Familiar shapes, surprising sounds

Meet ve, en, er, es, u and practise telling them apart.

One letter, two cases

Ukrainian uses 33 Cyrillic letters, read from left to right. Capitals start sentences and names. These lessons use upright print: handwriting and italics can look different. A letter name is a label; the sound cue tells you how to read it. The soft sign is a letter but has no sound of its own.

ve

В в makes a v-like sound, not b. It can sound closer to w at the end of a syllable.

en

Н н makes n, not h. Look for the crossbar joining two uprights.

er

Р р makes a tongue-tip r, not p. Use П п for p.

es

С с makes s. Do not use the k sound that Latin C sometimes has.

u

У у makes oo, as in food. Its Latin-looking Y outline does not give it a y sound.