How to write russian in russian

Easy! Learn to Write Russian in 7 Baby Steps

Writing in Russian isn’t as hard as it looks.

And learning to write in Russian is essential to truly becoming fluent in Russian.

So stop putting it off: Proceed to Step One in my seven-step process and start writing in Russian today!

Contents

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1. Learn the Cyrillic alphabet.

If you have any experience with the Russian language, you already know that Russian has a different alphabet from English. While we use the Roman (or Latin) alphabet to write English, Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which originated (fun fact) in the 9th century.

There is good news and bad news when it comes to learning the Russian alphabet.

The good news is that some of the letters look, and even sound, the same or similar to English ones. These include letters like A, K, M, O and T. Other letters look similar, but don’t (or don’t always) have the same associated sound as in English, such as C (pronounced like the English S), B (pronounced like the English V) and E (pronounced like “yeh”).

The bad (but definitely not super bad) news is that some letters will look brand spanking new. However, that is great news for your brain, which will definitely get a boost from all the new letters you will become acquainted with. These include Д (pronounced like a hard D, as in “dog”), Я, (pronounced like “yah”) and П (pronounced like a hard P, as in “pig”).

Resources for Learning the Russian Alphabet

You can find the full Russian alphabet here, and you can learn the Russian letters more efficiently by creating flashcards with the Russian letters on one side and the pronunciation using English letters on the other side. This will help you test yourself on the sound of each letter.

You can also purchase Russian flashcards as an alternative option. This set contains 33 cards that not only help you memorize letters, but offer a guide in pronunciation. Each card has the letter in upper and lower case, a pronunciation guide and a word that starts with the letter in Russian, along with an English translation. On the opposite side, you can find an image that starts with the letter to test your knowledge not only of the letter it starts with, but the Russian term for the image.

2. Learn to produce the letters yourself.

When memorizing foreign letters, we start by learning to pronounce a letter we see; however, to truly master a language, we have to reverse that process.

This requires listening to the letters said out loud and writing them down from memory. This is the only way to learn to write Russian on your own—by forming the letters in your mind and writing them without having a reference set in front of you.

Resources for Learning to Produce Russian Letters

Check out this YouTube video that teaches viewers the Russian alphabet.

The trick to utilizing this video for your needs is not to look at the screen! While this may seem counterproductive to using YouTube, this is a way of being able to test yourself and check your answers later. Listen to the letters pronounced a few times and write them down as fast as you can before the video moves on to another letter.

Another great resource is this Russian Learning Mat, which in addition to providing letter sounds, features a game that challenges you to find a letter based on its sound.

3. Learn Russian cursive.

The steps above have likely helped you learn the Russian letters and their associated sounds, so feel free to congratulate yourself. However, don’t celebrate too much yet, as you still need to learn a whole other script—Russian cursive.

While in America, we don’t use cursive as much as we used to, Russians still rely on handwriting as a method of communication quite a bit.

Resources for Learning Russian Cursive

Once you learn Russian printed letters, learning to handwrite them will be easier as you already know how they sound.

A few Russian cursive worksheets is really all you need for this step. That and practice, practice, practice.

4. Learn to type in Russian.

Although Russians still use pens and pencils to write, many are embracing the computer and typing away. Learning to type in Russian is essential for business purposes, finding Russian videos and other content and keeping up correspondence across the ocean.

Just as with learning cursive, learning to type in Russian will be fairly painless once you know the Cyrillic alphabet. All this will require is memorizing where Russian letters are placed on a keyboard and then working on your skills.

Resources for Learning to Type in Russian

MasterRussian.com provides access to a free Russian keyboard, which is fully functional. Simply type letters using your mouse, or using your own keyboard and looking at the keyboard in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen for reference, and see them written in the field on the page.

You can also purchase Russian keyboard stickers and use your own keyboard to learn the placement of the letters. When you are ready, you can find everything you need for setting up your keyboard to type Russian and practicing your Russian typing here. Like with learning cursive, this will be an ongoing process, and you will get more out of it after continuing with the steps below.

5. Start forming basic words with the letters.

The last four steps had you learning individual letters, but writing requires the ability to form the letters into actual words. Remember how you learned to write in English—you started with basic words, such as “mom,” “dad,” “cat” and “hat.”

Do the same when learning to write in Russian—form the letters into short words to start writing on your own.

Watching videos with subtitles is a great way to compare the words you hear with how they’re written. You could use auto-generated subtitles on YouTube (though be forewarned that they’re not always accurate), or try to find a channel with proofread subtitles. You can also use a learning platform like FluentU, which has expert-edited, interactive subtitles on all of the authentic videos in its Russian-language library.

Resources for Forming Basic Words in Russian

You can use the flashcards you made or purchased to form Russian words from letters. You can form any words you like, but here are some basic verbs to start with.

Or, you can make the process more fun with magnets. These Russian letter magnets offer a colorful and easy way to utilize a surface (your fridge) to play around with word formations without making a mess on the floor!

6. Practice writing by copying text from Russian books.

Russian words are infamous for being long, containing lots of hard consonant combinations and even letters that are very difficult to pronounce (such as hard and soft sounds).

As such, you can benefit from copying Russian text from books, magazines, blogs and other materials to familiarize yourself with proper Russian spelling.

Resources for Copying Russian Text

A dual language Russian to English book is perfect not just for this step, but for improving your Russian overall. You can use the Russian portion of the text to practice copying words and sentences. Then, you can read the English translation to understand what you are reading and work on your comprehension.

7. Do online Russian exercises that involve writing.

The web offers a multitude of Russian exercises that can help you improve your writing skills. The trick is finding reputable sources that won’t lead you astray in your learning efforts.

These can include quizzes that test your knowledge of the Russian alphabet, games where you can write in answers or anything else that gets you writing.

Resources for Russian Exercises for Writing Purposes

The best way to practice writing online for more intermediate and advanced purposes is finding exercises that ask you to write your answers instead of choosing from pre-set choices.

Reading comprehension tests are perfect for more advanced learners, as these allow you to see words written first in a paragraph, and then practice writing answers to open-ended questions. This site offers 24 different options for reading material, followed by questions to answer about what you read.

Remember that writing in Russian is required for really knowing the language.

Follow this seven-step approach to truly write in Russian like a native.

Renata Ilitsky is a professional content writer with over 10 years of experience. She specializes in creating unique and engaging content for any industry. To read some of Renata’s other work, please view her writing portfolio.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Writing in Russian in Order to Become Bilingual

7 minutes reading time

Even in the context accelerated Russian learning in order to meet a soul mate in the land of Russia, learning the Cyrillic characters which are peculiar to the Russian language is a must.

Discovering the rudiments of the Russian alphabet will lead you to written communication in Russian, whether computerized or on traditional paper.

Let’s have a look at the different facets of the Russian writing system in the image of the language that it is intended to teach, one of extreme beauty.

The Modern Russian Alphabet

For Americans, all Cyrillic alphabets look the same. However, in regards to the different Slavic countries, the alphabets vary slightly according to the lexical particularities of each nation.

The Russian alphabet, contrary to popular belief, does have a life of its own.

Note in passing that, in terms of computers, a dozen characters does not result in additional keys to standard computer keyboards.

The modern Russian alphabet | A mnemonic board to memorize the essentials of Russian linguistics

Like most contemporary languages, Russian associates a majority of consonants with several vowels.

This last vowel is sometimes listed after the «hard» vowels, which are a, э, o and у.

It is thanks to this that readers and authors can make a distinction between wet consonants and those that aren’t palatalised, therefore hard. It is a largely syllabic writing system, a bit like Hungarian, which belongs to another family of languages.

Some consonants are already determined: such as the hard consonants ш, š, ж, ž, ц and c; and the soft consonants щ, ŝ, ч and č.

Unlike English, Russian has the advantage of reserving almost no surprises: the words are written as they are pronounced, and vice versa.

So it’s worth getting your hands dirty to progress quickly in one fell swoop!

The only exceptions are the deviation of final consonants or certain associations of consonants, phonetic elements that are not too difficult to learn. Russian can sometimes be difficult for a anglophone, but we believe that with a little practice you can do it.

Here are two extremely helpful tips from a TED translator:

Still, the most complicated thing remains learning the so-called «ambiguous» vowels, where the tonic accent is not spelled but words of more than 2 syllables have different meanings according to the vowels.

As in Ukrainian and Bulgarian, we speak of «accent-related apophony.»

The History of the Cyrillic Method

33 letters to learn may seem a bit arduous for an American student who is starting Russian lessons.

But here is the positive side of things: back in the day, archaic Russian and its ancestor Old Slavic used other more characters, four of which were eliminated in 1918 (І, Ѳ, Ѣ and Ѵ), and 8 others after their disuse throughout the eighteenth century: Ѕ, Ѯ, Ѱ, Ѡ, Ѫ, Ѧ, Ѭ and Ѩ.

The purpose of the eliminations of these letters was to simplify the language, confining it to a phonetic register, even if it lost some etymological relief.

Here is the great difference between the history of Russian characters and that of the alphabets used in the Latin countries: the successive simplifications have encouraged the birth of a new Russian from Slavonic and Old-Slavic.

Here pictured is an 11th-century Roman fresco (Saint Clement Basilica) | Saints Cyril and Methodius to the Pope | source: Wikimedia Commons

This explains the blossoming of various Cyrillic alphabets (such as the Serbian alphabet for example) from a common medieval source: the alphabet which was composed from the Greek by the two holy monks and brothers named Cyril and Methodius.

In Bulgaria, at the end of the ninth century, these monks had created a bicameral graphological system (that is to say, a system composed of small letters on the one hand and of capital letters on the other) of 30 characters intended to allow writing for the languages ​​spoken in these then-considered barbaric and pagan lands (from a Byzantine point of view). At that time, writing had not yet been truly invented.

In other words, at this moment the Slavic world entered history, and at the same time as it was Christianized and opened up to the influences of the vanished Roman Empire.

This early alphabet thus became what is now called «old Slavic.» At this time, the first Christian missionaries translated works for the attention of the indigenous populations.

Learning the Cyrillic Alphabet: Why, Exactly?

Today, in addition to the dialects already mentioned, derivatives of the original Cyrillic are used in Belarus, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kazakhstan, Uzbekhistan, Tatar, Kyrgyz, Bashkir, Chuvash, Komi, Husband, Sami, Mongolia, Buryat, Kalmuk, Kurdish, Ossetian, Tajik, Romanian Transnistrian, and Dungan.

In other words, the Cyrillic system had the genius to adapt to no less than 7 different linguistic families (from the Slavic group to the Sino-Tibetan group, including the Turkish, Uralian, Mongolian, Iranian, and Romanic subfamilies)!

Knowing one of these Cyrillic alphabets is the best way to easily read and use the others.

In addition to being a scholar, there are many reasons to start writing the Russian alphabet in the twenty-first century.

Learn the Russian language and its alphabet | Imagine as many Russian dolls as the characters of the modern Russian language!

The USSR’s political ideology had made Americans shy of learning the Russian language for a time. But when it broke up in 1992, Russia emerged from its political, cultural,economic, diplomatic, and demographic stagnation. This meant it once again became a leading international power.

Russian is a language that counts!

Russian-speaking countries are potential hosts to expatriates and, perhaps soon, students. Bulgaria has already entered the EU, and the Cyrillic alphabet has now become the 3rd alphabet, which means it will soon be learned by students everywhere.

How to Learn to Write in Russian

Learning the Russian alphabet is one of the first steps when undertaking the Russian language.

Some pedagogues prefer to stick to learning how to speak the language. However, this may be OK if you are just planning to Skype with a Slave, but it would not be suitable for a tourist needing to decipher road signs or Russian advertising.

To understand the logic of a foreign Slavic language, there is nothing better than bathing in its alphabet!

There are multiple learning methods to use. To begin with, they can either be interactive and digital.

Communicate in Russian | Writing in Cyrillic is possible wherever you are on the planet | source: commons.wikimedia.org

Do this on Google and you will be put on the path of e-learning, with several sites dedicated to learning the alphabet, usually for free and with audio resources as a bonus.

There are also paperback manuals available in bookstores, such as the For Dummies method, as well as a multitude of other books for all ages and learning goals.

In short, there is nothing better than a traditional method that can adapt to each and every interested student: a private lesson with a Russian teacher all on your own, which beats being in a group course, for example.

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Could You Learn How to Write in Russian?

6 minutes reading time

If American high school students learn Spanish, German, French, and Italian fluently, the same can not be said of the Russian language.

Russian is rare as a foreign language in high school. Similarly, in adults, learning the Cyrillic alphabet often stems from a professional interest or a strong passion for Slavic culture.

An American tourist who wants to spend one summer in St. Petersburg will rarely take the trouble to master Russian writing.

This is because the alphabetical logic of Neva and Muscovy is very different from what we are used to in our vast United States of America.

Another system means another logic altogether.

Let’s take a look at this specific question now: do American speakers have a difficulty in learning to write in Russian cursive?

The Fundamental Description of the Cyrillic Alphabet

The Cyrillic alphabet has a rich history that goes beyond one simple millennium.

This gave way to the «Cyrillic method.»

Americans have a bad reputation when it comes to foreign languages. they get stressed out to say the least!

The Cyrillic alphabetic system has had ample time to transform itself according to historical and linguistic developments.

The Slavics of the Eastern Russian Rite is now considered Old Russian or medieval Old-Slavic by the Russian liturgy.

Many branches have evolved from this common Old-Slavic, but it is indeed the Russian writing that ranks first, both in terms of the number of speakers, as a cultural influence.

Rejoice, dear American friends: there are less characters to learn in the 21st century!

This simplification and lesser number is due to orthographic reforms which revived the Russian language. These changes were eminently phonetic and of a non-etymological nature.

The Differences of the Latin and Cyrillic Alphabet

The differences between the Latin alphabet and the Russian graphological system is obvious when you put them side by side.

It is this contrast that can seem difficult for American learners.

American English letters come directly from the Latin that was universalized by the Roman Empire, while the Russian alphabet hails from the family of Indo-European languages, which is a cousin of the Greek that Cyrillic gave birth to.

Old Slavic Writing | source: Wikimedia Commons

There are however some similarities. Some of the writing rules are identical: the tip of the pen must stay on the sheet of paper all the way to the end of the word.

For the rest, much like English, Russian has vowels and consonants. The latter’s functions are however more complex in Russia. They can be soft or hard according to the vowels next to them.

This is one more obstacle to overcome, but don’t worry—it’s possible to get there!

Learning any foreign language is hard. Here are some essential tips from TED Translators:

Don’t forget that the Russian language has real tonic accents but these do not necessarily find a translation in writing.

To make things easier, buy a Cyrillic keyboard!

Are there Languages That Are Harder to Write for an American?

Faced with all these Russian writing details, some learners will perhaps despair and renounce copying beautiful passages from the pages of Gogol or Chekhov.

However, there are degrees of «difficult writing.» Russian is a relatively easy language to write when compared with idioms that are even more exotic than the Russian language.

In this respect, an American will have lesser difficulty mastering alphabetic types of writing: a vast group where English and Russian are found, but also less widespread languages ​​such as Hungarian (which, if it uses the Latin alphabet, also uses accents and umlauts that act on 40 different letters).

Alcoran | The religious language of Chechens is harder to write than that of Russians: no vowels, right-to-left writing, and a totally different alphabet | source: Wikipedia

These written gymnastics are easier for an American than syllabic systems such as Japanese, or even those that are ideogrammatic (Chinese is the key example here, where it is necessary to learn a symbol per word).

Similarly, a language such as Arabic (it is the same for Hebrew) is written from right to left and vowels do not exist will always be more difficult for an American student.

Bad Habits Not to Take Up When Learning How to Write in Russian

Nothing would be more crazy than learning how to speak Russian by refusing to write it.

Moreover, whether it be for writing or reading, the learning strategy is the same: memorize the letters of the Russian alphabet, know how to recognize them, name them, and pronounce them (if necessary).

Writing comes at this crucial moment.

We must not skip any of the steps. There is no use taking out your pen without knowing the Cyrillic alphabet perfect.

Once you know the alphabet, writing in Russian will come very easily, and is even within reach of a kindergartener: just copy and copy the same character from a textbook (you will find Russian textbooks in cities), then copy texts and sentences one by one.

This will make you feel like you’re in primary school once more! But do not worry about wasting your time or doing something boring: those who learn Korean or Tamil have no choice but to follow suit, and the difficulties they face are far more important than yours!

Crimean War | source: upload.wikimedia.org

In short, any age is ideal to focus on the written Russian word. You will hear this from many certified Russian teachers or private Russian tutors. In fact, you may want to look into a Russian private tutor yourself.

Such tutoring will maximize your chances of avoiding the obstacles that await you on the path of Russian-English bilingualism.

The main thing is not to feel alone if you are drowning in difficulties. You have to know that there are qualified people to help you with your language learning experience. The Internet, for example, can be a worthy compensation for any learning difficulties—as e-learning greatly facilitating things for American learners!

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Learn all about Russian Names

We’ll be honest with you—one of the questions we get asked the most on RussianPod101 is on — yes, you guessed it — names. The most frequently asked questions include:

For those who want to have their name in Russian, we have made it simple for you to write your name today. Yes, today! This post is your one-stop guide regarding Russian names!

Ask Us How to Write Your Name in Russian!

Want to know how to write your name in Russian? Just ask us! We’ll write your name in Russian.

How can you ask? First, log in to RussianPod101. Then, simply leave a comment on this page.

Get Your Russian Name

Related Lessons

Table of Contents

1. How to Write Your Name in Russian

The easiest way is to find a Cyrillic letter that corresponds to the pronunciation of your Russian name. For example, if your name is “Maya,” you can use the letter м for the “m” sound,” а for “a” sound, then я for “ya” sound. You just need to put them together and write Мая for “Maya.”

Here are some English names in the Cyrillic alphabet.

If you cannot find your name on this list or want to make your name in the Cyrillic alphabet by yourself, here’s our video series for you. Check out Russian Alphabet Made Easy and learn how to write the Cyrillic characters for your English name.

This will help you learn the Cyrillic alphabet and start writing your name in Russian by yourself!

2. How to Make Up Your Russian Nickname

Here’s a list of Russian names hand-picked by our team. Pick the one that you like and use it as your Russian name.

A. Russian First Names

— b. Russian Male Names

B. Russian Last Names

How to write russian in russian

You asked, so we provided—easy-to-follow instructions on how to set up your electronic devices to write in Russian! We’ll also give you a few excellent tips on how to use this keyboard, as well as some online and app alternatives if you prefer not to set up a Russian keyboard.

1. Why it’s Important to Learn to Type in Russian

Learning a new language is made so much easier when you’re able to read and write/type it. This way, you will:

2. Setting up Your Computer and Mobile Devices for Russian

It takes only a few steps to set up any of your devices to read and type in Russian. It’s super-easy on your mobile phone and tablet, and a simple process on your computer.

On your computer, you’ll first activate the onscreen keyboard to work with. You’ll only be using your mouse or touchpad/pointer for this keyboard. Then, you’ll need to change the language setting to Russian, so all text will appear in Russian. You could also opt to use online keyboards instead. Read on for the links!

On your mobile devices, it’s even easier—you only have to change the keyboard. We also provide a few alternatives in the form of online keyboards and downloadable apps.

3. How to Activate an Onscreen Keyboard on Your Computer

1- Mac

1. Go to System Preferences > Keyboard.

2. Check the option “Show Keyboard & Character Viewers in Menu Bar.”

3. You’ll see a new icon on the right side of the main bar; click on it and select “Show Keyboard Viewer.”

2- Windows

1. Go to Start > Settings > Easy Access > Keyboard.

2. Turn on the option for “Onscreen Keyboard.”

3- Online Keyboards

If you don’t want to activate your computer’s onscreen keyboard, you also have the option to use online keyboards. Here are some good options:

4- Add-ons of Extensions for Browsers

Instead of an online keyboard, you could also choose to download a Google extension to your browser for a language input tool. The Google Input Tools extension allows users to use input tools in Chrome web pages, for example.

4. How to Change the Language Settings to Russian on Your Computer

Now that you’re all set to work with an onscreen keyboard on your computer, it’s time to download the Russian language pack for your operating system of choice:

1- Windows 8 (and higher)

2- Windows 7

1. Go to Start > Control Panel > Clock, Language, and Region.

2. On the “Region and Language” option, click on “Change Keyboards or Other Input Methods.”

3. On the “Keyboards and Languages” tab, click on “Change Keyboards” > “Add” > “Russian.”

4. Expand the option of “Russian” and then expand the option “Keyboard.” Select the keyboard layout marked as “Russian.” You can ignore other keyboard layouts. Click “OK” and then “Apply.”

3- Mac (OS X and higher)

If you can’t see the language listed, please make sure to select the right option from System Preferences > Language and Region

1. From the Apple Menu (top left corner of the screen) go to System Preferences > Keyboard.

2. Click the Input Sources tab and a list of available keyboards and input methods will appear.

3. Click on the plus button, select “Russian,” and add the “Russian – Phonetic” keyboard.

5. Activating the Russian Keyboard on Your Mobile Phone and Tablet

Texting and searching in Russian will greatly help you master the language! Adding a Russian keyboard on your mobile phone and/or tablet is super-easy.

You could also opt to download an app instead of adding a keyboard. Read on for our suggestions.

Below are the instructions for both iOS and Android mobile phones and tablets.

1- iOS

1. Go to Settings > General > Keyboard.

2. Tap “Keyboards” and then “Add New Keyboard.”

3. Select “Russian” from the list.

4. When typing, you can switch between languages by tapping and holding on the icon to reveal the keyboard language menu.

2- Android

1. Go to Settings > General Management > Language and Input > On-screen Keyboard (or “Virtual Keyboard” on some devices) > Samsung Keyboard.

2. Tap “Language and Types” or “ + Select Input Languages” depending on the device and then “MANAGE INPUT LANGUAGES” if available.

3. Select “Русский” from the list.

4. When typing, you can switch between languages by swiping the space bar.

3- Applications for Mobile Phones

If you don’t want to add a keyboard on your mobile phone or tablet, these are a few good apps to consider:

6. Russian Keyboard Typing Tips

Typing in Russian can be very challenging at first! Therefore, we added here a few useful tips to make it easier to use your Russian keyboard.

There are two main keyboard types:

1.) Standard (ЙЦУКЕН) is what we actually use on Russian laptops/PCs, and what is usually used on tablets/smartphones.

2.) A phonetic keyboard (say, ЯВЕРТЫ) sort of matches Russian letters to

Latin letters close in pronunciation. This may be fine if you’re moderately interested in Russian, but that’s it. Also, a phonetic keyboard has an obvious advantage if your physical keyboard doesn’t have Russian letters.

7. How to Practice Typing Russian

As you probably know by now, learning Russian is all about practice, practice, and more practice! Strengthen your Russian typing skills by writing comments on any of our lesson pages, and our teacher will answer. If you’re a RussianPod101 Premium PLUS member, you can directly text our teacher via the My Teacher app—use your Russian keyboard to do this!