So you think you can’t read Russian?

Try this, my (hardly) tried and (barely) tested Russian Learning Tool.

Here follows twenty words / names / places in Russian. They are all genuine. They will help you learn to read and pronounce the letters of the Russian Alphabet.

OK, it’s a bit unfair to plunge you straight in at the deep end if you have never tried Russian before, so as a buoyancy aid, the first four I will give you... and you will almost certainly have come across them before.

The first is pronounced “DA” and means “YES”, the second is “NYET” and means “NO”, the third is the (reasonably) well known Russian beetroot soup called “BORSHCH” and the fourth is “ROSSIYA” which means “RUSSIA”.

Note carefully the transliterations!

The rest I’ll leave up to you.

They are all easy, so don’t confuse yourself! The letters in brackets are the new ones you are learning for each word.

At the end is a three part task.

ДА (да)
НЕТ (нет)
БОРЩ (борщ)
РОССИЯ (сия)
КОКА КОЛА (кл)
ПЕПСИ КОЛА (п)
ТЕННИС
СТУДЕНТ (у)
ЖУРНАЛИСТ (ж)
ФУТБОЛ (ф)
БЕЙСБОЛ (й)
ХОККЕЙ (х)
ЮГОСЛАВИЯ (югв)
ПРЕЗИДЕНТ БУШ (зш)
ВЛАДИМИР ПУТИН (м)
НЬЮ-ЙОРК (ь)
ВАШИНГТОН
БОРИС ЕЛЬЦИН (ц)
МИХАИЛ ГОРБАЧЁВ (чё)
ЭЛЬФ (э)

That’s 31 of the 33 letters you have learnt (?).

The last two are Ъ and Ы.

You should have figured something out about Ь from the list above. The same thing applies to Ъ. (You will notice they are similar looking – but entirely different – letters.)

The remaining one, Ы, is generally transliterated into English as either “i” or “y”, and is pronounced a bit like the “i” in “bit”, but down in the throat somewhere. It’s not a sound we make in English.

Right… the task.

This is not so easy – but be brave, and use your intuition.

1. What is the trait that is common to Ь and Ъ?
2. What is the English word (not transliteration) for the Russian ШАХМАТЫ?
3. Write your name (or if you prefer your username) in Russian text.

Go on… have a go… you know you want to.

No cheating, by the way!!!