The Ukrainian Alphabet: 33 Letters and How to Read Them

The Ukrainian alphabet has 33 letters, written in Cyrillic. It is not the Russian alphabet with a few changes of accent: it has four letters Russian lacks (Ґ, Є, І and Ї) and does without four that Russian uses (Ё, Ъ, Ы and Э). Spelling is close to pronunciation, so once you know the letters you can read most words aloud, and the apostrophe and the soft sign tell you the rest.

This guide takes the letters, names and sounds from our free Ukrainian alphabet chart, and the practice words come from our list of the 10,000 most common Ukrainian words, with their ranks. If you already read Russian, keep our Russian alphabet guide at hand: the comparison below shows exactly what changes.

#What kind of script is Ukrainian?

Ukrainian is written in Cyrillic, the script it shares with Russian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian. Like the Latin alphabet, it is a true alphabet: vowels and consonants are equal letters written in a row, left to right.

Each Cyrillic language has tuned the script to its own sounds. In Ukrainian, the letter Ґ has the most eventful history: it was removed from the official alphabet in 1933 and restored in the 1990 edition of the Ukrainian orthography, which is how the alphabet reached its current 33 letters.

The spelling is kind to learners. A letter usually stands for one sound, and Ukrainian doesn’t weaken its unstressed о the way Russian does: голова (head, #700) is said ho-lo-VA, with three clear o’s.

#Ukrainian vs Russian vs Bulgarian: the letters compared

If you know one Cyrillic alphabet, this table is the shortcut. It compares the three alphabets we have guides for: Ukrainian, Russian and Bulgarian.

The first surprise for Russian readers is that the same letter can stand for different sounds. Russian и is ee; Ukrainian и is closer to the i in bill. Russian е is ye; Ukrainian е is a plain e, and the ye sound gets its own letter, є. Bulgarian, by contrast, uses no letter that Russian lacks, so the Ukrainian changes are the bigger adjustment.

For vocabulary, the similarity is large but not total. Our Russian and Ukrainian word comparison lists the common words the two share, and there is a Bulgarian and Ukrainian comparison too. One word shows how the spelling differs:

Ukrainian сьогодні (#145 on our list) writes the yo sound as ьо, says its г as h, and ends in і. Russian сегодня has a г that is said like v: si-VOD-nya.

#The Ukrainian vowels

Ukrainian has 10 vowel letters. Six stand for plain vowel sounds; four (я, ю, є, ї) add a y sound in front, or, after a consonant, soften it.

The pair to learn first is И and І, because both are everywhere. ти (you, #7) has the short i of bill; ні (no, #23) has the long ee. In the same way, син (son, #345) and сир (cheese, #2,030) have и, while кіт (cat, #2,918) and ніч (night, #485) have і.

Ї is always yee, and Russian has nothing like it: її (her, #58) is yee-YEE, їжа (food, #1,784) is YEE-zha. Є is ye: the tiny word є (there is, #49) is one of the most common on the list, and you’ll see it at the end of моє (my, #270).

#The Ukrainian consonants

These are the 22 consonants from our chart, plus the soft sign.

Two of these behave differently from what a Russian reader expects. В turns into a w-like sound at the end of a syllable: був (was, #59) and любов (love, #815) end in something close to English w. Щ is a real sh followed by a ch: що (what, that, #4) is shcho, and ще (still, more, #45) is shche.

#Г is a voiced h, and Ґ is the g

This is the letter that gives Ukrainian its sound. Г is not a g: it is an h said with the voice on, softer and breathier than English h. You’ll hear it in гарно (beautifully, #608), гроші (money, #220), говорити (to speak, #415) and голова (head, #700).

The hard g of go has its own letter, Ґ, and it is rare. It turns up in a few native words and in some loanwords: ґрати (bars, a grid, #7,502) and ґрунт (soil, #9,932) are the most common ones on our list, and both are far down. If you see a Г, say h; if you see a Ґ, say g.

Russian readers should also watch the word його (his, #29). In Russian, его is ye-VO. In Ukrainian, його is said yo-HO: the йо spells the yo sound, and the г is an h.

#The apostrophe, a letter separator

Ukrainian has no hard sign. Where Russian writes ъ to keep a consonant apart from the vowel after it, Ukrainian writes an apostrophe. It isn’t counted as a letter of the alphabet, but it is part of the spelling, and leaving it out is a mistake.

The apostrophe comes before я, ю, є and ї, and it tells you two things: the consonant before it stays hard, and the vowel after it starts with a clear y. It is used:

• after the lip consonants б, п, в, м, ф: м’ясо (meat) is m-YA-so, п’ять (five) is p-YAT’, сім’я (family) is sim-YA, and ім’я (name) is im-YA;
• after р at the end of a syllable, as in бур’ян (weed);
• after a prefix that ends in a consonant, as in під’їзд (entrance, of a building) and об’єкт (object).

Compare сім’я (family) with сім (seven, #342): the apostrophe adds a whole syllable. Some fonts and keyboards print it as a plain straight apostrophe; in carefully typeset text it is the modifier letter ʼ. Either way, read it the same. These apostrophe words don’t show up as whole words in our frequency list, but ім’я is behind the form імені (#1,346).

#The soft sign

The soft sign Ь has no sound of its own. It softens the consonant before it, meaning the middle of the tongue rises toward the roof of the mouth, as if a small y were starting. You’ll find it after д, т, з, с, ц, л and н, and never after the lip consonants, which is why those need the apostrophe instead.

Common words with the soft sign include день (day, #104), тільки (only, #82), кінь (horse, #1,819), сіль (salt, #5,454) and осінь (autumn, #6,225). Before о, the soft sign helps to spell the yo sound after a consonant, as in сьогодні (today, #145): Ukrainian has no ё, so it writes ьо after a consonant and йо elsewhere.

Ukrainian verbs are a good example of how Ukrainian and Russian differ here. Russian infinitives end in a soft sign (быть); Ukrainian ones end in -ти: бути (to be, #84), їсти (to eat, #723), говорити (to speak, #415).

#Stress, briefly

Stress is not written in normal Ukrainian text and can fall on any syllable, so learn each word with its stress. Dictionaries and learner books mark it with an accent. The good news, compared with Russian, is that an unstressed о stays an o, so a wrong stress rarely makes a word unreadable. Voiced consonants also generally stay voiced at the end of a word, so друг (friend, #227) ends in the h of г rather than a k or kh.

#Read your first Ukrainian words

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

Start with мама, так and брат: only letters that look and sound familiar. Then ні and привіт for і, ти and мати for и, and голова for the Ukrainian г. Watch дякую: it starts with a soft д, like the d of dew in British English.

#A learning plan for the Ukrainian alphabet

Keep the Ukrainian alphabet chart open while you work through this. After the letters comes vocabulary: start with the 10,000 most common Ukrainian words, and when you can read a few hundred of them, take the Ukrainian vocabulary test for an estimate of how many words you know.

Learning another script too? There are guides for Russian, Bulgarian, Greek, Georgian, Armenian, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Korean, Hindi, Bengali and Malayalam, or browse all our alphabet charts.

#Practice reading and speaking with native speakers

The alphabet gets you reading. Hearing the difference between и and і, or getting г right, takes a person who will tell you when you are off. On LangX, Ukrainian is one of the 182 languages you can choose, and matching runs both ways: you see people who speak Ukrainian 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 Ukrainian Cyrillic from your first message, apostrophes included, and let your partner hold a 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, which also includes 5 new conversations a day). LangX has voice and photo messages rather than live calls, so you can record a word until you are happy with it. To start, get the app, and read how to do a language exchange before your first chat.

#FAQ

#How many letters are in the Ukrainian alphabet?

Thirty-three. That’s the same number as Russian, but not the same set: Ukrainian has Ґ, Є, І and Ї, and does not use Ё, Ъ, Ы or Э. The apostrophe is used in spelling but not counted as a letter.

#What is the difference between the Ukrainian and Russian alphabets?

Four letters each way, plus several letters that are shared but said differently. In Ukrainian, Г is h, И is the i in bill and Е is a plain e. Ukrainian uses an apostrophe where Russian uses the hard sign ъ. See the table above and our Russian alphabet guide.

#How do you pronounce Г in Ukrainian?

As a voiced h, softer than English h and said with the voice on: голова is ho-lo-VA. The hard g sound is written with a separate, rare letter, Ґ.

#What does the apostrophe do in Ukrainian?

It separates a hard consonant from the vowel that follows. It comes before я, ю, є and ї, after б, п, в, м, ф, after р at the end of a syllable, and after prefixes: м’ясо, п’ять, сім’я, під’їзд.

#Is Ukrainian easier to read than Russian?

In some ways, yes. Unstressed о stays an o, so words sound closer to how they are spelled. You still need to learn stress, which is not written in either language.