Russian 7 Letters Rule
Even Russian speaking struggle with the 7 special letters

We all know that we have 33 letters in the Russian alphabet. Therefore after a first excurse into the phonetic system of the Russian language there are exactly 7 special letters that make a lot of troubles for us. They are К, Г, Х, Ж, Ч, Ш, Щ.
What makes these letters so special that we need to remember them?
After К, Г, Х we never use Ы only И.
Кипр – Cyprus
Гитара – a guitar
Хитрый - tricky
After Ж, Ч, Ш, Щ we never use Ы, Я, Ю only И, А, У.
Жизнь - life
Чашка – a cup
Шуба – a cur coat
Щур - a cine grosbeak
Now you might be interested why you will never see these letter combinations for the 7 special letters. And the answer is quite simple. It is very hard to articulate such sound combinations.
So even for Russian speaking people there are some difficulties in pronounciation. And now you know what exactly :)
Also keep in mind the following points:
1. ЖO аnd ЖЁ and ЦЭ and ЦЕ are pronounced alike.
2. With ЦЫ and ЦИ and ШО and ШЁ the letters Ж, Ц and Ш are always hard.
3. With ЧО and ЧЁ, ЩО and ЩЁ and the letters Ч and Щ are always soft.
This 7 letters rule is also important when we make the plural.
Singular | Plural | ||
Russian | English | Russian | English |
Девушка | girl | Девушки | girls |
Книга | book | Книги | books |
Блоха | flea | Блохи | fleas |
Гараж | garage | Гаражи | garages |
Меч | horn | Мечи | horns |
Каша | porridge | Каши | porridges |
Плащ | rain coat | Плащи | rain coats |
Especially for you to remember these 7 letters I decided to invent one sentence. Every first letter of a word in this sentence is letter from our rule.
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Каждая гениальная хозяйка чистит и жарит широкую шоколадную щуку. (Every genial housewife gibes and fries large chocolate jackfish) |
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I hope this phrase will be useful for you at the Russian lessons and you will never forget what letters to put after the 7 special letters and what a housewife normally does in Russia.
Wishing you good luck!
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