В is for valyenki

The third letter of the Cyrillic alphabet looks familiar...but don't be fooled! This is not a "B" (that was the previous letter!). Вв (see, the little one is not like in English) is actually equivalent to "V." So the word "валенки" (traditional Russian embroidered felt boots) is pronounced "valyenki." In handwriting, the letters look like this: Вв.

Some more notes on Вв:

-At the end of a word (and after some letters...but this is beyond the basics for now), it is softened to sound like "ff" (that's why some Russian names are written with this ending in English).

-The Russian equivalents of some English "B" names use this letter and become "V" names: Basil = Vasily; Barbara = Varvara. This is just a fun fact, but it can help you remember the B/V relationship.

Б is for balalaika

The second letter of the Cyrillic alphabet sounds like the second letter of the English alphabet (B), but is written differently, "Б." The lowercase is б, and in handwriting it looks like Б and б.

The balalaika (балалайка) is a traditional Russian stringed instrument that comes in different sizes and has three or six strings, but is always shaped like a triangle.

A is for Anna Karenina

The first letter of the Cyrillic alphabet is the same as that of the English alphabet, "A." The pronunciation is a bit different, being like the "a" in "father" when stressed, the "u" in "cup" when it comes before the stress and like the "a" in "about" most other times. To write this letter (for Russian handwriting is not quite the same as Russian printing), make it like this: Аа.

Анна Каренина/Anna Karenina (1877) is one of the great Russian novels by the 19th-century literary icon Leo Tolstoy. It paints a sweeping picture of upper-class Russian life from palace to farmland and centers on the intersecting romances and tribulations of memorable characters including the titular Anna, her illicit lover Count Vronsky, the young Princess Eketarina, and her humble but good-hearted suitor Levin.

[Pronunciation guide taken from The New Penguin Russian Course by Nicholas J. Brown]

Meet the Yozhins, part 1.

Zdravstvuyte! My name is Maria Fyodorovna Yozhina, but you can call me Masha. My middle name is called a patronymic because it comes from my papa's name, Fyodor.

I have two bratya, brothers. Their full names are Aleksandr Fyodorovich Yozhin and Vladimir Fyodorovich Yozhin, but we call them Sasha and Volodya. Sasha always calls me Moosha and I sometimes call him Sashechka. I wonder how Volodya will call us when he can talk (he's just a baby).

In my family there are also Mama, Papa, and Babushka, who is Papa's mama.

I have put everything here in English writing, but maybe you would like to know how to spell it in Russian (if you do not already know)? Well, our alphabet, called "Cyrillic," is not too hard to learn. I'll show you one day at a time! It can be fun, I promise.

Привет! Hi!

My Yozhin family drawings were so popular on Facebook that I decided to make them their own website! This summer, as I see how much Russian I can learn from a textbook in preparation for Slavic 1 next semester (and to stay sane for 3 months out of school! I live for academia), I will make posts with the Yozhins that illustrate the basics of the language (the alphabet, declensions, names, numbers, etc.) I will also make less didactic posts to tell the stories of the Yozhins. I hope you all enjoy!

An introduction to the Yozhins for anyone who stumbles across this page who isn't my friend on Facebook:

In the process of teaching myself the Cyrillic alphabet for fun (I came under the sway of Russomania last year) a few months back, I came across the Russian word for hedgehog, "ёж" ("yozh"). A brief e-conversation on the subject of Russian hedgehogs ensued with my hedgehog-loving friend Rachael and I began doing quick drawings of cartoon hedgehogs speaking Russian (the few words and phrases I know so far) in any free moment I could find (as a busy college student, many of these "free moments" were ones in which I should have been taking notes or studying, but oh well). I used a Photoshop-like program to color them in and used Facebook to share with my friends and family. I got such a positive response (and genuinely loved the drawings myself) that I decided to turn the drawings into a bigger project with the aim of helping myself (and maybe others) learn Russian (I'm taking classes with the aim of minoring in Russian literature) in a way that's cute and funny (how I think learning a language should be).