Ef or Fe (Ф ф; italics: Ф ф) is a Cyrillic letter, commonly representing the voiceless labiodental fricative /f/, like the pronunciation of ⟨f⟩ in "fill, flee, or fall".
Pe (П п; italics: П п) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. Cyrillic letter Pe. Phonetic usage: [p]
Zhe or Že (Ж ж; italics: Ж ж) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It commonly represents the voiced retroflex sibilant /ʐ/ (listen). It is also often used with D (Д) to approximate the sound in English of the Latin letter J with a ДЖ combination. Zhe is romanized as ⟨zh⟩ or ⟨ž⟩.
Today, both the Hard sign (Ъ) and the Soft sign (Ь) are used to separate a consonant and a vowel (mostly Я, Ё, Е, Ю), only the Hard sign (Ъ) separates a Hard consonant and a vowel, and the Soft sign (Ь) separates a Soft consonant and a vowel. In some other languages, a similar function is given to an apostrophe.
The letter "ь" does not have any sound itself. It softens the letter before it. For example the words "есть" (to eat) and "ест" (he/she eats) sound different thanks to "ь". By the way, in Russian "ь" is called мягкий знак (myah-kij znak), which means "soft sign".
In Modern Russian, the letter "ъ" is called the hard sign (твёрдый знак / tvjordyj znak). It has no phonetic value of its own and is purely an orthographic device. Its function is to separate a number of prefixes ending in consonants from subsequent morphemes that begin with iotated vowels.
Zhe with diaeresis (Ӝ ӝ; italics: Ӝ ӝ) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. Its form is derived from the Cyrillic letter Zhe (Ж ж Ж ж). Zhe with diaeresis is used only in the alphabet of the Udmurt language, where it represents the voiced postalveolar affricate /d͡ʒ/, like the pronunciation of ⟨j⟩ in "jam".
я ► Meaning: I, me, mine, myself. Pronunciation: [yah] Part of speech: pronoun.
The thirty-third and final letter of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. Its name is Я (ja) and it has the sound of English ya in yard. It is preceded by the letter Ю.
The Russian letter “ы” is probably the most difficult letter to pronounce. People say it sounds like the sound someone makes when being winded. This vowel sound should be pronounced like something between “i” and “u.” For the right pronunciation, try to say “u” with your lips open as if you're saying “i.”
Phi (/faɪ/; uppercase Φ, lowercase φ or ϕ; Ancient Greek: ϕεῖ pheî [pʰéî̯]; Modern Greek: φι fi [fi]) is the twenty-first letter of the Greek alphabet.
The second О (O) is in the unstressed syllable right before the stressed one, which is why it's also pronounced as А (A).
Another interpretation for "Z" is the Russian word for west (Russian: запад, romanized: zapad), to designate the Western Military District or west-bound infantry, with the "V" symbol similarly standing for the word for east (Russian: восток, romanized: vostok).
The soft sign (Ь, ь) is a letter in the Cyrillic script that is used in various Slavic languages. In Old Church Slavonic, it represented a short or reduced front vowel. However, over time, the specific vowel sound it denoted was largely eliminated and merged with other vowel sounds.
Ъ is the hard sign (твёрдый знак). It is used to show that the consonant preceding it should not be palatalised and that the consequent vowel is preceded by the “y” sound as in yes.
Letters: Ь
This letter is called “soft sign” (м'який знак in Ukrainian). As the name of the letter suggests, its purpose is to soften the sound of the previous letter. Usually, the difference between the softened and not-softened sound is very difficult to notice for a foreign ear.
Note that ы sounds like [ i ] in ill, whereas И и sounds like [ee] in meet. The letter ы never occurs as the first letter in the word, therefore it is never capitalized. Click the syllable to listen, then click again and say it with me. Do the whole upper line (with ы) first then go to the lower one (with и).
Ya or Ja (Я я; italics: Я я) is a letter of the Cyrillic script, the civil script variant of Old Cyrillic Little Yus (Ѧ ѧ) or maybe even 'Ꙗ'. Among modern Slavic languages, it is used in the East Slavic languages and Bulgarian.
The main thing to remember is that in Russian the rules of capitalization are different from those in English. For instance, days of the week, nationalities, or names of the months are not capitalized in Russian. The English I is capitalized but the Russian я (ya) is written in lowercase.
The Russian letter "э" is pronounced [e] like in the word "edit". But be careful, remember that the Russian letter "e" is pronounced [ye] like in "yellow". You have already learnt that "и" has a sound [i], similar to "three" or "free".