Russian orthography

075: Capitalization in Russian

In general, the Russians use capitalization much less than the English speakers. For example, the names of languages and days of the week must start from the lowercase in Russian. In order for you not to get confused, we’ve prepared this lesson about the capitalization rules in the Russian language. Study the lesson »

074: Russian spelling rules

The fact that the Russian language is one of those where words don’t really sound exactly as they are written, creates a confusion not only for those who are learning Russian, but sometimes even for the Russians themselves.

Not knowing basic Russian spelling rules will not ruin the impression about you, because you are a foreigner, but it is always nicer to be able to impress than the opposite. Today we will teach you how to avoid a big part of common mistakes.

Here are some rules that Russian kids learn at school and that will help you figure out the correct spelling of certain words:

• Never put Ы after the letters: Ж, Ш, Щ, Ч, Г, К, Х, you have to use И in those cases.
• Never put Я after Ж, Ш, Щ, Ч, Г, К, Х and Ц, use А in those cases.
• After the consonants Ж, Ш, Щ, Ч, Ц, the vowel О, if unstressed, changes to Е.
• Never put Ю after the letters Ж, Ш, Щ, Ч, Г, К, Х, Ц, use У instead.

Below are some examples. For each of the words remind yourself which of the spelling rules it represents:

жить – to live

проща́ть – to forgive

встреча́ть – to meet

шить – to sew

оди́ннадцать – eleven

ти́хий / ти́хая / ти́хие – quiet

хоро́ший / хоро́шая / хоро́шие – good

Learn the Russian words of today’s lesson and practice them with the audio track.

And come back for the next lesson to learn Russian with us!