Learn how to write E and H
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| Zdrastvuite, Ya Svetlana! Welcome to Russianpod101.com’s Алфавит Made Easy! |
| The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn the Russian Cyrillic alphabet: the Алфавит! |
| In the first two lessons, we covered the True Friends in the Russian alphabet. Now we're going to take a look at some slightly more difficult Russian letters - the “False Friends.” While True Friends look and sound like their English counterparts, False Friends look like English letters but sound completely different. Ready to go? Let’s get started! |
| In this lesson we'll learn how to read and write two False Friends in both printed and cursive forms. |
| Our first letter is “Е”! |
| You really want this letter to make an “E” sound don’t you? Even the upper and lower cases are the same as the English! This letter, however, sounds like “yeh”, and sometimes “ee”. In later lessons we'll tell you more about when and why the pronunciation changes. While “Е” is a “false friend”, at least it's not trying to deceive you too much! |
| Here’s the uppercase. |
| Е (print, upper) |
| And the lowercase. |
| Е (print, lower) |
| Now let's look at how to write it in cursive. |
| The cursive version of uppercase “Е” looks like this. It's nearly identical to the English cursive and easy to write. “Е” is a single stroke so you can continue with the next letter after the uppercase without lifting your pen or pencil. |
| Now let's take a look at the lowercase handwritten “Е”. Again, it’s similar to the English cursive, but in Russian, the starting point isn't from the bottom. |
| Now we’ll write them. |
| Е (cursive, upper) |
| And the lowercase. |
| Е (cursive, lower) |
| For both the upper and lowercase versions, it is easy to connect to the next letter! |
| The second False Friend we'll learn in this lesson is “Н”. As you can see, it looks exactly like an English H. But of course, it doesn’t sound like one. It’s actually pronounced like the English “N”. You could always rotate the middle line in your head to make them into N’s! |
| Here’s how to write the printed versions. |
| Н (print, upper) |
| And the lowercase. |
| Н (print, lower) |
| Now let's take a look at how to write “Н” in cursive. |
| The uppercase version looks like this. As you can see, the cursive version of “Н” is very different from the printed version and is written in a single stroke that ends at the bottom rather than the top. As for the lowercase, it’s a little bit different. |
| Handwriting time. |
| Н (cursive, upper) |
| And the lowercase. |
| Н (cursive, lower) |
| That’s all for new letters in this lesson, so let's practice writing these letters in some new words. |
| First up is something you'll need to use everyday and probably already know. Try sounding it out. |
| [short pause] Did you guess “nyet”? If so, great job! You may have known this word before you watched this lesson, but I’ll bet you haven’t written it before! Let’s do that now. |
| Let's make this an exclamation. |
| Нет! (cursive) |
| So we'll start with an uppercase “Н”, followed by a lowercase “е” and “т”. Then we'll polish it off with an exclamation point. “Нет!” |
| Are you ready to stop? “Нет?” I knew it! We'll learn two more words that are very important and that you will hear all the time. Try reading them out loud. |
| [short pause] |
| Did you say “on”? Great! What about “ahna”? Probably not, huh? Here you can see how “O“ can be pronounced as both “oh” and “ah”. Again, we'll talk later about *why* this happens. “он” is the male personal pronoun - the Russian equivalent of “he” - and “она” is the word for “she”. Pretty useful! |
| Now let's try writing them! |
| он (cursive) |
| Let's start “он” with a nice “о” and transition smoothly into the “н”. Great! Now let's write “она”. |
| она (cursive) |
| Start with the “o” again, then make a beautiful “н” and finish it out with an “а”. Nice work! |
| Now it's time for Svetlana’s insights. |
| You may notice that there are some pretty big differences between Russian and English cursive styles. Russian cursive is much more common, and more complicated! But it's fun, and you'll really be able to impress your Russian friends with your beautiful penmanship. One structural difference between Russian and English cursive styles is the starting and ending points of letters. In English, letters usually start from the bottom of the writing line. But in Russian, all lowercase letters start slightly above the line. This gives the Russian script a much different look and is part of the reason that some letters have “hooks”. |
| Well that's all for this lesson – we'll continue next time with a few more False Friends. We'll learn some very useful letters to write common words like “and” in Russian. We'll learn that and much more in the next Алфавит Made Easy lesson! |
| Пока Пока |
Comments
HideWhat Russian words can you write using E or H?
Hi, Aldrik!
Thank you for reaching out with your question! 😊
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Looking forward to seeing you often here. 😊
Спасибо! (Spasibo! "Thank you!")
Team RussianPod101.com
Sorry about him, but I truly also wonder, how do I access the next lesson on my free lifetime account? 😅
Здравствуйте, Donna!
Thank you for the comment and question!👍
The line connects о and н when we handwrite it (all letters of one word are connected in handwriting). The separate letter o doesn't have the line.
Please feel free to contact us with any questions!
Kind Regards,
Evgeniia
Team RussianPod101.com
When writing "he" (looks like OH printed sorry don't have Cyrillic keyboard) - it looks like a small diagonal dash is added to the "O" on the lower right side of the "O" before starting the "H" - no comment was made on that. Why is that? Thank you.
Hello Jinki,
thank you for the question!👍
Yes, it's related to a feminine food word, for example, carrot (морковь).
Думаю, она (морковь) вкусная.
Let us know if you have any questions!
Kind Regards,
Evgeniia
Team RussianPod101.com
Hello
I'm curious what kind of context of this sentence :
Думаю, она вкусная.
"I think it's delicious."
is 'она' used to reference a feminine food word?
Здравствуйте Bamby and payton,
Спасибо for taking the time to leave us your comments. 😇
Let us know if you have any questions!
Всего наилучшего,
Левенте (Levente)
Team RussianPod101.com
I sill a beginner and I am also a kid better to learn a language when your younger.😎😄
❤️️ thank you!!!
Hello Babu,
Both "н" are correct. Every person has its own style of writing. 😄
Elena
Team RussianPod101.com
Hello Babu,
[spasibo] is just transliteration.
[spasiba] is how the word is pronounced.
Elena
Team RussianPod101.com
Здравствуйте,
(In continuation with my earlier comment made minutes ago I am completing the sentence)
The romanization of Спасибо is shown as SPACIBO in the note under sample sentence section. Isn't it SPACIBA?
Спасибо
(Posted on 17-October-2019 17:35 IST)
Здравствуйте,
The way Svetlana write the cursive form of small н (for the first time) and later in various phrases/ sentences (where small н comes) is different. I was wondering which one was correct.
Спасибо
(N:B The romanization of Спасибо is shown as > in the note under sample sentence section. Isn't it >)
(Posted on 17-October-2019 17:30 IST)
Hello Babu,
I am not sure if I understood your question. Could you please specify?
Elena
Team RussianPod101.com
The way cursive form of "н" is written during the lesson, is not followed while writing words/sentences (the middle "-" is tilted). Please advise which is right?
Hello Robei,
It's just a question of different transliteration system. Basically, we read it as "ye" at the beginning of the word and after a vowel.
Elena
Team RussianPod101.com
Can the "E" also be pronounced as "uh" in Russian? I hear the "e" in"больше" and the second "e" in "меньше" enunciated as if they were reduced to an "uh" sound.
Hi Becca,
Thanks for your recommendation and we'll definitely consider adding that to our lessons. Let us know if you have any questions.
Cheers,
Khanh
Team RussianPod101.com
Hi,
I'm loving this series but I wish the lesson notes had images of the cursive letters. Maybe even diagrams of how to write them.
I so want to be able to write in Russian. It looks so beautiful.
Hi...
May you please tell me.. Why the letter e is sometimes being read as ye and sometimes e... Im getting confused when to read it as ye or a e.. Do you have lesson for this?