Russian spelling is much more phonetic than English. That’s the good thing. However, the stress in Russian words is as erratic as English with the added delight that it often doesn’t stay where it is to start with. In English, once you know where the stressed syllable is in, for example, REMARKABLE, you can trust it to stay there. Not so in Russian. People have written books about Russian stress but they don’t help the learner. It’s best just to regard stress as a rather lunatic grasshopper and always pay attention to stress marks in any passage you are reading. In books for Russians there is no such help as the natives just know the pronunciation without help. in student texts the stressed letter is usually marked with a / above the letter. Some of the texts I provide here will have this, others may have red letters as typing stressed letters is tricky. But pay attention even when reading silently. This is the best piece of advice you will get about learning Russian.
1) Consonants pronounced: аpргоximаtеly аs English equivalents.
| Russian | English | Russian | English |
| Б б | B b * | Н н | N n |
| В в | V v * | О о | O o |
| Г г | G g | П п | P p * |
| Д д | D d | Р р | R r * |
| З з | Z z | С с | S s |
| К к | K k | Т т | T t |
| Л л | L l | Ф ф | F f |
| М м | M m |
2) Consonants not represented by a single symbol in English.
| Ж ж | like the s in pleasure. |
| Х х | like the ch in Scottish loch. |
| Ц ц | like ts. If this seems impossible, remember it often оссurs at the end оf English words. Example – fits. In Rusian it can even be the initial letter. |
| Ч ч | like the ch in which. |
| Ш ш | like sh in show. |
| Щ щ | shch as in ‘fresh cheese’ or ‘cash cheque’. In some dialects it is more like a prolonged version of Ш . In the interests of clarity I recommend the former, which is Moscow pronunciation. |
Those marked with an asterisk usually cause confusion for a while. Do not worry; this is normal.