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.
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.
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!
The offline version of this lesson is available here
Start the quiz-
Question # 1
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Question # 2
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Question # 3
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Question # 4Choose what you hear
- cубьект
- cубект
- cубъект
- cубъекть
Answered: 0 out of 8Next
Correct answers: 0 (0%)
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Question # 5Choose what you hear
- гестогаи
- реsтораи
- ресторан
- пестопан
Answered: 0 out of 8Next
Correct answers: 0 (0%)
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Question # 6
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Question # 7Choose what you hear
- интернет
- iитегиет
- ихтерхет
- интепнет
Answered: 0 out of 8Next
Correct answers: 0 (0%)
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Question # 8Choose what you hear
- ве́тер
- бе́тег
- ле́тер
- vе́тег
Answered: 0 out of 8
Correct answers: 0 (0%)
More lessons on the Russian alphabet
- Russian alphabet: vowels
- Russian alphabet: consonants
- Soft sign (Ь) and hard sign (Ъ)
- Russian pronunciation rules
- Accent marks in Russian words
thank you very much
do you have an App
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. 🙂
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.
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)
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 ??
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.
Does anyone know how to make the hard sign in Russian on an Acer chromebook
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.
how ti meet russion people
Please check out this website: http://russianpenpal.com/en/learn-russian/
It’s really helpful as I am a beginner and now I know quiet a bit of Russian. ..Thanks to u
Hello Farheena,
Thanks for the comment and welcome to the site! 🙂