In countries lacking official designation for Russian, such as Ukraine and the Baltic States (where schooling in Russian was mandatory under the Soviet regime), a solid majority of residents may speak it as a second language, in addition to having significant native-speaker minorities. Russian also remains the lingua franca of choice throughout the rest of the former Soviet Central Asian states and the Caucasus, where it is effectively the language of commerce, government, and travel (despite lacking official status).
It is, to a lesser extent, an important language in Mongolia, where it is a compulsory second language after English in the schools, and where signs remain in Cyrillic. Surprisingly enough, Russian has also become the third most widely spoken language in Israel, owing to a massive exodus of Jews from Eastern Europe in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Russian remains perhaps the most important Eurasian travel language because English is very rarely spoken throughout the Russophone countries.
Consonants and vowels in Russian (and Slavic generally) are soft (palatalized) or hard. Consonants are pronounced soft if followed by a soft vowel or the soft sign, else hard. Some consonants are always soft or always hard, regardless of the following vowel.
One important note: the cursive Russian alphabet looks very different from the printed alphabet. The printed alphabet is rarely used when writing by hand. (The same goes to other Cyrillic-written languages.) On the upside, though, as a traveler, you are quite unlikely to have to read much handwritten Russian!
like father if stressed; if not, pronounced like 'u' as in hut
e yeh
like yesterday if stressed, before a stressed syllable pronounced as "ee" as in eel, or if after a stressed syllable and in only one syllable, pronounced like "eh" as in "tell"
ё yoh
like yore; always stressed; pronounced "o" only after ч, ш, щ and ж.
и ee
like seen or the i in Machine
o oh
like score when stressed; when unstressed, it is a hard a in Hakeem (syllable before stress) or the o in Gibson (elsewhere).
like sit, hit, but pronounced far further down the throat, as if being punched in the stomach
э eh
like end (also pronounced further down the throat, as if being punched in the stomach)
ю yoo
like you or Yugoslavia if stressed; if not, pronounced "oo" like cartoon
я yah
like Yacht when stressed; before a stressed syllable pronounced as "ee" as in eel, or if after a stressed syllable and in only one syllable, pronounced like "eh" as in "tell"
The vowels are listed in alphabetical order. Please notice that these vowels also occur in hard/soft pairs: a/я, э/e, o/ё, ы/и, y/ю.
Unfortunately, vowel ё is very often written as е, which can cause problems for non-native speakers, since some Russian words have a different meaning depending on е or ё usage. Fortunately special books (like dictionaries, grammar books, literature for foreigners, etc.) always include ё.
like go; in genitive (possesive) endings ого/его like avoid, e.g., "Dostoevsky's" = Достоевского (duh-stah-YEHV-skuh-vuh)
д d
like do
ж zh
like measure; always hard
з z
like zoo
й y
like boy
к k
like keep
л l
like leak or look
м m
like seem
н n
like noodle; pronounced ny (palatalized, like a Spanish ñ) before ь, и, e, я, and ю.
п p
like spigot
р r
heavily rolled as in Spanish rr in perro
с s
like seem
т t
like tattoo
ф f
like French
х kh
voiceless velar fricative as in the Scottish loch or German Bach
ц ts
like boots; always hard
ч ch
like cheap; always soft
ш sh
like shot; always hard (pronounced with the tip of the tongue further back in the mouth, almost a retroflex)
щ sh
similar to sheet; always soft: unlike ш, щ is palatalized, meaning that the tip of the tongue rests on the back of the lower teeth, and the sh sound is pronounced with the middle of the tongue. Don't worry about this too much, as you'll be understood in context. (Note that though щ is often transliterated as shch, it is not pronounced similar to "harsh choice"—there is no ch sound in this Russian consonant)
When consonants are soft (they are either always soft or are soft because they are followed by a soft vowel), they become palatalized. This means that the consonant is pronounced while sticking the tip of your tongue behind your lower front teeth while raising the middle of your tongue to your palate.
Although Russian is pronounced as it is spelled, stress is very unpredictable and stressing the wrong syllable (or even missing a soft/hard sign) can lead to misinterpretation; for that reason, almost every book and dictionary concerning the Russian language put an accent on the tonic syllable, so read the phrases carefully, and then try to re-write them by putting an accent mark. the same rule applies for others that use the Cyrillic script such as Ukrainian and Bulgarian.
These used to be vowels (pronounced like the unstressed vowels above), but aren't any more. They indicate whether the preceding consonant is hard or soft.
There is no fixed stress in Russian, except one case: a syllable with ё is always stressed. Stressed vowels in Russian dictionaries are always marked by an acute accent (a kind of diacritical marks), e.g. трамва́й.
Unless you intend to seriously study the language, learning Russian grammar on your trip is not realistic. But it can help to at least recognize that the following verb conjugations and noun/adjective declensions are used.
The second person pronoun вы is the plural of ты and is also used, as in French, for polite address to one person.
Russian verbs and verb conjugation differ along three axes:
1) Verbs come in perfective and imperfective pairs (e.g., думать | подумать). Imperfective verbs indicate ongoing or uncompleted action; Perfective verbs indicated one-off or completed action. Conjugated perfective verbs are also used to indicated the future tense (future imperfective requires conjugation of the verb to be (быть) + imperfective infinitive). As a general rule (but only a very general rule), perfective verb forms are created by adding a prefix to the relevant imperfective verb.
Singular
Plural
1st Person
Я думаю
Мы думаем
2nd Person
Ты думаешь
Вы думаете
3rd Person
Он думает
Они думают
2) Verbs follow a simple pattern of temporal conjugation: past, present, and future, (e.g., подумал | думаю | подумаю). In the past tense, verbs also conjugate by gender, male, female, and neuter (e.g., подумал | подумала | подумало).
3) In the present and future tenses, pronouns can and are often ommitted due to context; however, the same is hardly said in the past tense, as the latter changes according to gender (masculine, feminine and neutral) and number (singular and plural). (Example at right)
Nouns and adjectives have six cases, depending on their general grammatical role in a sentence:
Russian nouns have a paucal form, used with 2, 3, and 4, as well as singular and plural. Singular quantities and any quantities that end in 1 (21, 301, etc.) use the nominative singular: одна минута, двадцать один час. Quantities 2–4 use the genitive singular: две минуты, три минуты, четыре минуты. Quantities greater than four use the genitive plural: пять минут, одиннадцать минут, тринадцать минут, etc.
1
один (ah-DEEN) m, одна (ahd-NAH) f, одно (ahd-NOH) n (one can say раз (raz) when counting smthng)
Note: Russian uses different endings depending on the quantity. The first ending is for quantities of one, the second for quantities of 2–4, and the third for quantities five or greater.
Dates are written as day.month.year (where day, month and year are numbers) or as day month year (where day and year are numbers and month is written in the genitive). E.g., May 24th, 2009 should be writed as 24.05.2009 or as 24 мая 2009 года. Times always use the 24-hour format, e.g., 5:20PM should be written as 17:20.
Официант!/Девушка! (uh-fee-TSAHNT! / DYEH-voosh-kuh!) The former is very polite and gender neutral, the latter only for female servers, and should not be used in a nice restaurant.
I'm finished.
Я наелся/наелась. (yah nah-YEHL-syuh/yah nah-YEH-las’)
It was delicious.
Это было великолепно. (EH-tuh BYH-luh vyeh-lee-kah-LYEHP-nuh)
Please clear the plates.
Можете убрать со стола. (MOH-zhyh-tyeh oo-BRAHT’ suh stuh-LAH)
I want to talk to the American/Australian/British/Canadian embassy/consulate.
Я хочу поговорить с посольством/консульством Америки/Австралии/Великобритании/Канады. (yah khah-CHOO puh-guh-vah-REET s pah-SOL’ST-vuhm / s KOHN-sool’-stvuhm ah-MEH-ree-kee / ahf-STRAH-lee-yeh/ vee-lee-kuh-bree-TAH-nee-yeh / kah-NAH-dyh)
I want to talk to a lawyer.
Я хочу поговорить с адвокатом. (yah hah-CHOO puh-guh-vah-REET s ahd-vuh-KAH-tuhm)
Can I just pay a fine now?
Я могу заплатить штраф сейчас? (yah mah-GOO zah-plah-TEET’ shtrahf say-CHAHS?) (This phrase indicates that you want to pay a bribe to get out of trouble.)
