Russian Language

The Alphabet

Page Contents
Russian Language
Russification of your computer
Cyrillic Keyboard Layouts
Reading the Alphabet
Learning Pronunciation

Russian Language 

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Russification of Your Computer 

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Cyrillic Keyboard Layouts 

The Standard Russian Keyboard Layout

Standard Russian Layout

One Homophonetic Russian Keyboard Layout

Lower Register

Upper Register

Another Homophonetic Russian Keyboard Layout

Lower Register

Upper Register

Personally, I prefer this second layout as it places the Russian SH in the same position as the Latin W, which it resembles and the Russian CH in the same position as the Latin H. Plus, it only uses the number line for numbers and the hard sign, thus preserving the placement of those symbols.

This page teaches PC users the layout of the traditional Russian keyboard: I like 2 learn.com.

Advanced or curious Mac users may find this page useful for more information about Unicode and Multilingual File Conversion, Font and Keyboard Utilities for Macintosh OS X Computers. Allan Wood's Unicode Resources.

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Reading the Cyrillic Alphabet 

Reading the Russian Alphabet - This page from Bucknell University introduces the Cyrillic alphabet by teaching some simple words that sound similar, but look different. By the time you learn all 114 words, you will have mastered the appearance of the Cyrillic alphabet.

Alphabet Order Game - This site teaches the order of the letters in the Cyrillic alphabet.

Cyrillic exists in block letters or in cursive. In is unusual to see books written in script but script fonts are often used in signs. While there are some Cyrillic script fonts available for PC computers, but I haven't found any for Macintosh computers.

Cyrillic Script

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Learning Pronunciation 

There are all sorts of nuances to Russian pronunciation, but for the traveler just learning how each letter is usually sounded will enable one to read signs and recognize some words without a dictionary.

The Alphabet - This site teaches the letters and their pronuncition and includes links that explain the phonetic system with samples by native speakers. It starts by showing that certain letters look and sound the same in Russian as in English and then moves on to those that are "false friends", i.e., look the same but sound different and those that are "secret agent", i.e. those that look different but might sound the same as an English sound and finally those "rare birds" that are something different.

Pronouncing Cyrillic - This page teaches how the letters are pronounced and gives some simple pronunciation rules with samples.

Master Russian.com - This is another site showing Cyrillic script and also the pronunciation of the alphabet using a male voice.

Alphabet Sounds - This is another site showing Cyrillic script and also the pronunciation of the alphabet using a female voice.

And finally, there are the online articles of Wikipedia including pages on Russian Alphabet, Russian language, Cyrillic and Russian cursive.

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