The Russian language uses the Cyrillic alphabet. It has 33 letters. At first glance, it might look intimidating, but you'll soon see that many letters are already familiar. Others might look familiar but have a different sound, and a few are completely new. It's a phonetic alphabet, which means letters generally correspond to a single sound. What you see is what you get.

The 33 letters break down into 10 vowels, 21 consonants, and two special signs that don't make a sound on their own. We can group the letters into a few categories to make them easier to learn.

Let's start with the easy ones. These six letters look and sound almost exactly like their English counterparts. You already know them!

Now for the "false friends." These letters look like English letters but make a completely different sound. This group is where most beginners trip up, so pay close attention.

Finally, we have the new characters. These letters don't have an English equivalent in appearance, but their sounds are straightforward.

Now for the two signs that have no sound of their own: ъ and ь. They are modifiers.

• ъ - The Hard Sign (твёрдый знак): This is rare. It indicates a brief pause between a consonant and a vowel, making the consonant 'hard'.
• ь - The Soft Sign (мягкий знак): This is very common. It makes the preceding consonant 'soft'.

What does 'soft' mean? A soft consonant is palatalized. This means that as you say it, the middle of your tongue rises toward the roof of your mouth (the palate). It's like a faint 'y' sound is whispered after the consonant.

Notice the difference in those two words. The soft sign completely changes the meaning. In мать, the 'т' sound is softened.

The "soft" vowels (Я, Ё, Ю, Е) are actually two sounds combined: a 'y' sound plus the sound of their hard-vowel partner. For example, Я is like 'й' + 'а' (ya). When one of these vowels follows a consonant, it tells you to palatalize that consonant.

Compare the sound of 'т' in these two words:

• тот (tot, "that one"): The 'о' is a hard vowel, so the 'т' is hard.
• тётя (tyotya, "aunt"): The 'ё' is a soft vowel, so the 'т' is palatalized. It sounds like 't' + 'y'.

Let's check your understanding of these new letters and concepts.

Mastering the alphabet is the first and most crucial step. Once you can confidently identify the letters and their sounds, reading Russian will feel much less like a puzzle.