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.
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.