Palatalization: Hard and Soft Consonants and Spelling

The following consonants can be hard or soft: б- бь;  в- вь;  д- дь; з- зь; л- ль; м- мь; н- нь; п- пь; р- рь; с- сь; т- ть; ф- фь. But the soft sign (ь) is only used when no vowel follows the consonant. If a vowel follows, then the special "soft" vowel is used. So, instead of writing бьыть we write бить, and instead of льубльу, люблю.

But what about the other consonants?

Well, the velar consonants к, г, х  also have hard and soft sounds: [к]-[к'], [г]-[г'], [х]-[х']. But for historical reasons, the soft sign is not used after these letters. Instead, a mix of vowels is written instead:

• к, г, х  can never be followed by ы;
• к, г, х  are not usually followed by vowels я, ё, ю, and э (note: э not е, which is used)
• such combinations can be seen in foreign words like Гётте, Хэллоуин, Гюнтер, Кэтлин.

The other six consonants are unpaired. Three are always hard - ж, ш, ц (they have no soft counterparts) - and three are always soft - ч, щ, й (these consonants have no hard counterparts). For these unpaired consonants the choice of vowel is usually determined by special spelling rules (see here for more on spelling rules)

1. After the consonants ж, ш, ч, щ the letter и is used (never ы). After the hard ones (ж ш), the sound is ы.
жить to live 
машина car 
чипсы chips 
защита protection 

2. After the unpaired soft consonants ч, щ the letters а, у are used (never я, ю in spite of the fact that the consonants are soft).
час an hour
чудо miracle 
роща grove 
ищу I'm looking for

3. After the unpaired hard consonant ц the letter ы is used in the ending of a word, the letter и is used in the root.
огурцы  cucumbers
немцы Germans
цифра number 
цирк circus

4. Й is a special case. Vowels are never written after it; instead it combines with the vowel to produce the "soft vowel": йа = я, йэ = е, йо = ë, йу = ю and йы = и

Russian Spelling

As we have seen, palatalization of consonants (hard v. soft) is phonemically meaningful in Russian, that is, whether a consonant is hard or soft can be the only feature distinguishing two different words. But because the orthography (writing system) uses the same consonant for both (rather than 14 extra letters), they use a diacritic - the soft sign or hard sign Ь Ъ - to mark it. Once the Ъ was written after every hard consonant not followed by a vowel, but now it is only written before the so-called "soft vowels" after prefixes ending in hard consonants. That is, now Russian orthography assumes a consonant to be hard unless it is explicitly marked as soft.

The five Russian vowels have two letters each, one of which says "the consonant before me is hard" and one which says "the consonant before me is soft ... or Y (Й)." It's that "or" that is problematic and makes the Ъ not obsolete; it's needed to show the combination of hard consonant + Й.Without it, you would think that подъехать had a soft Д (as if подехать)instead of a hard one followed by a Й (подйэхать would be the purely phonetic spelling). And съесть to eat would sound exactly like сесть to sit down.

At any rate, the problem for Russian spelling arises because five of the consonants are not paired for softness, and three - к г х (the velars) - never use the soft sign. The unpaired five are the sibilant (husher) consonants. Of those, ш ж ц are always pronounced hard; щ ч are always pronounced soft. But the choice of which vowel to write has nothing to do with that, and is ruled instead by historical phonology. Fortunately, it can be condensed into some invariable rules:

Spelling Rule 1: Ы - И

Never write the letter "Ы" after the letters 'Г, К, Х, Ж, Ч, Ш, Щ' instead use "И"

Spelling Rule 2: unstressed O - E

Never write an unstressed "O" after the letters 'Ж, Ч, Ш, Щ, Ц' instead use "E"

Spelling Rule 3: Я - А

Never write the letter "Я" after the letters 'Г, К, Х, Ж, Ч, Ш, Щ, Ц' instead use "А"

Spelling Rule 4: Ю - У

Never write the letter "Ю" after the letters 'Г, К, Х, Ж, Ч, Ш, Щ, Ц' instead use "У"

Notes:
Number 2 is the most complicated rule, because you have to pay attention to stress: в большом хорошем доме "in a big nice house".
Generally the letter Ë will be used after Ж to show stressed O. (It used to be a soft consonant.)
Remember that Ц can be followed by Ы. 

Here is a page from Alpha Dictionary: Russian Spelling Rules.
Here is one from Russian Lessons.net: Spelling Rules.

Handwriting

Russian cursive handwriting looks, I think, more different from Russian printing than English does.

Here are some resources to complement the textbook for learning how to read and write in it.

First up, a video showing how:

Here is Russian Lessons's page on handwriting, with lots of examples.

And at Lingua Lift, their page on handwriting. They have a practice sheet, which I've placed here for you to download if you wish.

Here's another video:

And finally, a couple of (?) humorous memes:

Key: Лилии, дымишь, дышишь, лишишься, слышишь, шиншиллы, ишемия. lilacs, (you) smoke, (you) breathe, (you) will lack something, (you) hear, chinchillas, ischemia

The word is дышишь, you breathe, and the Russian caption means "A strong nation will overcome even by its language"

The Alphabet

The Russian alphabet (called азбука, azbuka, after the classical names of the first two letters - much like "alpha-bet(a)", come to think of it) was designed by South-Slavic-speaking monks in order to evangelize their kin. It has much in common with the Greek and Hebrew alphabets, with additional letters for Slavic sounds those languages didn't have. The monks were named Cyril and Methodius, hence the word "Cyrillic".

This post has a number of illustrations, links, and files to  help you with the Russian Cyrillic alphabet.

Here is the current Russian Cyrillic alphabet (other Slavic-speaking countries, as well as non-Slavic post-Soviet ones, have their own versions, plus or minus a few of these letters). Included is a serif font, a sans-serif font, and an italic font.

А Б В Г Д Е Ë Ж З И Й К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Я

а б в г д е ë ж з и й к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь э ю я

А Б В Г Д Е Ë Ж З И Й К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Я

а б в г д е ë ж з и й к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь э ю я

А Б В Г Д Е Ë Ж З И Й К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Я

а б в г д е ë ж з и й к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь э ю я

Here's a little joke about learning italic Cyrillic:

Here's the PowerPoint I showed in class.

Here is a link to the Russian Language Mentor's discussion on the alphabet and the Russian sound system.

Here are the lessons from "RussianLessons.net". They have audio files as well, to help with pronunciation. And below is their video, which includes several native speakers giving you the pronunciation of letters and words.

And here are more alphabetic tidbits:

Here is the original form alphabet used by Slavs, called glagolitic. I'm posting it just so you can see how much worse you could have had it!

Here is the form of the Cyrillic alphabet as it was used for a very long time. Note that some letters also were used as numbers - nowadays, Russians use the same numerals as we do.

Here is the alphabet as it existed at the beginning of the 20th century. The Soviet government conducted an orthographic reform which removed a few of these (lost vowels in red, consonants in blue), and restricted the use of the diacritic Ъ to a much-reduced role. If you look at books published after the 1920s, or somewhat later for the diaspora, you will find these letters.

Here are some alphabet charts.

Here are links to various files you can download:

Words used in the Alphabet charts
Alphabet in various fonts
Links to various on-line dictionaries