Document

Get acquainted with Russian phonetics!
The goal of this course is to acquaint international
students with letters of Russian alphabet as well as the
sounds they denote before the students start learning the
rules of reading and writing.
Alphabet, letters, sounds
Introduction
Dear friends!
Welcome to the world of Russian!
This presentation will acquaint you with the Russian
alphabet, its letters, and sounds.
Look, listen and read the comments.
Please click the icon for listening.
Good luck!
Russian language in the world
Russian is an official language in the Russian
Federation and one of the 6 official languages of the
United Nations.
Russian is spoken as a first language by 300 million
people all over the world. More than 140 million of
speakers are Russian citizens.
Creation of the Salvonic Alphabet
Slavonic Alphabet, or Cyrillic script, was created in
the IX century by enlightened Greek scholars – brothers
Cyril and Methodius.
The Cyrillic alphabet is used for writing the following
languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian and some
others Slavic languages.
Slavonic Literature and Culture Day
This date is celebrated on 24th of May in Russia and in
other Slavonic countries.
This day is also known as a commemoration day of
the two Slavonic enlighteners Saints Cyril and
Methodius, creators of Slavonic Alphabet.
The founders of Slavonic Writing, Saints Cyril and Methodius
Monument to Saints Cyril and Methodius in
the Russian city of Volgograd
Alphabet
The modern Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters.
Note! In Russian textbooks, you will find two kinds
of printing styles– standard and italic, which differ
from one other. The differences between these two
printing styles are particularly noticeable in the
following lower case letters: 4th (г/г), 5th (д/д), 10th (и/и),
11th (й/й), 17th (п/п), and 20th (т/т).
Letters and sounds
А, Б, В, Г
Letters
 1. А а
sounds
[а]
names of letters
а
Аа
 2. Б б
Бб
[б]
бэ
 3. В в
Вв
[в]
вэ
 4. Г г
Гг
[г]
гэ
Д, Е, Ё, Ж
 5. Д д
Дд
[д]
дэ
 6. Е е
Ее
[йэ]
е
 7. Ё ё
Ёё
[йо]
ё
 8. Ж ж
Ж ж [ж]
жэ
З, И, Й, К
 9. З з
Зз
[з]
зэ
 10. И и
Ии
[и]
и
 11. Й й
Йй
[й]
 12. К к
Кк
[к]
и краткое (йот)
ка
Л, М, Н, О
 13. Л л
Лл
[л]
эль
 14. М м
Мм
[м]
эм
 15. Н н
Нн
[н]
эн
 16. О о
Оо
[о]
о
П, Р, С, Т
 17. П п
Пп
[п]
пэ
 18. Р р
Рр
[р]
эр
 19. С с
Сс
[c]
эс
 20. Т т
Тт
[т]
тэ
У, Ф, Х, Ц
 21. У у
Уу
[у]
у
 22. Ф ф
Фф
[ф]
эф
 23. Х х
Хх
[х]
ха
 24. Ц ц
Цц
[ц]
цэ
Ч, Ш, Щ
 25. Ч ч
Чч
[ч’]
че
 26. Ш ш
Шш
[ш]
ша
 27. Щ щ
Щщ
[ш’ш’]
ща
ъ, ы, ь
 28. ъ
ъ
----
твёрдый знак
 29. ы
ы
[ы]
ы
 30. ь
ь
----
мягкий знак
Э, Ю, Я
 31. Э э
Ээ
[э]
э
 32. Ю ю
Юю
[йу]
ю
 33. Я я
Яя
[йа]
я
Comments
1) Transcriptions are written in brackets […].
2) An apostrophe (’) marks softness in a consonant.
3) A letter is a unit of writing, a sound is a unit of
speech.
NB!
1) The letters ъ, ы, ь (28, 29, 30) don’t have upper
case equivalents, because no Russian words begin
with these letters.
2) The letter Ё ё (7) often looks like Е е (6)!
Classification of the letters of the Russian
alphabet and the sounds denoted by them
Vowels
10 letters denote vowels:
А (1), Е (6), Ё (7), И (10), О (16),
У (21), Ы (29), Э (31), Ю (32), Я (33)
Consonants
21 letters denote consonants:
Б(2), В (3), Г (4), Д (5), Ж (8),
З (9), Й (11), К (12) , Л (13), М (14),
Н (15), П (17) , Р (18), С (19) , Т (20) ,
Ф (22), Х (23), Ц (24), Ч (25), Ш (26), Щ (27)
Signs
ь – soft sign (28)
ъ – hard sign (30)
Classification of vowels
These 6 letters
А [а], О [о], У [у], Ы [ы], Э [э], И [и]
each represent a single one vowel sound.
These 4 letters
Е [йэ/’э], Ё [йо/’о], Ю [йу/’у], Я[йа/’а]
denote either one vowel sound or two (й+ vowel),
depending on their position in a word.
Classification of consonants
These 12 letters represent voiced and voiceless
consonant pairs :
Б (2) – П (17) В (3) – Ф (22)
Г (4) – К (12)
Д (5) – Т (20) Ж (8) – Ш (26) З (9) – С (19)
Note!
The voiced consonants (Б, В, Г, Д, Ж, З) represent
sounds produced using voice and noise, while the
voiceless consonants (П, Ф, К, Т, Ш, С) are produced
using noise only.
Unpaired consonants
5 letters denote voiced unpaired consonants:
Й (11), Л (13), М (14), Н (15), Р (18)
4 letters denote voiceless unpaired consonants:
Х (23), Ц (24), Ч (25), Щ (27)
NB! The voiced consonants denote sounds, produced
by voice and noise, while the voiceless consonants are
produced by noise only.
Soft sign (ь) and hard sign (ъ)
The signs ь and ъ perform either phonetic or
orthographic functions.
(See Module 2 «System of letters and sounds»).
Watch this animation and listen to this children's song about the
Russian alphabet! Learn it by heart!
(Left-click on your mouse!)
List of references
1. Кедрова Г.Е. и др. Интернет-учебник по русской
фонетике. URL: http://www.philol.msu.ru/rus/galya1/index1.htm
2. Кирилл и Мефодий. URL:
http://www.krugosvet.ru/node/35197
3. Кириллица. URL:
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Кириллица
4. Шустикова Т.В. Вводный фонетикограмматический курс русского языка для лиц,
говорящих по-английски. URL:
http://www.linguarus.com/ru/materials/lessons/of
Text and presentation by I. Shigina
Sound recording by E. Panferova
Translation consultants: Karen Chilstrom (USA),
A. Leonov, PhD