Welcome to the Russian language. The first step on your journey is learning its unique alphabet, called the Cyrillic script. It has 33 letters. Some will look familiar to English speakers, but others will be completely new. Don't worry, it's more straightforward than it looks.

Many people find that they can learn the entire alphabet in just a few hours of focused study. Let's break it down into manageable groups to make it easier.

This first group is the easiest. These six letters look and sound almost exactly like their English counterparts. You can practically read them already.

This next group can be tricky. These letters look like English letters, but they represent completely different sounds in Russian. These are often called "false friends."

Now we get to the fun part. These letters look new and different, but their sounds are common in English. Once you connect the new shape to the familiar sound, you're well on your way.

Some of these might remind you of Greek letters if you've studied math or science, like П (pi) and Ф (phi).

This final group contains sounds and letters that are unique to Russian and other Slavic languages. They might take the most practice, but they are essential.

The hard sign (ъ) and soft sign (ь) are the most unusual because they don't make sounds on their own. Instead, they modify the sounds of the letters around them. The soft sign makes the consonant before it "soft," as if a tiny "y" sound follows it. The hard sign separates a consonant from a vowel, creating a small break.

Knowing the letters is just the start. Russian pronunciation has a few key rules that will help you sound more natural.

Vowel Reduction In Russian, vowels in unstressed syllables are often "reduced," meaning they change their sound. The most common example is the letter 'o'. When the stress is not on it, an 'o' sounds more like a short 'a' sound (like in "about").

Voiced and Voiceless Consonants Russian consonants often come in pairs: one voiced (made with vocal cord vibration) and one voiceless. For example, 'б' (b) is voiced, while 'п' (p) is voiceless. A key rule is that voiced consonants at the very end of a word are pronounced as their voiceless counterpart.

That's a quick tour of the Russian alphabet and some basic pronunciation. The key is consistent practice. Try reading simple Russian words out loud, even if you don't know what they mean yet, just to get your mouth used to the new sounds.