Get acquainted with Russian phonetics! The goal of this course is to acquaint international students with letters of Russian alphabet as well as the sounds they denote before the students start learning the rules of reading and writing.

Alphabet, letters, sounds

Introduction Dear friends! Welcome to the world of Russian! This presentation will acquaint you with the Russian alphabet, its letters, and sounds. Look, listen and read the comments. Please click the icon for listening. Good luck!

Russian language in the world Russian is an official language in the Russian Federation and one of the 6 official languages of the United Nations. Russian is spoken as a first language by 300 million people all over the world. More than 140 million of speakers are Russian citizens.

Creation of the Salvonic Alphabet Slavonic Alphabet, or Cyrillic script, was created in the IX century by enlightened Greek scholars – brothers Cyril and Methodius. The Cyrillic alphabet is used for writing the following languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian and some others Slavic languages.

Slavonic Literature and Culture Day This date is celebrated on 24 th of May in Russia and in other Slavonic countries. This day is also known as a commemoration day of the two Slavonic enlighteners Saints Cyril and Methodius, creators of Slavonic Alphabet.

The founders of Slavonic Writing, Saints Cyril and Methodius

Monument to Saints Cyril and Methodius in the Russian city of Volgograd

Alphabet The modern Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. Note! In Russian textbooks, you will find two kinds of printing styles– standard and italic, which differ from one other. The differences between these two printing styles are particularly noticeable in the following lower case letters: 4 th (г/г), 5 th (д/д), 10 th (и/и), 11 th (й/й), 17 th (п/п), and 20 th (т/т).

Letters and sounds А, Б, В, Г Letters sounds names of letters 1. А а А а [а]а 2. Б б Б б [б]бэ 3. В вВ в [в] вэ 4. Г г Г г [г] гэ

Д, Е, Ё, Ж 5. Д дД д [д]дэ 6. Е еЕ е [йэ]е 7. Ё ёЁ ё [йо] ё 8. Ж ж Ж ж [ж] жэ

З, И, Й, К 9. З з З з [з] зэ 10. И и И и [и]и 11. Й й Й й [й] и краткое (йот) 12. К к К к [к]ка

Л, М, Н, О 13. Л л Л л [л]эль 14. М м М м [м]эм 15. Н н Н н [н]эн 16. О о О о [о]о

П, Р, С, Т 17. П п П п[п]пэ 18. Р р Р р[р]эр 19. С с С с[c] эс 20. Т т Т т [т]тэ

У, Ф, Х, Ц 21. У у У у[у]у 22. Ф ф Ф ф[ф] эф 23. Х х Х х[х] ха 24. Ц ц Ц ц[ц] цэ

Ч, Ш, Щ 25. Ч ч Ч ч [ч’] че 26. Ш ш Ш ш [ш] ша 27. Щ щ Щ щ [ш’ш’] ща

ъ, ы, ь 28. ъ ъ ----твёрдый знак 29. ы ы [ы]ы 30. ь ь ----мягкий знак

Э, Ю, Я 31. Э э Э э[э]э 32. Ю ю Ю ю[йу]ю 33. Я я Я я [йа]я

Comments 1) Transcriptions are written in brackets […]. 2) An apostrophe (’) marks softness in a consonant. 3) A letter is a unit of writing, a sound is a unit of speech.

NB! 1) The l etters ъ, ы, ь (28, 29, 30) don’t have upper case equivalents, because no Russian words begin with these letters. 2) The letter Ё ё (7) often looks like Е е (6)!

Classification of the letters of the Russian alphabet and the sounds denoted by them Vowels 10 letters denote vowels: А (1), Е (6), Ё (7), И (10), О (16), У (21), Ы (29), Э (31), Ю (32), Я (33)

Consonants 21 letters denote consonants: Б(2), В (3), Г (4), Д (5), Ж (8), З (9), Й (11), К (12), Л (13), М (14), Н (15), П (17), Р (18), С (19), Т (20), Ф (22), Х (23), Ц (24), Ч (25), Ш (26), Щ (27)

Signs ь – soft sign (28) ъ – hard sign (30)

Classification of vowels These 6 letters А [а], О [о], У [у], Ы [ы], Э [э], И [и] each represent a single one vowel sound. These 4 letters Е [йэ/’э], Ё [йо/’о], Ю [йу/’у], Я[йа/’а] denote either one vowel sound or two (й+ vowel), depending on their position in a word.

Classification of consonants These 12 letters represent voiced and voiceless consonant pairs : Б (2) – П (17) В (3) – Ф (22) Г (4) – К (12) Д (5) – Т (20) Ж (8) – Ш (26) З (9) – С (19) Note! The voiced consonants (Б, В, Г, Д, Ж, З) represent sounds produced using voice and noise, while the voiceless consonants (П, Ф, К, Т, Ш, С) are produced using noise only.

Unpaired consonants 5 letters denote voiced unpaired consonants: Й (11), Л (13), М (14), Н (15), Р (18) 4 letters denote voiceless unpaired consonants: Х (23), Ц (24), Ч (25), Щ (27) NB! The voiced consonants denote sounds, produced by voice and noise, while the voiceless consonants are produced by noise only.

Soft sign (ь) and hard sign (ъ) The signs ь and ъ perform either phonetic or orthographic functions. (See Module 2 «System of letters and sounds»).

Watch this animation and listen to this children's song about the Russian alphabet! Learn it by heart! (Left-click on your mouse!)

List of references 1. Кедрова Г.Е. и др. Интернет-учебник по русской фонетике. URL: 1/index1.htm 2. Кирилл и Мефодий. URL: 3. Кириллица. URL: 4. Шустикова Т.В. Вводный фонетико- грамматический курс русского языка для лиц, говорящих по-английски. URL:

Text and presentation by I. Shigina Sound recording by E. Panferova Translation consultants: Karen Chilstrom (USA), A. Leonov, PhD