The different alphabet often terrifies people who want to study Russian or Bulgarian or whatever language uses this alphabet, and sometimes even makes people choose not to study the language after all.
I know how you feel, it terrified me too when I started studying Bulgarian. But what if I told you that it actually is very easy to learn?
In this post, I’m going to show you how I managed to learn the alphabet in just a day. And trust me, this isn’t one of those impossible “clickbaits” like be fluent in language x in only 3 months. No, learning the cyrillic alphabet in just a day is very realistic.
STEP 1: DOWNLOAD THE CYRILLIC KEYBOARD ON YOUR SMARTPHONE
The very first thing you should do, is downloading the cyrillic keyboard on your smartphone. Why on your phone and not your computer, you ask? Well, the letters on the keyboard of your computer won’t magically change once you’ve set your keyboard to the cyrillic alphabet. You’ll see the cyrillic letters on your screen, but not on the actual keyboard, which makes it harder to use. On your smartphone, you do see the cyrillics on the keyboard, which makes it way easier to learn and use.
The Bulgarian keyboard on an iPhone
STEP 2: GET A CHEAT SHEET AND START MEMORIZING THE ALPHABET
I didn’t use any textbooks or websites to learn the cyrillic alphabet. The only thing I used, was a cheat sheet with the sounds of all the letters.
begin with the letters that are the same as the latin alphabet: a, c, e, k …
once I knew those letters, I memorized the letters that appear in the latin alphabet too, but have a different pronunciation: в, р, у, х …
The last step was to memorize the new letters: я, д, ъ, ц …
STEP 3: READ
Once I memorized the entire alphabet, I started reading a bit. I just went to a random wikipedia page and changed the language to Bulgarian (if you’re learning Russian, it’s better to set it in Russian instead). And then I just tried to read it out loud.
You won’t understand a single word of it, and don’t be afraid, that’s normal. You’re just there to practice reading the alphabet, not to actually gain knowledge on the topic you’re reading.
Don’t expect yourself to read as fluent as in your target language or basically any language that uses the latin alphabet. It will go rather slowly, but that’s normal. When you were 6 and just had learned the latin alphabet, you were a slow reader too. Don’t let this terrify you.
STEP 4: WRITING NAMES
When I was tired of reading, I started writing the names of friends, family members, classmates… and most importantly: my own name. By doing that, you practice your writing skills in the cyrillic alphabet.
I do have to warn you, though: not all names can be written in cyrillic. I noticed that especially French names and names with a W in sometimes can’t be written in the cyrillic alphabet.
Another tip I can give you, is looking for easy words in your target language (like good morning, hello, friend etc.) and trying to write these down. You can for example listen to the first Youtube video of Russianpod101 and try writing the words they are saying down. Afterwards, you can correct them, something you cannot do with the names.
STEP 5: EXERCISE DAILY
The last and probably most important step, is to exercise daily. If you’re going to learn it in 1 day but then stop looking at it for a week, be sure you’ll have forgotten nearly everything. It’s important to repeat at least one of these steps on a daily base.
Good luck with your studies!! If you ever need help, don’t hesitate to contact me! 😄
Cyrillic is a wonderfully logical writing system!!!
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