Alphabets
The Russian alphabet алфавит
Meet every letter of the Russian alphabet, hear how it sounds and see it in simple words.
About Russian
Russian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet (кириллица) from left to right. Some letters look like Latin ones but sound different – В is "v", Н is "n", Р is "r", С is "s" – and some are new, such as Ж (zh), Ш (sh) and Щ (shch). Each vowel has a hard and a soft form: а/я, о/ё, у/ю, э/е, ы/и. The soft sign ь softens the consonant before it.
- 33
- letters
- 10
- vowels
- 21
- consonants
- 2
- signs ъ ь
Vowels гласные
Ten vowels in hard and soft pairs. Tap a letter to hear it.
Consonants согласные
The consonants of Russian. Tap a letter to hear it.
Look familiar К М Т
same shape and sound as in English
False friends В Н Р С Х
look Latin, sound different
New shapes Б Г Д Ж З Л П Ф
letters from Greek and other sources
Hissing sounds Ц Ч Ш Щ Й
ts, ch, sh, shch and y
Signs знаки
no sound of their own
Stress is not written, but it changes how vowels sound: in молоко (milk) only the last о is said "o".
Ready to type in Russian?
Write these letters with the on-screen keyboard, learn where they are with typing lesson 1, or translate your first sentence.