Lesson 003

Soft sign (Ь) and hard sign (Ъ)

Now you’ve already learned 31 Russian letters – almost the whole Russian alphabet. There are just 2 letters left to learn, they are neither vowels nor consonants. They don’t even have their own sound. So what are they? We call them signs: the hard sign and the soft sign.

the hard sign:
Ъ ъ (твёрдый знак) [tvyór-dyî znak]

the soft sign:
Ь ь (мягкий знак) [myáh-keeî znak]

What do they do?

The soft sign makes the preceding consonant sound soft. The idea of “softening” can be illustrated by the letter N in such words as “now” and “new”: N sounds harder in “now” and softer in “new”.

Not only the soft sign can make a consonant sound soft. The soft vowels that we learned in the first lesson do that to. So the hard sign, in its turn, makes the preceding consonant sound hard even if the following vowel is supposed to soften it.

Russian Pod 101

Listen to the audio and compare the pronunciation:

кон – конь
[kon – kon’]
game – horse

у́гол – у́голь
[ú-gal – ú-gal’]
corner – coal

сесть – съесть
[syest’ – s-yest’]
to sit – to eat

объе́кт
[ab-yékt]
object

In transcriptions, we mark the soft consonants with an apostrophe ‘. The consonants hardened by the hard sign are separated in transcriptions from the softening vowels with a dash.

That’s it! Now you know all the 33 letters of the Russian alphabet!

It’s time to recap: listen to the audio and repeat the letters after it.

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А а [а]
Б б [b]
В в [v]
Г г [g]
Д д [d]
Е е [ye]
Ё ё [yo]
Ж ж [zh]
З з [z]
И и [ee]
Й й [î]
К к [k]
Л л [l]
М м [m]
Н н [n]
О о [o]
П п [p]
Р р [r]
С с [s]
Т т [t]
У у [u]
Ф ф [f]
Х х [h]
Ц ц [ts]
Ч ч [ch]
Ш ш [sh]
Щ щ [sch]
ъ the hard sign (твёрдый знак)
ы [y]
ь the soft sign (мягкий знак)
Э э [e]
Ю ю [yu]
Я я [ya]

Now you have finished your first important step of your journey to learn Russian.

Update: we have also created the whole site to learn the Russian alphabet easy and free. Don’t hesitate to check it out!

Russian Alphabet

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12 comments on “003 – Soft sign (Ь) and hard sign (Ъ)”

  1. Oussama Ahmedou Mayah says:

    thank you very much
    do you have an App

    1. Learn Russian Step by Step says:

      Hello Oussama,

      Thanks for your comment.

      No, we don’t have an app. But we have a whole network of free websites for those learning Russian: https://learnrussian101.com/network/

      I hope you can find it interesting and useful. 🙂

  2. Donald says:

    I don’t understand what the hard sign does. In a word like субъект (subject), what is the hard sign’s function? I think I pronounce it like субект.

    1. Learn Russian Step by Step says:

      Hello Donald,

      Hard sign creates a break between preceding consonant and following vowel. If the following vowel is soft, the softness does not pass to the consonant but stays with the vowel.

      съесть – s-yest’ (to eat)
      сесть – syest’ (to sit)

      You can compare the pronunciation here.

      (Click on the sound icon to listen)

  3. Luigi says:

    I understand what you say but when I go in the ‘real world’ (I mean the Russian language) things do not look like what you describe.

    Let’s take one Russian word such as бурьян (weeds). Now we find a soft sign after the letter р to make it soft, but the following vowel is a soft one я so by the rule the p was already soft. Why do we need another soft sign, just to reiterate that this consonant is very soft, twice soft or what ??

    1. Learn Russian Step by Step says:

      Hello Luigi,

      If there was no Ь in the word бурьян, it would be бурян and would be pronounced as bu-ryán. Ь adds a stop between Р and Я, so it’s bur’-yán.

      You can type both words in Google Translate and listen to the pronunciation to hear the difference.

  4. Anjali says:

    Does anyone know how to make the hard sign in Russian on an Acer chromebook

    1. Learn Russian Step by Step says:

      Hello Anjali,

      We don’t have an Acer chromebook, but usually, when you select the Russian keyboard in your settings, the hard sign is under the character “]” on the right side of the keyboard.

  5. Srinivasan says:

    how ti meet russion people

    1. Learn Russian Step by Step says:

      Please check out this website: http://russianpenpal.com/en/learn-russian/

  6. Farheena sleem says:

    It’s really helpful as I am a beginner and now I know quiet a bit of Russian. ..Thanks to u

    1. Learn Russian Step by Step says:

      Hello Farheena,

      Thanks for the comment and welcome to the site! 🙂

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