Russian spelling rules

1. Vowels after ж, ш, ч, щ, ц and г, к, х

Some consonants never combine with certain vowels in Russian spelling. Г, к, х are velars (sounds made at the back of the mouth); ж, ш, ч, щ are hushing consonants (the “sh”-like sounds); ц is said “ts”. These three rules override every ending table: whenever a table says ы, я or ю after these letters, write the replacement instead.

The о/е rule depends on stress: in endings and suffixes, write о when it is stressed (ножо́м, “with a knife”) and е when it isn’t (му́жем, “with a husband”). Inside roots, stressed ё is written ё: жёлтый (ZHOL-ty, yellow).

2. -тся or -ться

Both endings sound identical: “-tsa”. The difference is grammar. -ться is the infinitive (the dictionary form, “to …”); -тся is the он/она́/они́ form. Ask the question the verb answers in your sentence: что де́лать? (what to do?) has a ь, so the verb has one; что де́лает? (what does he do?) has none.

3. One н or two

Double нн appears where two parts of a word meet, each bringing its own н, and in full participles (adjectives made from verbs, like “written” or “read”). The table goes from the most common pattern to the rarest.

4. не: joined or separate

не (not) is written as a separate word with verbs, and joined to nouns, adjectives and adverbs when it makes a new word with one meaning. A quick test: if you can swap the не-word for a single word without не, join it.

5. Prefixes ending in з or с

A small group of prefixes change their last letter to match the next sound. Before a voiceless consonant (one said without the voice: к, п, с, т, ф, х, ц, ч, ш, щ) write с; before anything else, write з. Other prefixes, like от- and под-, never change.

6. The soft sign after ж, ш, ч, щ

The soft sign ь is silent here: ж and ш always sound hard, ч and щ always soft. After these letters ь is purely grammatical, and four rules cover every case.

1. Feminine nouns ending in ж, ш, ч, щ: ь ночь ▸nochnightмышь ▸myshmouse
2. Masculine nouns: no ь врач ▸vrachdoctorнож ▸noshknife
3. The ты form of verbs: always ь пи́шешь ▸PEE-sheshyou writeмо́жешь ▸MO-zheshyou can
4. Genitive plural: no ь туч ▸tuchof cloudsзада́ч ▸za-DACHof tasks

7. Capital letters

Russian uses far fewer capitals than English. Only names of people, places and organisations, and the first word of a title, start with a capital.

In letters and emails to one person you address formally, Вы, Вас, Вам are often capitalised as a mark of respect: Благодарю́ Вас (bla-ga-da-RYU vas), “I thank you”.

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