Back | Help glossary

Things to know about Russian

Russian is the official language of Russia. It is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, which is believed to have been introduced by the Greek missionaries Cyril and Methodius.

Using Russian Lessons

The Russian Cyrillic alphabet is written left to right, like English. It contains 33 letters: 20 consonants, 10 vowels, 1 semi-consonant/semi-vowel, and 2 special signs.

Some content in this application shows the native Russian characters along with the transliterations of the Russian words and phrases. Others may have just native characters or just transliterations. If your content only shows native Russian characters, or shows the text in native characters before the transliterations, you will need to type the Russian characters in various activities and assessments. Follow the instructions below to do so.

Note: If your content only shows transliterations, or shows transliterations before native characters, see Using Transliterated Russian Lessons further down.

To type Russian characters:

  1. Position your cursor somewhere where you can type, and verify that the layout is set to Russian.
  2. Locate the character you want on the virtual keyboard, then click on it or press the corresponding key on your physical keyboard. Capital letters and certain punctuation marks are available by holding down the Shift key.
  3. If you want to type a stress mark over a Russian vowel, type the vowel, then select the version with the stress mark from the list of possibilities which appears. These stress marks are not part of the standard Russian spelling system, but are often used to teach pronunciation. You do not have to type the stress marks to have your answers marked as correct, but you can include them if you prefer. However, if you type a stress mark where it does not belong, your answer will be considered incorrect.

See Typing special scripts for additional typing instructions.

Using Transliterated Russian Lessons

Some Russian lessons in this application may be transliterated - written with the letters of the Latin alphabet. Transliterated lessons can help you master vocabulary and pronunciation before tackling a new writing system.

If your content only shows transliterations, or shows transliterations before native characters, you do not have to type actual Russian characters. You can type the transliterations in any activity or assessment that requires typed answers. Transliterated Russian does not require any special characters.

Go to top of page