Russian words for days, months, numbers and greetings in Cyrillic
These Russian words are the first ones a learner meets: the seven days, the twelve months, the numbers and the everyday greetings, each in Cyrillic with the stress marked, a BGN/PCGN transliteration and the IPA.
Russian words by topic
Four pages, each with a word table, the grammar that comes with the words, and example sentences.
- 01Days of the week in Russian: the seven names in Cyrillic, stress, IPAThe days of the week in Russian are понедельник, вторник, среда, четверг, пятница, суббота and воскресенье, Monday to Sunday. They are written in lower case, the week starts on Monday, and four of the names simply count: second, middle, fourth, fifth.
- 02Months in Russian: the twelve names in Cyrillic, IPA and date formsThe months in Russian are январь, февраль, март, апрель, май, июнь, июль, август, сентябрь, октябрь, ноябрь and декабрь. All twelve are masculine and written in lower case, and in a date they change to the genitive: 1 января, the first of January.
- 03Numbers in Russian: zero to a billion with stress, IPA and grammarNumbers in Russian from one to ten are один, два, три, четыре, пять, шесть, семь, восемь, девять, десять. Counting is regular from there on, with two surprises, сорок for 40 and девяносто for 90, and the noun after a number changes its case depending on the last digit.
- 04Greetings in Russian: formal and informal hello, thank you, goodbyeHello in Russian is здравствуйте (zdravstvuyte) to a stranger or to several people, and привет (privet) to a friend. Thank you is спасибо (spasibo), and goodbye is до свидания (do svidaniya), or пока (poka) among friends.
Reading Russian words: Cyrillic, stress and transliteration
- русскийRussian Cyrillic
- спасибоthank you Cyrillic
- понедельникMonday Cyrillic
Russian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet of 33 letters, with capital and small forms like Latin. Several letters look Latin but stand for other sounds: Р is r, Н is n, В is v, С is s. Two letters have no sound of their own: the soft sign ь softens the consonant before it, the hard sign ъ separates. The Russian alphabet chart lists every letter with its name.
Stress is the hidden part of Russian words. It can fall on any syllable and can move between forms of one word, so среда́ (Wednesday) becomes в сре́ду (on Wednesday). Normal print does not mark it; dictionaries and learners' texts use an acute accent, and these pages show it on a second line under each word.
Latin spellings depend on the system. These pages use BGN/PCGN, the British and American system for names, which writes пятница as pyatnitsa. The scholarly transliteration in Wiktionary gives pjatnica for the same word. The Cyrillic is always the reference.
How Russian handles dates, numbers and greetings
Russian words for days and months are written in lower case. The days of the week mostly count from Sunday's old name неделя, which now means week; the months are Latin names that came through Greek. In a date the month goes into the genitive case: 28 октября, the twenty-eighth of October.
Numbers bring case grammar with them. One takes the singular, two to four the genitive singular, five and up the genitive plural, and один and два change for gender. Greetings follow the line between вы and ты: здравствуйте for strangers and groups, привет for friends.
Where Russian is official
Russian is the state language of Russia and an official language of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, whose pages give their regions in Russian beside the national language. The Slavic and Baltic word list compares Russian vocabulary with Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish and the other languages of the family.
Questions about Russian words
How many letters does the Russian alphabet have?
33, from А to Я, including the soft sign ь and the hard sign ъ, which have no sound of their own.
Why do some Russian words have an accent mark?
The acute shows the stressed vowel. Ordinary Russian text leaves it out; dictionaries and learning materials add it because stress cannot be predicted from spelling.
What is the word for Russian in Russian?
Русский (russkiy) for the adjective and the language, as in русский язык, the Russian language.