Learn and practice Russian Online: Lesson 1

Russian language uses Cyrillic alphabet with 33 letters. Some of the letters in Russian and English represent same sounds, some have different symbols for same sounds, and few letters are pronounced in a different way than any letter in English alphabet. In this lesson you will be introduced to the Russian alphabet.

Letters that are same in Russian and English alphabets are listed bellow:

Russian	English	Sounds like...
А	A	a like in far
К	K	k like in kiss
М	M	m like in miss
О	O	o like in open
Т	T	t like in truck

Most letters in Russian alphabet are easy to pronounce, but have different symbol than in English alphabet. These letters are listed bellow:

Russian	English	Sounds like...
Б	b	b like in big
В	v	v like in vehicle
Г	g	g like in good
Д	d	d like in drive
З	z	z like in zero
И	i	i like in internet
Й	y	y like in yesterday
Л	l	l like in luck
Н	n	n like in nine
П	p	p like in person
Р	r	r like in reverse
С	s	s like in sun
Ф	f	f like in film
Х	h	h like in hotel

Other letters are a bit more difficult, but as you can see only a few will need some practice:

Russian	English	Sounds like...
Е	ye	ye like in yes
Ё	yo	yo like in yolk
Ж	zh	s like in pleasure
У	u	oo like in pool
Ц	c	ts like in meets
Ч	ch	ch like in chair
Ш	sh	sh like in shadow
Щ	soft sh	sounds like sh but softer
Ъ	-	hard sign which is very rare
Ы	-	sounds like i in ill
Ь	-	soft sign - softens the letter before it
Э	e	e like in leg
Ю	yoo	u like in universe
Я	ya	ya like in yard

Letters in Russian alphabet are ordered in a different way than you are used to. This can be pretty confusing if you use printed type of dictionary. Order and list of all Russian letters is displayed in table below. Letters in this table are written from left to right then next row:

А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Д д
Е е	Ё ё	Ж ж	З з	И и
Й й	К к	Л л	М м	Н н
О о	П п	Р р	С с	Т т
У у	Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч
Ш ш	Щ щ	Ъ ъ	Ы ы	Ь ь
Э э	Ю ю	Я я

If you are interested in how much you have learned, click on Test alphabet to test your knowledge.

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