Russian Alphabet

Russian Alphabet (Cyrillic Alphabet)

This page contains a table including the following: Russian alphabet also called Cyrillic, letters which help you pronounce the words in a given language, you will also learn about the different consonants and vowels. Make sure to check our Russian Phrases page, which might help you in your learning process.

Russian Alphabet
А а	a as in "apple"	Р р	r as in "Russian"
Б б	b as in "boy"	С с	s as in "small"
В в	v as in "very"	Т т	t as in "Turkish"
Г г	g as in "God"	У у	u as in "ultra" or “ou”
Д д	d as in "day"	Ф ф	f as in "French"
Е е	y as in "yo!"	Х х	kh as in the Scottish "loch"
Ё ё	y as in "yell"	Ц ц	ts as in "tsunami"
Ж ж	Zh or as s in “pleasure”	Ч ч	ch as in "child"
З з	z as in "zero"	Ш ш	sh as in "shy"
И и	e as in "Easter"	Щ щ	shsh as in "rush show"
Й й	y as in "yoga"	ъ	not pronounced (called hard sign)
К к	k as in "kiss"	Ы ы	i as in "sir"
Л л	l as in "look"	ь	not pronounced (called soft sign)
М м	m as in "mild"	Э э	e as in "explain"
Н н	n as in "nice"	Ю ю	u as in "university" not as in "up"
О о	o as in "October"	Я я	ya as in "yahoo"
П п	p as in "play"

Don’t confuse these Russian letters:

Ё ё	yo	(yo) the yo is very thick.
Й й	io	(io) as in yoga (the io is normal)
Ю ю	iu	(iu) the iu is sharper

Russian Alphabet Rules

Russian has 33 letters, 11 Vowels, 20 consonants and 2 unpronounced signs, the good news is that Russian words sound the same way they’re written most of the time, so you will not make that many mistakes spelling or pronouncing them.

Note that the capital letters in Russian look the same as the lower case characters, with the exception of cursive capital letter and lower case, check out the table below, you will notice that all Russian letters look the same in Capital and lower case letters, with the exception of the ones in the blue font, where the capital letters are different than the lower case letters.

Russian Letters (Capital letters and lower case letters)

А а

Б б

В в

Е е

Ё ё

Ж ж

З з

К к

Л л

М м

Н н

О о

П п

Р р

Д д

Й й

Г г

С с

У у

Ф ф

Х х

Ц ц

Ч ч

Ш ш

Щ щ

Ъ ъ

Ы ы

Ь ь

Э э

Ю ю

Я я

И и

Т т

Some other Russian alphabet rules that you need to follow is that after: Ш, Щ, Ж, Ч, Г, Х, & К, write И instead of Ы (called the 7 letters rule), also after Ш, Щ, Ж, Ч, Ц, don’t write O if it’s unaccented, write E (called the 5 letters rule), and finally after Ш, Щ, Ж, Ч, we shouldn’t write Я or Ю, but А or У instead.

I hope the content of this page was useful to you, and that you learned some Russian alphabet, consonants and vowels. Try to memorize them to be able to use them in your daily conversation.