Old Friends:
А а, Е е, К к, М м, О о, Т т, С с
 

These Russian Letters Look and Sound (Almost) the Same as Their English Counterparts. They are the easiest ones to learn!

Letter Handwriting Name (RU) Sound [IPA] Similar English Sound
А а А а а [a] father
Е е Е е е [je], [e] yes / met
К к К к ка [k] kite
М м М м эм [m] man
О о О о о [o] / [a] more
С с С с эс [s] center
Т т Т т тэ [t] top

Notes:

  • The letter Е е may sound like ye in yes, or e in met. 🧩 Deep Dive
  • The letter О о sounds like o in more when it’s stressed. When it’s unstressed, it sounds more like a in about. We’ll cover that in more detail later.
  • Sometimes С с is not a true friend. In English, the letters k, c, s are used to represent sounds [k] or [s] (e.g., cat vs. center). In Russian, it’s simpler:
    • К к is always [k] (like Kit).
    • С с is always [s] (like C in Celsius or Center).
    So Russian doesn’t need an extra letter S. You’ll use К for [k] and С for [s] every time!

To remember the 7 "friendly" letters, memorize these 2 Russian words. These words are cognates (sound similar to English words). Can you guess what they mean?

  • Коме́та ☄️
  • Ко́смос 🪐
Illustration of a comet and cosmos

Practice readining these additional cognates. The stress mark (´) shows which syllable is stressed.

  • ма́ма 🤱
  • тома́т 🍅
  • текст 📰
  • кот 🐈
  • а́том ⚛️
  • ма́ска 🎭