Phonetics Guide
Learn the sounds of Russian with our comprehensive IPA guide. Understand how each phoneme is pronounced with real word examples.
Vowels
Monophthong vowel sounds
Short "i" sound as in "sit"
Schwa - unstressed neutral vowel
Short "e" sound as in "bed"
Short "oo" sound as in "put"
"a" sound as in "cat"
Long "ee" sound as in "see"
Long "oo" sound as in "too"
Short "o" sound as in "lot" (British)
Diphthongs
Gliding vowel sounds
Long "a" sound as in "day"
"ear" sound as in "near"
Long "i" sound as in "my"
Consonants
Consonant sounds
Voiceless alveolar plosive
Voiceless alveolar fricative
Alveolar approximant
Alveolar nasal
Voiced labiodental fricative
Alveolar lateral approximant
Voiceless velar plosive
Bilabial nasal
"y" sound as in "yes"
Voiceless bilabial plosive
Voiced alveolar plosive
Voiced alveolar fricative
Voiceless labiodental fricative
Voiced bilabial plosive
"sh" sound as in "she"
Voiced velar plosive
"zh" sound as in "measure"