Russian alphabet: consonants
In the previous lesson we have learned 10 Russian vowels. Today we will get familiar with the Russian consonants.
There are 21 consonants in the Russian alphabet. Some of them form pairs as the vowels do, others do not.
6 pairs of Russian consonants
Consonants in Russian can be voiced or voiceless.
To explain the concept of voiced and voiceless consonants, let’s take the English letters V and F. To pronounce them both, you put your lips in the same position, but for the V you make a sound with your vocal cords, and for the F you don’t. So the V is voiced and the F is voiceless.
Study the letters below and notice that one is a voiceless counterpart of the other:
Voiced | Voiceless |
---|---|
Б б [b] | П п [p] |
В в [v] | Ф ф [f] |
Г г [g] | К к [k] or Х х [h] |
Д д [d] | Т т [t] |
Ж ж [zh] | Ш ш [sh] |
З з [z] | С с [s] |
Being able to distinguish between voiced and voiceless consonants will help you to master the Russian pronunciation.
Other Russian consonants
For the rest of the consonants, it is not important whether they are voiced or voiceless.
So let’s just learn them as they are:
Й й – [î] (also called “и краткое” which means i short; like ‘y’ in ‘boy’)
Л л – [l] (like English ‘l’)
М м – [m] (like English ‘m’)
Н н – [n] (like English ‘n’)
Р р – [r] (a rolled sound ‘r’, like in Spanish)
Ц ц – [ts] (like ‘ts’ in “it’s”)
Ч ч – [ch] (like ‘ch’ in ‘cherry’)
Щ щ – [sch] (like sounds ‘sh’ and ‘ch’ together)
Please pay attention that the way we pronounce these letters in the audio is not an “official” way to read the Russian alphabet but rather the natural sound of the letters when you read them in words.
The transcription of the consonants is quite close to the real sound of the Russian letters.
Practice reading Russian words
Now, you can even read some Russian words:
сок [sok] – juice
пáпа [pá-pa] – dad
бык [byk] – bull
ток [tok] – (electric) current
бок [bok] – side
кот [kot] – cat (male)
ко́шка [kósh-ka] – cat (female)
ва́за [vá-za] – vase
лес [lyes] – forest
мир [meer] – peace, world
ру́сский язы́к [rús-keeî ya-zýk] – Russian language
рука́ [ru-ká] – hand / arm
интерне́т [een-ter-nét] – internet
We understand that it can take you some time to get used to the Cyrillic letters. To help you with that, we created a separate site entirely dedicated to the Russian alphabet where you can find all the information about pronunciation and pratice with audio.
If you wonder what are the accents that you see above some of the letters, visit this lesson.
This is it for this lesson. We hope you enjoy learning Russian with us. In the next lesson we will finish learning the Russian alphabet.
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
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Question # 20Choose what you hear
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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
good but you haven’t yet taught the letter “P” in Russian but given a word with that letter.
Hi kumududeva seneviratna,
Your are right, there is a small inaccuracy here. Sorry.
You can learn the letter Р in the next lesson (004).
Hi, your lessons are so helpful. One question. Is this also the way letters are hand-written? I’m very confused since I’m reading a lot of things about the difference between handwriting and italic and reading Russian. Can you clear that up? I hope you continue making making these lessons.
Hi Maya,
We’ll probably make such a lesson in the future, but so far you can find this information here: Russian alphabet.
Thanks for the feedback.
Hi.
This is a great work.
Hi Hoàng Anh Hào,
Thanks. Feel free to ask questions and good luck!
Thanks.
nice..