Cyrillic print

Lesson opening

This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.

Cyrillic: the second Serbian alphabet

You already know the thirty Latin letters and read them aloud without stumbling. The good news: Serbian Cyrillic is the same thirty sounds in a different costume. A Serb writes in both Latin and Cyrillic script; it is one language with two alphabets, and both are read without a second thought. Our goal in this lesson is to learn to read a Cyrillic sign, price tag or document as calmly as a Latin one. We won't write by hand yet: handwritten Cyrillic is a story of its own, covered in the lesson "Cyrillic by hand".

Coming from the Latin alphabet, you start with a head start of a different kind: a good number of Cyrillic letters look familiar — though not all of them sound the way they look. Some match both shape and sound (А, Е, К, М, О, Т), some are the famous "false friends" that look Latin but sound different (В is "v", Н is "n", Р is "r", С is "s", У is "u"), and a handful are genuinely new shapes. Half an hour of honest work — and you will read Београд and Нови Сад on a Cyrillic plaque no slower than on a Latin one.

The whole azbuka at once

Here are all 30 letters in azbuka order, each with its Latin twin and sound. Scan the table: most letters map straight onto Latin ones you know; the six bolded rows are the genuinely new faces.

What you can already read

Twenty-four letters of the azbuka carry sounds you have already set in the pronunciation lessons. Here they are in one line — read it slowly, letting the false friends register:

Two habits to hold onto. First, the false friends: В is "v" (not "b"), Н is "n" (not "h"), Р is a rolled "r" (not "p"), С is "s", У is "oo", Х is a rough "h" (not "x"). Second, the sounds are the Serbian ones you already know: е is always the "e" of bed (лепо — "LEH-po"), и is always "ee" (риба — "REE-ba"), о is always a full "o" (Београд — "Be-o-grad"), and г is always the hard "g" of go. New shapes, same honest sound system.

The six letters with no Latin twin-shape

All the real novelty of Serbian Cyrillic fits into six letters. Five of them Vuk Karadžić built specially, so that every "soft" consonant and every "j"-sound would get its own letter; the sixth, ј, he borrowed from the Latin alphabet — which makes it the easiest of all for you. You know all six sounds from latinica — it remains to learn their Cyrillic faces.

Cheat sheet

The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.

Cyrillic: the second Serbian alphabet

Azbuka (Cyrillic) and abeceda (Latin): two notations of one alphabet — 30 letters, one letter — one sound. The digraphs lj, nj, dž are single Cyrillic letters: љ, њ, џ. Azbuka order differs: ђ after д, ј after и.

The whole azbuka: 30 letters

24 letters you can already sound out — mind the false friends: В=v, Н=n, Р=r, С=s, У=oo. Beograd — «Београд», full vowels.

The six letters with no Latin twin-shape

Sounds spelled with combinations

Signs, documents, road signs

Road signs: «БЕОГРАД» — Beograd, «НОВИ САД» — Novi Sad, «КРАГУЈЕВАЦ» — Kragujevac, «ВРБАС» — Vrbas.