The Russian alphabet consists of thirty letters and three symbols. This is a bit confusing, but you can figure it out. (A few of these letters were not displaying properly no matter what, so I replaced them with Roman letters that look the same.)
The Russian alphabet consists of thirty letters and three symbols. This is a bit confusing, but you can figure it out. (A few of these letters were not displaying properly no matter what, so I replaced them with Roman letters that look the same.)
а — ah, as in far
б — b
в — v
г — g
д — d
е — yeh, as in yes
Ñ‘ — yoh; if present, this vowel is always stressed
ж — zh, like g in massage
з — z
и — ee, as in feet
й — short ee, like y in yes
к — k
л — l
м — m
н — n
о — oh, not like oa in boat, closer to o in office
п — p
Ñ€ — r
Ñ — s
Ñ‚ — t
y — oo, as in shoe
Ñ„ — f
x — kh, like ch in German loch
ц — ts, as in cats
ч — ch, as in chop
ш — sh, as in hash
щ — shch (or sch), sort of like sh ch in fresh cheese, but blurred together
Ñ — eh, as in bet
ÑŽ — yoo
Ñ — yah (this sound alone means “I”)
Russian pronunciation is difficult in that most consonants can be pronounced two different ways, soft and hard. Consonants are soft or hard depending on the letter following them; soft vowels are those with a “y” sound at the beginning. Soft consonants usually involve placing the tongue further up against the roof of the mouth, but not always.
Notes: The letters x, ш, ж, ц are always hard. The letters ч, щ are always soft.
Russian also has three symbols, which are not considered proper letters:
ÑŠ — hard sign; the preceding consonant is hard.
ÑŒ — soft sign; the preceding consonant is soft.
Ñ‹ — called “yery” (еры); the sound is not familiar to the English language, but (as said in the post) can be deduced by looking at the difference between ee and i in beet and bit, and then making the sound even further back in the mouth.
That is the Russian alphabet. It took me two weeks of daily practice, with a native speaker drawing tongue and mouth formations on a blackboard, to be able to comfortably sound out Russian words.