The Russian Alphabet: 33 Letters, Signs and Sounds

The Russian alphabet has 33 letters: 10 vowels, 21 consonants and two signs that have no sound of their own. It is Cyrillic, a true alphabet like English, so once you know the letters you can sound out almost any word. Several letters will already look familiar, some of them misleadingly. The harder part is stress, which is not written and changes how the vowels sound.

This guide uses the letters, names and sounds from our free Russian alphabet chart, and every practice word comes from our list of the 10,000 most common Russian words, with its rank.

#What kind of script is Russian?

Russian is written in Cyrillic, the script also used for Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian. Cyrillic was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire around the turn of the 10th century and reached the East Slavs with Christianity. Russian spelling has been reformed several times since. The last big reform, in 1918, removed old letters such as ѣ, і and ѳ and dropped the silent ъ that used to end many words. The 33 letters below are the result.

Like English, Russian writes vowels and consonants as equal letters. Unlike English, the spelling is fairly regular: a letter usually stands for the same sound, with a handful of predictable changes that we cover below.

#The Russian vowels: five pairs

Russian has 10 vowel letters, and they are easiest to learn as five pairs. The first letter in each pair is “hard”. The second is “soft”: at the start of a word or after a vowel it adds a y sound in front, and after a consonant it softens that consonant.

Two of these need extra attention. Ы has no English equivalent. Our chart describes it as the i in bill, said further back in the mouth; you’ll hear it in мы (we, #11), ты (you, #6) and вы (you, formal or plural, #13), so you’ll need it early. Ё is almost always stressed, but in everyday writing its two dots are usually left off and it is printed as a plain Е. Our word list shows this: ребенок (child) without the dots ranks higher (#695) than ребёнок with them (#1,256), and the same goes for еще (#67) and ещё (#96). Dictionaries, children’s books and learner materials print the dots; newspapers and most websites don’t.

#The Russian consonants

These are the 21 consonants from our chart.

Most consonants come in a hard and a soft version, and you don’t need a separate letter for each: the vowel or sign that follows tells you which one to say. A soft consonant is said with the middle of the tongue raised toward the roof of the mouth, as if a tiny y were starting.

Two spelling habits are worth knowing from day one. In the word что (what, #3), Ч is said like sh: shto. And in the endings -ого and -его, the Г is said like v: его (his, #22) is ye-VO, ничего (#74) is ni-chi-VO, and сегодня (today, #122) is si-VOD-nya.

#The hard sign and the soft sign

Ъ and Ь are the two letters with no sound of their own.

The soft sign, Ь, softens the consonant before it. It is everywhere, and it can change the meaning of a word. брат (#410) is brother; брать (#1,975) is to take. Common words ending in ь include день (day, #137), жизнь (life, #157), мать (mother, #313) and пять (five, #466).

The hard sign, Ъ, is much rarer. It appears between a prefix and a soft vowel and tells you to keep them apart: say the consonant, then a small y, then the vowel. съел (ate, #3,410) is s-yel, while сел (sat down, #4,131) has a soft s with no break. You’ll also see it in объявление (announcement, #4,609). The same letter is a full vowel in Bulgarian, one of the main differences covered in our Bulgarian alphabet guide.

#Stress and vowel reduction, briefly

Russian stress can fall on any syllable, it moves between forms of the same word, and it is not marked in normal writing. Learner materials sometimes add an accent mark over the stressed vowel. Wherever you learn a new word, learn its stress with it.

Stress matters because unstressed vowels change. In standard pronunciation:

• An unstressed о sounds like a. хорошо (well, #41) is kha-ra-SHO, and молоко (milk, #3,021) is ma-la-KO.
• Unstressed е and я move toward a short i. метро (#3,830) is closer to mi-TRO than me-tro.
• Voiced consonants at the end of a word lose their voice. хлеб (bread, #3,257) ends in a p sound: khlyep.

You don’t need all of this to start reading. Read letter by letter first, then let listening fix the details.

#The letters that look Latin but aren’t

Some Russian letters are honest twins of Latin ones, both in shape and in sound: А, К, М, О, Т. Е looks like E but, as above, usually sounds like ye.

Then come the false friends:

Lowercase adds a few more: п looks like n but is p, и looks like a backwards N and is ee, я looks like a backwards R, and ь looks like a small b but has no sound. In italics and handwriting it gets harder again: т looks like m, и like u, and д like g.

That is how a word like ресторан (#2,277) happens: in Latin letters it looks like pectopah, but it reads res-ta-RAN, restaurant. Likewise такси (#1,497) is tak-SI and метро is mi-TRO.

#Russian among the Cyrillic alphabets

Knowing Russian Cyrillic gets you most of the way to reading the other Cyrillic languages, but each one has its own letters. Ukrainian also has 33 letters, but not the same 33: it adds І, Ї, Є and Ґ and drops Ё, Ъ, Ы and Э. Bulgarian has 30 and no Ы, Э or Ё. Macedonian has 31, with Ѓ, Ќ, Ѕ, Љ, Њ and Џ, and spells every sound with exactly one letter. One word shows the differences:

Russian ночь (#380 on our list) ends in a soft sign. Ukrainian uses its own letter і, Bulgarian ends in щ, said sht, and Macedonian uses its own ќ. For shared vocabulary, see our Russian and Ukrainian word comparison.

#Read your first Russian words

Each of these is on our most common words list. The stressed syllable is in capitals.

Start with да, мама and дом: only А, М, О and two new letters. Then нет and привет for Н, Р, В and the ye sound of е. Then мы and ты for ы. хорошо and спасибо bring in stress and the a-sound of an unstressed о.

#A learning plan for the Russian alphabet

Keep the Russian alphabet chart open while you practice. After the letters comes vocabulary: the 10,000 most common Russian words, each with its English meaning. When you can read a few hundred of them, the Russian vocabulary test samples words from every part of the list and estimates how many you know.

Learning another script too? We have the same kind of guide for Bulgarian, Greek, Korean, Hindi, Bengali and Malayalam, or browse all our alphabet charts.

#Practice reading and speaking with native speakers

The alphabet gets you reading. Stress, soft consonants and ы come from hearing a person and being corrected. On LangX, Russian is one of the 182 languages you can pick, and matching runs both ways: you see people who speak Russian and are learning a language you speak.

9:41

Lucía M. Online

Today

Hold any message to correct it — corrections are the most useful thing you can send.

¿Cómo fue tu fin de semana? Cuéntame en inglés si quieres. How was your weekend? Tell me in English if you like. 09:12

Fui a la playa con mi hermana. Hacía mucho calor y yo no llevé agua. 09:14 · Read

Correction from Lucía Hacía mucho calor y yo no llevé agua. Hacía mucho calor y no llevé agua. The «yo» isn't wrong, it just sounds emphatic — like you specifically forgot. 09:15

Message in Spanish…

Write in Cyrillic from the start, even short messages, and your partner can hold any message to correct it. Corrections and replies are unlimited on every plan, and translation is built into the chat (20 a day on the free plan). LangX has voice and photo messages rather than live calls, so you can record a word until you are happy with it. The free plan includes 5 new conversations a day. If you want live calls or paid lessons instead, our roundup of the best apps to practice Russian with native speakers compares the options. To start, get the app and read how to do a language exchange.

#FAQ

#How many letters are in the Russian alphabet?

Thirty-three: 10 vowels, 21 consonants, and two signs, the hard sign ъ and the soft sign ь, which have no sound of their own.

#What do the hard and soft signs do in Russian?

The soft sign ь makes the consonant before it soft, and it can change the meaning: брат is brother, брать is to take. The hard sign ъ separates a consonant from the soft vowel after it, as in съел (ate).

#Which Russian letters look like English letters but sound different?

В (v), Н (n), Р (r), С (s), У (oo) and Х (kh), plus lowercase п (p), и (ee) and я (ya). А, К, М, О and Т look and sound much like English.

#Why does Russian о sometimes sound like a?

Because of vowel reduction. When о is not stressed, it is said like a: хорошо is kha-ra-SHO. Since stress isn’t written, learn each word with its stress.

#Is the Russian alphabet the same as the Bulgarian or Ukrainian one?

No. All three are Cyrillic, but Russian has 33 letters, Bulgarian 30 and Ukrainian 33 with a different set. Bulgarian reads ъ as a vowel and щ as sht; Ukrainian adds і, ї, є and ґ. See our Bulgarian alphabet guide for the details.