Russian alphabet

Russian alphabet

Short introduction to Russian letters and sounds

There are 33 letters in Russian alphabet, but there are much more sounds then letters in Russian language. A few Russian sounds are slightly different to English equivalents but some have no equivalent in English language at all. (see the table Russian alphabet below).

The consonant letters represent both "soft" (palatalised, and "hard" phonemes, depending (with some exceptions) on whether the iotated or softening vowel letters follow. The transcriptions of the names of the letters attempt to reflect the reduction of non-stressed vowels. See Russian pronunciation section for details.

When you start practising reading in Russian words please note that four vowels e, ё, ю and я sound the same as in Russian Alphabet (a combination of two sounds like [je], [jo], [ju] and [ja]) if they are placed:
1. at the beginning of a word: юг [ju], я [ja];
2. after a vowel: моё [jo], моя [ja];
3. after ь and ъ : друзья [ja], съесть [je].

However, after a soft consonant these letters e, ё, ю and я make only one sound: [e], [о], [u] and [a], for example: нет [н'ет], люди [л'уд'и].

Click here to listen and repeat Russian Alphabet.