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Day 2:
Alphabet

Let’s now begin the actual learning of the language. Alphabet is the first step; not a full brick yet,
but a prerequisite for it. For this topic you must listen to the way I will pronounce the letters. There
is just no way around it! You can guess, and use the English transcriptions, but it will not get you far.
Here is the alphabet:

А a
Б be
В ve
Г ge
Д de
Е ye
Ё yo
Ж zhe
З ze
И ee
Й y
К ke
Л le
М me
Н ne
О o
П pe
Р re
С se
Т the
У oo
Ф ef
Х he
Ц zce
Ч cha
Ш sha
Щ scha
Ъ -
Ы ee
Ь -
Э e
Ю you
Я ya

In bold is a letter, and next to it is an English sound of it. But! It’s how we spell letters, it’s not how
they actually sound. The way you read any alphabet will be different from the way you would
pronounce the letters. That’s why I recorded two versions: spelling, and how the letter sounds in
the word.
The great thing about Russian pronunciation is that what you read is what you say. It’s not like
English, when bike and Nike (nai-kee) will sound completely different, even though it’s only a one-
letter change. I am not even going to say anything about French pronunciation…In Russian, you can
read letter-by-letter and still get the pronunciation right.
The way I would try to memorize these letters is to look at them in the words. Since, it doesn’t look
like English letters, you will have to train your brain to recognize these letters and assign a sound to
them.
I put a short paragraph below, recorded myself reading it. It’s your task now to see how the sound
of letters are linked together into a word. It will read it real slow. Don’t try to understand the text,
your task is to distinguish a sound. Just listen. Well… maybe take notes.
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- Сегодня я написал главу для моей книги. Этот курс поможет людям выучить русский язык. Этот
курс направлен на начинающих учеников. Я с каждым днём пытаюсь дать читающим полезную,
ключевую информацию о языке. Я считаю, что этот курс будет очень полезным. Деньги,
полученные с этой книги, я постараюсь вложить в другой свой проект, который также будет
посвящён изучению языков.
(audio)
I hope that you got something out of it!
Exercise for today:
1. Read the following words
a. Мама
b. Папа
c. Арбуз
d. Клей
e. Экран
f. Стол
g. Потолок
2. Check your pronunciation by listening to me reading these words
3. Think of 5 words you want to say, translate them in Google Translator, press the sound button,
repeat after the robot
4. Get a Russian keyboard on your phone. Look it up, it’s very easy

From now on, forget about typing Russian sounds in English! Even if it will take you 5 times more
time, try to do it in Russian. Also, if you see a word in Russian, try to pronounce it. It might take you
a while until reading in Russian becomes an effortless process, but you must know how to read!