Struggling with the Cyrillic Characters. Russian Vowels.Part 2. Yeah, yo, you and yahoo!

Struggling with the Cyrillic Characters. Russian Vowels.Part 2. Yeah, yo, you and yahoo!

Dear readers,

We are continuing our struggle with Russian vowels. And we are going win it quite soon, I promise :-) In this post we are going to learn soft indicating vowels. These vowels are a bit trickier than the ones in Part 1, as there are two ways of reading them.

But let's have a look at them first.

Я я

Я я looks like a mirror reflection of the English R and it is called 'ya', like the first syllable in the word 'yahoo'.

Ю ю

Ю ю looks like half of the capital letter H which has crushed into or on the letter O. Probably, it is the kid of H and O :-) Or I chained to O with a horizontal bar. This is 'yu' like “you”.

Е е

Е е looks just like the English E e. This is 'ye' like 'yeah'!

Ё ё

And this is yo, like “yo, man!”. The Е е with two dots above. I should mention that in most texts you will see Е е instead of Ё ё. Russians are just probably too lazy to put the two dots above. But in the texts for beginners it has got the dots most of the time. Also, please, mind, the syllables containing the letter Ё ё are always stressed.

Now let's read aloud some words where these four letters are pronounced the way they are called in the alphabet.

Я я Ю ю Е е Ё ё

я (I), я́блоко (apple), я́йца (eggs), я́года (berry)

éсть (to eat), éвро (Euro, currency), éсли (if), éхать (go by some transport, not walk)

ю́бка (skirt), юг (South), ию́нь (June), ию́ль (July)

ёж (hedgehog), ёлка (fir-tree or New Year tree), ёрш (ruff, the fish or a brush, you can see this kind of brush on the picture or the one you have in the restroom), ёрзать (to fidget).

As I have already mentioned, there are two ways of pronouncing these letters. They are either pronounced the way they are called in the alphabet (all their names contain the /j/ sound). Like in the examples above. Or they are pronounced like а (я), э (е), о (ё), у (ю), but they indicate that the preceding consonant is soft. That' why they are called soft-indicating vowels.

What the soft and hard consonants in Russian are and when exactly we should read the letters each way is to be told in the next posts.

That's all for now! Thank you :-) Спасибо!

Was this post helpful for you? Do you find Russian letters frustratingly difficult? Or has learning the reading rules been easy for you so far?

Please, leave your comments below!