Placing the stress correctly is important when speaking Russian. Improper word stress not only makes you sound unnatural (imagine yourself saying “computer” with the letter “o” stressed) but it can also change the meaning of a word.

Consonants and Vowels

There are 21 consonant letters in Russian: б, в, г, д, ж, з, к, л, м, н, п, р, с, т, ф, х, ц, ч, ш, щ. The letter й is considered a semi-consonant.

There are 10 vowel letters: а, э, ы, у, о, я, е, ё, ю, и.

Two letters of the Russian alphabets do not designate any sounds. They are the "soft sign" (ь) and the "hard sign" (ъ).

Letters vs. Sounds

With few exceptions, Russian consonant letters can be pronounced either "soft" or "hard" depending on the type of a letter that comes after them. For this reason, the 20 consonant letters of the Russian alphabet can designate 37 distinct consonant sounds!

In general, Russian vowels are divided into two basic types: "soft-indicating" and "hard-indicating" vowels. The "hard-indicating" vowels are а, э, ы, у, о. Russian "soft-indicating" vowels are formed from their "hard-indicating" counterparts by adding an English sound of "y" at the beginning. Thus you will get such "soft-indicating" vowels as я, е, ё, ю, и.

We strongly recommend that you read the following essential lessons to get a better idea of the Russian sound system:

• Russian Pronunciation: Vowels
• Russian Pronunciation: Consonants
• Soft-indicating Vowels
• Pronunciation guidelines for Russian consonants
• Letters of the Russian alphabet from А to Я
• Russian alphabet table

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