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Language is Worth Speaking

A supplemental source for learners of Russian

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The Vowels

Aa Ее Ёё Ии Оо Уу Ыы Ээ Юю Яя
There are ten vowels in the Russian language. These vowels can be divided into two types: hard-indicating and soft-indicating. The five hard-indicating vowels are а, э, о, у, and ы. The five soft-indicating vowels are я, е, ё, ю, and и.

Why Hard-indicating and Soft-indicating Vowels

The consonants in the Russian alphabet have a hard or soft quality. Most of the consonant letters of the modern alphabet do not indicate whether a consonant is to be pronounced using its soft or its hard variant. Therefore, Russian uses ten vowels—the hard- and soft-indicating vowels—to communicate or indicate when a consonant is hard or soft.

When a soft-indicating vowel is pronounced, the preceding consonant is often naturally pronounced soft. The soft-indicating vowels are created by adding the sound of the English letter ‘y’ to the front of the hard-indicating vowels. In English, an example would be the difference in the pronunciation between the words moot and mute, where moot is hard and mute is soft. 
Hard
moot
Soft
mute
In the table below, for each hard-indicating vowel in the left column there is a soft-indicating equivalent in the right.
Russian Hard-indicating Vowels
Aa
Ээ
Оо
Уу
Ыы
Russian Soft-indicating Vowels
Яя
Ее
Ёё
Юю
Ии
Vowels in the Russian language often change according to gender, case, and number. When a soft-indicating vowel is changed, it is only replaced by another soft-indicating vowel. For example, the soft-indicating vowel я in the nominative case is replaced by the soft-indicating vowel ю in the accusative case. Likewise, the hard-indicating vowel а will be replaced by the hard-indicating у.

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Next: The Consonant б, в, д >>
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