Russian Alphabet & Pronunciation
The table russian alphabet contains interactive elements. To hear audio pronunciation of the letters, hover the pointer or click the letter in the second column headed “Letters”.
| № | Letter | Name of letter | English equivalent | Example of sound |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | А | "ah" | (a) | Above |
| 2 | Б | "beh" | (b) | Beautiful |
| 3 | В | "veh" | (v) | Very |
| 4 | Г | "geh" | (g) | Good |
| 5 | Д | "deh" | (d) | Delicious |
| 6 | Е | "yeh" | (ye) | Yellow |
| 7 | Ё | "yo" | (yo) | Your |
| 8 | Ж | "zheh" | (zh) / (j) | Measure |
| 9 | З | "zeh" | (z) | Zoo |
| 10 | И | "ee" | (i) / (ee) | Eagle |
| 11 | Й | "ee kratkoyeh" | (iy) | Boy |
| 12 | К | "kah" | (k) | King |
| 13 | Л | "el" | (l) | Like |
| 14 | М | "em" | (m) | Moscow |
| 15 | Н | "en" | (n) | New York |
| 16 | О | "o" | (o) | Or |
| 17 | П | "peh" | (p) | Perfect |
| 18 | Р | "er" | (r) | Rare |
| 19 | С | "es" | (s) | See |
| 20 | Т | "teh" | (t) | Team |
| 21 | У | "oo" | (u) / (oo) | Cartoon |
| 22 | Ф | "ef" | (f) | Fancy |
| 23 | Х | "ha" | (h) /(kh) | Hot |
| 24 | Ц | "tseh" | (ts) | Boots |
| 25 | Ч | "cheh" | (ch) | Chair |
| 26 | Ш | "sha" | (sh) | She |
| 27 | Щ | "shcha" | (shch) | Scottish-cheese |
| 28 | Ъ | "tvoyrdiy znak" | - | No sound - indicates hardness of previous letter |
| 29 | Ы | "iy" | (iy) / (ay) | No similar English sound |
| 30 | Ь | "myagkee znak" | (e) | No sound - indicates softness of previous letter |
| 31 | Э | "eh" | (e) | Egg |
| 32 | Ю | "yoo" | (yu) / (yoo) | You |
| 33 | Я | "ya" | (ya) | Yarn |
All letters of the Russian alphabet can be divided into vowels and consonants. There are 10 vowels and 21 consonants; there are also two signs that show soft or hard letters, they don’t stand for any sounds and are called the “ъ” and “ь” signs.
Vowels are the drawling letters that are pronounced easily without any obstacles. They head a syllable that they form together with consonant letters. Words and whole sentences can be made up from the resulting syllables.
The letters А, Я, О, Ё, У, Ю, И, Ы, Э, Е vowels of the Russian alphabet. Some of them form no sounds; therefore, there are 10 vowels and only 6 sounds – А, О, У, Ы, И, Э.
Consonants are the letters that don’t form the syllabic peak and are paired with syllable consonants or vowels. These letters are harder and shorter; when pronouncing them, the tongue hits a barrier.
The letters Б, В, Г, Д, Ж, З, Й, К, Л, М, Н, П, Р, С, Т, Ф, Х, Ц, Ч, Ш, Щ are the consonants.
Depending on the pronunciation, consonants can be soft or hard, voiceless and voiced, therefore there are several times more consonant sounds than vowel sounds. In total, there are 21 consonant letters and 37 consonant sounds.
The letters Б, В, Г, Д, З, К, Л, М, Н, П, Р, С, Т, Ф, Х are paired, they have a double sound and form two sounds – a soft and a hard one.
The letters Й, Ч, Щ – are soft and form only one sound.
The letters Ж, Ш, Ц – are hard and they also form only one sound. In some cases, the letter Ж may be soft, but this rule is an exception. In this case, another 37th sound appears – soft [ж’].
The ABC is the basis of the Russian language and grammar; therefore, a journey to the fascinating world of knowledge starts with studying letters.
Despite the fact that Russian is considered to be one of the most complicated languages in the world, studies may be turned into a game and help your to learn the alphabet quickly.