Learn the Russian Alphabet Quickly (It’s EASY Once You Do This)

A common question I get when people figure out I learned Russian is “wow, but isn’t the Russian alphabet super difficult?!?”

And my answer is usually something like this:

“Well, yeah it looks different and the sounds often are more difficult than what we’re used to in English. But in reality, it’s easier to learn than it looks”.

And in this article I want to share with you:

• My different perspective on the Russian alphabet
• The biggest mistake people make when learning the Russian alphabet
• How to learn the Russian alphabet quickly without effort

So continue reading to find out:

My perspective on the Russian alphabet

Let’s take the biggest languages in the world that have a different alphabet:

• Arabic
• Japanese
• Chinese
• Russian
• Greek
• Korean

Some of these alphabets are COMPLETELY different from ours. Or are read in a different way. Or use symbols instead of letters.

From this list, the easiest one is Greek, as our English latin alphabet evolved from Greek.

Do you know which other alphabet evolved from Greek?

The Cyrillic alphabet, which is used in Russian.

So our Latin and the Russian alphabet share a common ancestor.

And you can see that when you take all the letters and put them together:

1. Letters that look and sound the same: А К М О Т
2. Letters that look familiar but have a different sound: В Е Ё Н Р С У Х 
3. Letters that look different, but have a familiar sound: Б Г Д З И Й Л П Ф Э Ю Я Ж Ц Ч Ш Щ
4. Letters that look and sound differently: Ы Ъ Ь

Let’s take a word like ресторан. It means restaurant. But if you read it as if it’s an English word, you read pectopah. Sounds funny, right?

By using a couple of these words, you can already quickly know half the Russian alphabet.

Compare that to learning tens of completely new characters that often look similar…

So why do people find the Russian alphabet so difficult?

The biggest mistake people make when learning the Russian alphabet

What do people think when they want to learn Russian?

“Oh, I want to learn Russian. Better learn the alphabet first”

And this is a mistake.

It’s like growing up in a small village, and then moving to a big city to get your driver’s license.

You don’t know the streets or any of the unspoken rules.

It’s much better to get your driver’s license where you grew up. Or move to the city first, live there for a while, and then go for your driver’s license.

Learning the Russian alphabet first, when you have 0 knowledge of the language will make it more difficult for you to learn it.

In the best case, it’ll take you longer to learn it.

In the worst case, you don’t learn it, because it’s frustrating.

So what do I recommend instead to learn the Russian alphabet quickly?

How to learn the Russian alphabet quickly without effort

First learn Russian, then learn the alphabet.

it’s the equivalent of moving to a big city, before you try passing your driver’s license there.

So how do you do this?

Well, imagine having a friend, colleague or family member who speaks Russian.

They teach you a simple phrase how to say “I’m a sportsman” – я спортсмен

Then you banter a bit and learn how to ask “are you a sportsman?” – ты спортсмен?

Just by learning a phrase like this, and later looking up how it’s written, you already learn a lot of letters and how they are pronounced:

• я
• с
• п
• о
• р
• т
• с
• м
• е
• н
• ы

Then you take a simple phrase like “where is the restaurant?” – где ресторан?

And the answer “the restaurant is there” – ресторан там

Again, play around a bit and repeat the sentence in conversation 10 times. Now look up how it’s written and you learn the following letters:

• г
• д
• е
• а

Now do the same for “where’s the toilet?” – где туалет?

And you’ve got 2 new letters:

• у
• а

If you just learn how a couple of basic Russian phrases sound with a native speaker (friend, colleague, partner, tutor, classes, or family member), you’ll quickly learn the full alphabet.

Or you can also do the same thing at home. My course Russian Conversations Unlocked works like this. It first teaches you useful words and phrases. And then there’s a whole bonus lesson dedicated to the alphabet, which will make so much sense. Because you already know how the letters get together in words and phrases.

And sure, each person has a couple of letters that are more difficult. But this is normal. And just a matter of time and practice before all the letters are second nature.