How it works
This page changes Russian letters into English ones, so Москва comes out as Moskva. Letters change, not meaning: nothing is translated.
Read the full guide
Russian alphabet translation, letter by letter
Each of the 33 letters gets the Latin spelling of the BGN/PCGN system, which was made for English readers: ж is zh, х is kh, ц is ts, ч is ch, ш is sh, щ is shch. One difference: that system writes е as ye, and ё as yë, at the start of a word and after a vowel, й, ъ or ь. A letter table cannot see where a letter stands, so this page writes e and ë everywhere.
The second row, and the way back
The row underneath uses ISO 9, which gives every letter one sign (ž, č, š, ŝ) and reads back exactly, except that a capital Ъ or Ь comes back small. Swap turns Latin spelling into Russian letters.
- In a word typed all in capitals, Ж still comes out as Zh, with a small h.
- On the way back y is read as й and e as е. Check words that have ы or э.
Questions and answers
Does this translate Russian into English?
No. It changes the alphabet, not the language. Москва comes out as Moskva, which is still the Russian name of the city that English calls Moscow. For the meaning of a text you need a dictionary or a translator.
How do I translate English to Russian letters?
Press Swap and type Latin letters. Pairs are read first: shch gives щ, zh gives ж and kh gives х. Only the letters change, so an English word typed here comes out in Russian letters, not in Russian.
Which Russian letters need two English letters?
Seven in this table: ж is zh, х is kh, ц is ts, ч is ch, ш is sh, ю is yu and я is ya. One needs four: щ is shch. ISO 9, the second row, uses one sign for each.
What are the marks ʼ and ˮ?
They stand for the soft sign ь and the hard sign ъ in the BGN/PCGN table. Wikipedia notes that many publications use a simplified form of the system that leaves both marks out.