| Name | Upper case | Lower case | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | A | a | a like Anna. |
| Ka | K | к | к like Katia. |
| Em | M | м | м like Maria. |
| O | O | о | о like Olga. |
| Te | T | т | т like Tatiana. |
| U | У | у | у is pronounced like the “oo” in “tool” — it sounds nothing like the English Y! |
| Es | С | с | с is always pronounced like it is in “ceiling,” and never like it is in “color.” In Russian, there is only one letter for the [k] sound, which you learned in the first session. More straightforward than in English, don’t you think? |
| Ye | Е | е | е is pronounced “ye” as in “yes,” and the Russian city Yekaterinburg. |
| Yo | Ё | ё | ё is pronounced “yo” as in “yore.” |
| Ve | В | в | Despite appearances, в is pronounced like a V (as in Vladimir). |
| En | Н | н | н equates to an N as in niet, the Russian word for “no” (you might have heard it before in a Hollywood movie about Russia). By now you’ll be able to read it in Cyrillic: нет! |
| Kha | Х | х | х resembles the sound you make in the back of your throat in the word “loch” (in traditional Scottish English). It’s also the same sound found in Buch in German. |
| Er | Р | р | р is a rolled R sound. |
| Ge (Ghe) | Г | г | г is the same as the Greek gamma and sounds like the G in Grigori. |
| De | Д | д | д resembles delta, the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. Unsurprisingly, it represents the same D sound as in Dmitri. |
| El | Л | л | л comes from lambda, the Greek L as in Lena. |
| Pe | П | п | п surely makes you think of pi, whatever your level of math. It sounds like the P in Pushkin. |
| Ef | Ф | ф | ф, like phi in Greek, represents the sound F as in Fyodor. |
| I | И | и | и sounds like the I in Igor. Most native English speakers will more likely associate this letter with an E sound, like in “see,” or an “ie” sound, like in “piece.” |
| Short I | Й | й | й sounds more or less like the sound Y in toy. When combined with an E, you get “eй” (as in “hey”), with an O, you have “oй” (as in Bolshoi) and with an A, you get “aй” (as in “aye”). |
| Yery | Ы | ы | ы is quite a difficult sound for English speakers to reproduce. It’s pronounced a bit like an I that comes from the throat. Russians understand the difficulty this letter causes and won’t hold it against you if you pronounce it like a normal I at first. |
| Be | Б | б | б sounds like the B in Boris. |
| Ze | З | з | з sounds like the Z in zoo. |
| Zhe | Ж | ж | ж is the S sound in “pleasure.” |
| Tse | Ц | ц | ц is like the “ts” sound in “sits.” |
| Che | Ч | ч | ч is the “ch” sound in Chekhov. |
| Sha | Ш | ш | ш the “sh” sound in Babushka. |
| Shcha | Щ | щ | щ is a soft “shch” sound that does not exist in English. To pronounce it properly, you must brace your tongue downwards, a bit like the pronunciation of the German word ich. |
| E | Э | э | э sounds like the E in “met.” |
| Yu | Ю | ю | ю is like a “you” sound, as in Yuri. |
| Ya | Я | я | я is a “ya” sound, as in “yard” or the Siberian city of Yakutsk, which is also the coldest city in the world (-40°C on average in January). |
| Soft sign (Yeri) | Ь | ь | ь is what we call the soft sign. It’s not pronounced on its own, but it softens the pronunciation of the letter preceding it. |
| Hard sign (Yer) | Ъ | ъ | ъ is called the hard sign and makes the sound of the letter before it a bit harsher in pronunciation. |
Source: Babbel Magazine - How To Learn The Cyrillic Alphabet In Only 2 Days