DenRus Ltd St Petersburg Shore Excursions

The Russian alphebet looks exotic to westerners because it uses several unfamilar letters and has 7 more characters than the Latin alphabet. In many ways it is easier to master than it would first appear. You will notice a number of letters are the same in form as well as sound Latin characters in English. Reading signs with only a few hours of memorizing the Cyrillic alphebet often reveals words when sounded out are actually borrowed directly from European languages, primarily English. Each letters, unless modified by the Soft or Hard sound character is pronounced the same in any way in each word, so spelling out a word phonetically often being recognized as soon as you sound it out. Stop, Cafe, Restaurant, Toilet are just a few words you will known in Russian when sounded out.

Capital Letter	Small Letter	Name in Russian	Sounds in English
А	а	a	aa
Б	б	be	b
В	в	ve	v
Г	г	ge	g
Д	д	de	d
Е	е	ye	ye
Ё	ё	yo	yo
Ж	ж	zhe	zh
З	з	ze	z
И	и	i (ee)	i
Й	й	j (yi)	y
К	к	ka	k
Л	л	el	l
М	м	em	m
Н	н	en	n
О	о	o	o
П	п	pe	p
Р	р	er	r
С	с	es	s
Т	т	te	t
У	у	u	u
Ф	ф	ef	f
Х	х	ha	h
Ц	ц	tse	ts
Ч	ч	che	ch
Ш	ш	sha	sh
Щ	щ	shcha	shch
Ъ	ъ	-	pronunciation mark – hard
Ы	ы	yi	y/ i
Ь	ь	-	pronunciation mark - soft
Э	э	e	e
Ю	ю	yu	yu ("you")
Я	я	ya	yaa

Note that the small letters quite often look identical to the capital letters, except just being smaller in size.

St Petersburg Russia

DenRus:2010 Russian Alphabet