The Russian Alphabet
In our first lesson you will learn the Russian alphabet. If you can sound out words and place names then you have a huge advantage while travelling in Russia. There are may Russian words that are similar to English they just look different. If you know the Russian alphabet you can also read signs, menus and place names. It may surprise you to learn that the Russian alphabet is easy! Unlike English, the Russian alphabet has one letter for each sound.
The following letters are exactly the same in Russian and English
А, О, К, М, С, Т
These letters look like Latin letters, but have different sounds
У, Е, Ё, Н, Х, В, Р, Я, И, Й
The following are completely Greek-derived letters
Some of these letters will look familiar to anyone who remembers math class or, through the veil of inebriation, their fraternity or sorority days: Г, Ш, Ф, П, Л, Д, Э, Б, Ю
And then there are a few outliers that only occur in Cyrillic
Ж, Ц, Б, Ч, Щ, Ы, Ь, З