S NAGA MALLESWARA REDDY

The next step in learning Russian is to learn the Russian numbers. Once you learn the Russian numbers you will find it much easier doing things like shopping, or catching a train or tram. You will be able to understand when people give you the price of something. We will start with the numbers 1-10.

Russian numbers: 1 to 10

Read through the numbers 1-10 a couple of times until you are comfortable with them. Try counting from 1 to 10 without referring to them. Then for practice, try counting backwards from 10 to 1 in Russian.

Russian numbers: 11 to 19

Now that you are comfortable with your first Russian numbers, try to learn the numbers from 11 to 19. To help you with reading practice we will not include the trans-literations.

Russian numbers: 20 and onwards

As you could see, the numbers 11-19 are simply formed by adding "надцать" to the numbers 1-9. (You will need to drop the soft sign, or the "е" in "четыре")

20 in Russian is "двадцать". The numbers 21-29 are formed in a similar way to English. Here are some examples:

Other compound numbers are formed in the same way, quite similar to English. (There is no need to use the word "and" in Russian). Here are the other numbers you will need to form numbers in Russia. It will be useful to learn as many of these numbers as you can because it makes it easier to understand the price of goods in Russian roubles.

For example: 131 - сто тридцать один

When reading phone numbers you may also need to know the name of the digit 0.

0 - ноль

Large Russian Numbers

Try pronouncing the numbers below. Then listen to the sound example to see if you are correct.

456

219

9,345

23,564

2,007

2,008

2,000

1,994

1,812

At first it may be difficult to remember all those Russian numbers. But don't worry. You can always return to this lesson to revise them. In the next lesson or two we will cover some useful Russian words and phrases that will help you to introduce yourself and to buy things.

Here are some exercises to help you learn the Russian alphabet. You may be surprised how many Russian words you are now able to recognise now that you can sound out the words.

1. Places spelt in Russian

Try reading the following words in russian. They are cities from around the world. 

Лондон 
Токио 
Амстердам 
Мадрид 
Санкт Петербург

Now try to recognise these countries written in Russian, their names should sound similar to English. 

Англия 
Канада 
Корея 
Бразилия 
Нидерланды
Австралия 
Португалия 
Америка
Мексика
Германия

2. Russian Signs

Here are some signs you might see while you are in Russia. See if you can understand them. 

Аэропорт
Туалет
Ресторан
Бар
Такси

3. Russian words that are similar in english

Try reading the following words in russian. You should be able to work out what they mean.

Опера
Суп 
Спорт 
Футбол 
гимнастика 
Волейбол 
Меню 
Кофе
Кафе

Answers

1a: London, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Madrid, St. Petersburg
1b: England, Canada, Korea, Brazil, Netherlands, Australia, Portugal, America, Mexico, Germany.
2: Airport, Toilet, Resturant, Bar, Taxi.
3: Opera, Soup, Sport, Football, Gymnastics, Volleyball, Menu, Coffee, Cafe

In the table below is the full Russian alphabet in presented in dictionary order. It would also be useful to learn how to say the Russian letters.

The table below gives you the normal printed version of the russian characters, and the cursive (italic) version of the character. The letters which are significantly different are noted in red. It is worth learning these. The cursive characters are often used in signs and they also are similar to the hand-written form of Russian.

The Russian alphabet is easy to learn! Learning the alphabet is the first step to learning the Russian language. Even if you don't plan to learn the language, knowing the alphabet is great for travelling because you can read all the street and shop signs. It may seem daunting to learn a new alphabet, but it is relatively easy. In fact, the great thing about Russian is that almost all words can be sounded out as they are written. Unlike English where the pronunciation of a word may not be clear from its written form. Russian also has one letter to one sound, unlike English where two letters often make one sound. (Example "sh").

Either before or after this lesson we recommend you print the alphabet table, and stick it up next to the computer (or around the house), to help you with the following lessons.

The Russian alphabet is also known as the Cyrillic alphabet. There are 33 letters in the Russian alphabet. 11 vowels, 20 consonants, and 2 pronunciation signs. Here is what the Russian alphabet looks like (in dictionary order).

А, Б, В, Г, Д, Е, Ё, Ж, З, И, Й, К, Л, М, Н, О, П, Р, С, Т, У, Ф, Х, Ц, Ч, Ш, Щ, Ъ, Ы, Ь, Э, Ю, Я

Now let's have a look at these letters in detail. For your reference we will make some notes about unusual hand-written forms, however this will be covered in another lesson so don't worry too much yet.

Russian letters that are (almost) the same.

А а - Pronounced like the "a" in the word "father" or "car". It is not the 'flat' "a" sound you sometimes hear in words like "cat" or "flat".

К к - Pronounced like the "k" in "kitten" or "kangaroo". This letter replaces the english "c" sound in words like "cat".

М м - Pronounced like the "m" in man. (Note: Unlike english, the hand-written "м" should always start from the bottom)

O o - When stressed, it is pronounced like the "o" in "bore". When un-stressed it is pronounced more like the letter "a". (See later notes.)

Т т - Pronounced like the "t" in "tap". (Note: The hand-written (and italic) form is "т". It should always start from the top, as it looks quite similar to the letter "м")

Russian letters that look like english letters but sound different.

В в - Pronounced like the "v" in "vet". (Equivalent to the english letter "v").

Е е - Pronounced like the "ye" in "yes".

Н н - Pronounced like the "n" in "no". (Equivalent to the english letter "n").

Р р - Pronounced like the "r" in "run", but it is rolled. (Equivalent to the english letter "r").

С с - Pronounced like the "s" in "see". (Equivalent to the english letter "s"). (It might help to remember that it's used like the "s" sound in the english words "centre" and "cent".)

У у - Pronounced like the "oo" in "boot" or "root".

Х х - Pronounced like the "h" in "hello". However, this is often pronounced more like the "ch" in the Scottish "Loch" or German "Bach", or the mexican pronunciation of "x" in "Mexico".

Russian letters that look unusual, but have familiar sounds

Б б - Pronounced like the "b" in "bat". (Equivalent to the english letter "b").

Г г - Pronounced like the "g" in "go". (Equivalent to the english letter "g").

Д д - Pronounced like the "d" in "dog". (Equivalent to the english letter "d").

З з - Pronounced like the "z" in "zoo". (Equivalent to the english letter "z").

И и - Pronounced like the "i" in "taxi". (Sometimes equivalent to the english letter "i", the short 'ee' sound.). (Note: The hand-written form for "и" looks a little like the english "u").

Л л - Pronounced like the "l" in "love". (Equivalent to the english letter "l").

П п - Pronounced like the "p" in "pot". (Equivalent to the english letter "p").

Ф ф - Pronounced like the "f" in "fat". (Equivalent to the english letter "f").

Э э - Pronounced like the "e" in "fed".

New Russian letters and sounds

Ю ю - Pronounced like the "u" in "universe". (Pronounced much like the english word "you").

Я я - Pronounced like the "ya" in "yard".

Ё ё - Pronounced like "yo" in "yonder". (Note: In modern Russian you may find this letter simply written as Е е.)

Ж ж - Like "s" in "measure", "pleasure" or "fusion" or like "g" in colour "beige". (As there is no english symbol for this sound, it is usually represented as "zh")

Ц ц - Similar to the "ts" sound in "sits" or "its".

Ч ч - Pronounced like the "ch" in "chips" or "church" .

Ш ш - Pronounced like the "sh" in shut.

Щ щ - Pronounced like "sh" but with your tongue on the roof of your mouth. Try putting your tongue in the same position as you would to say "ch" but say "sh" instead. English speakers may find it hard to define the difference between "ш" and "щ".

Ы ы - Pronounced like the "i" in "bit" or "ill". (Said with your tongue slightly back in your mouth.)

Й й - This letter is used to form diphthongs. So "oй" is like the "oy" sound in "boy" or "aй" is like the "igh" in "sigh".

Pronunciation Symbols

Ъ ъ - The 'Hard Sign' is rarely used. It indicates a slight pause between sylables.

Ь ь - The 'Soft Sign' makes the previous letter 'soft'. Think of the "p" sound in the word "pew". (Try inflecting a very slight "y" sound onto letter before it.)

A note about vowels

You may have noticed that there are often two forms of a vowel, hard and soft. It may help to note the corresponding vowels.

Ы and И are corresponding vowels but don't really follow this pattern. 
Й is also considered a vowel

The "y" sound is always pronounced. It may take some time to get used to pronouncing it with consonants. Try the following:

Нет (No) - Pronounced "nyet". This is one syllable. 
Семь (Seven) - Pronounced "syem". 
Пять (Five) - Pronounced "pyat"
Метрo (Metro, underground railway) - Pronounced "mye-tro".

Click the green play icon to listen to the word pronounced in Russian.

Spelling Rule 1.

There is a rule for spelling in russian you should keep in mind: "Never write Ы, Ю, or Я after the letters 'Г, К, Ж, Х, Ч, Ш, Щ' instead use И, У, А".

It is not important to worry about this yet, but it will help you understand how things are spelt in later lessons.

A note about stress.

In most languages, including English, some syllables are emphasised more than others. A good example would be the word "photograph", where the first syllable is stressed. Compare this to "Photography" where the second symbol is stressed. Phonetically the sound of the vowel changes.

Russian works in much the same way. However in some words it's important to know which syllable is stressed, this is because the letter "o" is pronounced very differently depending on whether it's stressed or not. Other stressed vowels are important, but if you only remember the "o" rule, then you will still be able to speak well. Once you start to hear Russians speak, you will be able to copy the way they are pronouncing words. (On this site we will indicate a stressed vowel by underlining it. However, we will only do this to the first occurrences of a word. One syllable words are assumed to be stressed.)

Take notice of the following examples:

До свидания (good-bye) - Pronounced "da-svee-da-nee-ye". (The до is pronounced as if it is part of the next word).

Спасибо (thank-you) - Pronounced "spa-see-ba".

Да(yes) - Pronounced "da".

Нет(no) - Pronounced "nyet".

сто(100) - Pronounced "sto".

Пока(Bye)

Плохо(Bad)

Хорошо(Good)

Some Listening Practice

There are many more examples in the following lessons that also have Russian audio that you can listen to. It is important you learn the sounds by listening to the Russian audio in the following lessons. If you learn by listening, your speach will be much clearer.

There are hours of audio on this site. Here are some example sentences to get you started. Don't worry about learning the words, just try to learn the sounds of the letters.

Моя мама любит музыку - (My mother loves music)

шесть книг - (six books)

семь газет - (seven newspapers)

восемь зданий - (eight buildings)

девять собак - (nine dogs)

десять студентов - (ten students)

сто рублей - (one hundred roubles)

сто долларов - (one hundred dollars)

The key to learning any language is to immerse yourself in the language. Try to study a little each day if possible. Even if you only review one or two words a day. If you are keen to get started you can go straight to Lesson 1. On this page you will find some tips that will help you to learn Russian.

About The Russian Language

Some people say that the Russian language can be hard to learn. This is not really true, learning Russian is no harder than learning other languages. The main difficulty for a lot of people is learning the new grammar structure. If you have learnt other languages before you will already be familiar with some of these grammar concepts, such as gender and cases.

In fact, there are many things that make Russian easier to learn than other languages. The key is to use these things to your advantage. Here are some things that make Russian easier.

1. Once you learn the alphabet, you can pronounce almost all words quite accurately. With Russian the pronunciation is normally quite clear from the written form of the word.

2. Russian does not use complicated sentence structures like English. You can normally say exactly what you want with just a few words. For example, in English to be polite we would say something like "can you please pass me the salt", however in Russian they would say something simpler like "give salt please". Speaking so directly may even feel unusual for an English speaker, however it is perfectly normal, just add the word 'please' to be polite. This makes it easy to say what you want in Russian, and it will probably be correct. Less words also makes listening to people easier, as you can just pick out the important words.

3. Russian uses the case system. Instead of having a strict sentence word order like in English, you just need to change the ends of the nouns. This makes Russian a very expressive language, because you can emphasise a point by changing the order of the words in a sentence. It also helps you understand what people are trying to say.

4. Russian does not use articles. (Like "a" and "the")

5. Russian has fewer tenses than English. Russian does not bother with the difference between "I was running", "I had been running", etc.

Tips to help you learn Russian

We recommend that you try and immerse yourself in the language. Bookmark this site, and take a new lesson whenever possible. Here are some more ideas that might help you learn.

1. You should practice writing and speaking Russian. Even if you are only speaking to yourself. It will help it to stay in your memory.

2. After you have done a lesson, review it that night. If you review something on the same day, you are more likely to remember it. Particularly if you do it before you go to sleep.

3. Through-out the day, when you say something in English, try to think how you would say it in Russian.

4. Try printing out lessons and putting them in places where you will see them, for example in the toilet, in the shower (where it won't get wet), or at your desk at work.

5. Keep your lesson notes with you. Review them whenever you are bored or waiting for something. For example on a train, or in someone's car. You could even try making small flash-cards with a Russian word on one side, and the English on the other. Keep them in your pocket, and test yourself on a few words whenever you get the chance.

6. It is important to learn a word or phrase from 'Russian to English' as well as 'English to Russian'. That way you will remember how to say it, not just recognise it when you hear it.

7. Most importantly, when you get the chance: Practice! Never be afraid to make mistakes. Everyone does! The people who make the most mistakes learn the most. Always try to explain what you want, even if it takes time. Even seek out Russians who can't speak English and try to speak to them. You may not have the chance to practice at home, so if you travel to Russia practice as much as you can.

8. Join our forums section and practice writing things in Russian. To learn Russian you must practice. In particular you must practice writing and speaking, so that you learn to express yourself. Otherwise only your reading will improve. You must write and speak!