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Russian to IPA converter
Convert Russian text to IPA phonetic transcription. See the IPA, hear the word, and turn it into review-ready flashcards — without leaving what you are reading.
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Russian in IPA
9 worked examples, each chosen for a sound the spelling hides.
thank you — soft с, reduced final vowel
milk — three written o, three different vowels
good, well — the same akanye pattern
water — unstressed o said as /ɐ/
city — stressed o kept, final д devoiced
friend — final г devoiced to /k/
day — soft on both ends
mother — the soft sign is a sound, not a letter
language, tongue — ы under stress
Russian sounds to know
The symbols that come up most often in Russian transcription, and what each one actually asks your mouth to do.
| Letter | Example | IPA | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| ы | язык | /ɨ/ | A central unrounded vowel. Not и: the difference between мыла and мила rests on it alone. |
| щ | борщ | /ɕː/ | A long soft fricative, not the sh of ш. Older descriptions write it /ɕt͡ɕ/. |
| ш | хорошо | /ʂ/ | Retroflex and always hard, even when followed by и or е. |
| ж | журнал | /ʐ/ | The voiced partner of ш, and equally always hard. |
| х | хорошо | /x/ | A velar fricative like German ach, not the English h. |
| ц | центр | /t͡s/ | One affricate, always hard, and it occurs at the start of a word. |
| ч | чай | /t͡ɕ/ | Always soft — the opposite of ш and ж, which are always hard. |
| ь, and я/е/ю/и after a consonant | день | /nʲ/ | Palatalisation: the tongue body rises toward the palate. Most consonants come in a hard and a soft version, and the pair distinguishes words. |
| о (unstressed) | молоко | /ɐ/ | Akanye: unstressed o moves toward an a-like vowel, and reduces further the further it sits from the stress. |
| л (hard) | молоко | /ɫ/ | A dark, velarised l, much heavier than the English one. Its soft partner ль is a light /lʲ/. |
How Russian writing maps to sound
Cyrillic is a good phonemic fit for Russian, but it hides two things learners need. Stress is unmarked outside dictionaries and textbooks, and palatalisation is carried by the following vowel letter (а vs я, у vs ю) or by the soft sign ь rather than by the consonant itself. IPA writes both explicitly.
Which Russian do these transcriptions show?
Transcriptions follow the Moscow standard used in broadcasting and teaching, including akanye. Northern Russian dialects keep unstressed o as /o/ (okanye), and southern dialects say г as a fricative /ɣ/ where the standard has /ɡ/.
Why guess Russian pronunciation?
Russian spelling does not mark stress, yet stress controls how vowels are reduced and even which word you mean. Consonants also come in hard and soft (palatalised) pairs, a distinction the Cyrillic letters only partly show.
From Russian text to IPA in seconds
Select the text
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Press Alt+Q
IPAtics detects the language automatically and shows the IPA in a floating overlay, right where you are reading.
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Frequently asked questions
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