Softness and the y-vowels

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.

soft sign

Ь ь has no sound of its own: it marks the preceding consonant as soft. Softness means raising the middle of the tongue toward the hard palate. Ь is used in all-capital text, not at the beginning of a normal word.

ь

soft sign

ye

Є є is ye at the start of a word, after a vowel or apostrophe. After a consonant it normally marks a soft consonant followed by e.

є

ye

yu

Ю ю is yu at the start of a word, after a vowel or apostrophe. After a consonant it normally marks softness followed by u.

ю

yu

ya

Я я is ya at the start of a word, after a vowel or apostrophe. After a consonant it normally marks softness followed by a. It is not a backwards Latin R.

я

ya