It takes about 2 weeks to learn the Russian alphabet, and is absolutely essential to master if you are travelling to the Russian Federation. Not surprisingly, most things in Russia are written in Russian without an English translation (shop names, menus, signs), especially once you get outside of Moscow or St.Petersburg. You will become frustrated very quickly if you do not know the Russian alphabet.
The Russian alphabet isn’t something that is easily learnt overnight, and you will understand why after you begin. There are many new symbols to learn, and some of the letters look like English letters but are in fact pronounced quite differently.
If you decide that learning the alphabet is a good idea then the best way to begin is to rote-learn (write many times!) small groups of letters, and gradually build-up to learning the whole alphabet. While some textbooks might suggest learning the alphabet in a particular order, we suggest learning in Russian alphabetical order, and there is a good reason for this.
Some books choose to present the Russian letters based on particular qualities, such as resemblance to English letters. However, if you learn the Russian alphabet in this way then later on you will discover it is very difficult to locate Russian words in a Russian-English dictionary, because the Russian alphabet isn’t presented in exactly the same order as the English alphabet. So to save you a few headaches in the future, it may be better to learn in alphabetical order, with the hope that you will also learn the sequence of the Russian alphabet.
Yes and No
The Russian words for Yes and No are probably already very familiar to you:
