Russian letters and sounds - lesson one :)

[russian_pianist]

Hello Everyone!

Здравствуйте! Привет!

Can you read Russian? Are you familiar with the Cyrillic Alphabet?

If not so, this post can serve as a quick lesson, or even just as a reminder on what the letters are and how they are pronounced.

It is quite interesting to mention, that in Russian words ALL letters are read, or sounded with just a couple of exceptions. For example, in the word "ЗдраВствуйте!", letter "В" is mute, it is not pronounced, just because the language does not like 4 consonants put in a row. This is quite different from the English or French words where quite a few written letters are not pronounced.

Here we go - from the very beginning:

А а    Alligator, car, after 

Б б    bit, bat, blue

В в    vine, vet, voice

Г г    go, guard, good

Д д  do, dog, double

Е е  yet, yes

Ё ё  York, yolk, yonder

Is it getting any harder?

Did you notice, that some letter do not have analogues in English, for example?

It seems hard to learn Russian sounds and you may want to have a real-life teacher for the first few lessons, at least, to see how the sounds are made and to hear how they are connected into words.

Here is a link to an exceptionally well done explanation of the Russian alphabet :

http://www.russianforeveryone.com/RufeA/Lessons/Introduction/Alphabet/Alphabet.htm

Enjoy! and Best of Luck!

Remember, scribble the strange looking letters every time you have a second for a few days - and they will stay in your memory forever.

Bye!

Talk to you soon.

Any questions - do no hesitate to ask.

[linguaholic]

It is quite interesting to mention, that in Russian words ALL letters are read, or sounded with just a couple of exceptions. For example, in the word "ЗдраВствуйте!", letter "В" is mute, it is not pronounced, just because the language does not like 4 consonants put in a row. This is quite different from the English or French words where quite a few written letters are not pronounced.

That's really an interesting fact about Russian. I didn't know that before. I am following your Russian lessons and I hope I can pick up the basics! This lesson has been fairly simple, I am sure it is getting much more complicated soon  :wacky:

[russian_pianist]

Thank you, Linguqholic!

Спасибо! Good to know that someone is actually reading this forum!

Best of luck in learning Russian.

Let me know if you have any questions - I'll be more than happy to help.

До свидания! (Good Bye) = Пока! (Bye! - very informal, widely used)