The Russian alphabet is always considered somewhat exotic for any student who encounters the Cyrillic script for the first time. But even though it might seem frightening, the analogies with a Latin-script alphabet may be found and the phonetic system is not entirely different, which make it is still quite comprehensible. In the end of this article you are going to be able to distinguish and pronounce correctly the sounds encrypted by the Russian alphabet.
How it all started
Let's get some historical perspective on the appearance and development of the Russian alphabet. In the 9th century two Byzantine monks Cyril and Methodius wanted to convert some slavic pagan tribes to Christianity, so they needed to translate the Holy Bible for Eastern-European people. In order to do that they came up with a sign system which would reflect the sounds these tribes used in their speech - Glagolitsa. This alphabet was later developed into the Cyrillic alphabet which consisted of the letters from Glagolitsa as well as Greek and Latin alphabets. This alphabet is still used in Church Slavonic language - a language used for liturgical books and services in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
The structure
In the modern Russian alphabet there are 33 letters.
Note! Only 31 of them can be uttered as a sound. Ъ - "твердый знак" or "hard sound" and Ь - "мягкий знак" or "soft sound" are there only to change the softness of preceding consonant. So let's forget about them for a moment.
We'll divide Russian letters into three categories:
- 5 letters which have equivalents in English by the way they look and the way they sound:
А а - [a] - as a in father
К к - [k] - as c in cool
М м - [m] - as m in money
О о - [о] - as o in more
Т т - [t] - as t in tape
- 7 letters which look like English letters but sound different:
В в - [v] - as v in video
Е е - [je] - as ye in yes
Н н - [n] - as n in nose
Р р - [r] - rolled r
С с - [s] - as s in sea
У у - [u] - as oo in book
Х х - [x] - as h in house
- 19 letters that don't look like English letters but might sound familiar
Б б - [b] - as b in bank
Г г - [ɡ] - as g in go
Д д - [d] - as d in donkey
Ё ё - [jo] - as yo in yogurt
Ж ж - [ʐ] - as su in pleasure
З з - [z] - as z in zebra
И и - [i] - as ee in feel
Й й - [j] - as y in boy
Л л - [ɫ] - as l in late
П п - [p] - as p in sport
Ф ф - [f] - as f in face
Ц ц - [ts] - as ts in tsar
Ч ч - [tɕ] - as ch in chair
Ш ш - [ʂ] - as sh in shop
Щ щ - [ɕː] - close to sh in sheep
ы - [ɨ] - close to e in roses
Э э - [e] - as e in bet
Ю ю - [ju] - as you
Я я - [ja] - as ya in yard
Some helpful links
A YouTube video where they slowly pronounce every letter and give three words as examples. Useful for the beginning.
As soon as you are confident with most Russian letters try to learn how to pronounce soft and hard versions of consonants. Almost all of the consonants can sound softer or harder depending on the situation. This video will help to get through this peculiarities.
This video is extremely useful for those struggling to understand how to pronounce Ы and where is the difference between И and Ы. Basically, the only thing that can really help you here is practice, but getting some visual perspective might do as well.