The single most useful resource so far, I found this infographic / comic by Peter Starr Northrop and Ryan Estrada. It’s about learning Cyrillic in 15 minutes.
https://ryanestrada.com/russian/
It simplifies the complexity with a few steps, and all the different letters are introduced in a light way. After reading it twice, you basically get it.
After that you just need to practice a bit with flash cards or subtitles and you can read Cyrillic.
Spelling and Pronunciation
Every language, no matter the script, can have completely different sounds for the same letters. It’s important to be aware of this. Therefore, I can strongly recommend the videos by FluentForever, who have an excellent Russian pronunciation guide for English speakers. I love the pictures of the tongue positioning.
With these two sources I have basically learned Cyrillic in a few days.
What I noticed afterwards
After learning the script and Russian for some time, I noticed some points that may be useful too.
First of all, the ”e“ is really always pronounced as “je” in Russian.
Secondly, the a and the o sounds depend on the accentuated syllable. If it’s godót, than we pronounce it gadot. If it’s godotá, it would sound gadata. The o only sounds like an o if it has the accent. Godot is probably not even Russian, but you get the point right?
And the third point is about pronouncing Russian like it sounds to non- Russians. I was told it sounds like we’re imitating a villain from a James Bond movie.
The trick with pronouncing Russian is to realize that Russian can be spoken without the face moving much. Maybe it’s the freezing cold, but barely any mouth movements are necessary. So instead of trying to sound Russian, just keep your mouth shut 😐. The vowels like “a” “e” “i” are actually really clearly pronounced.
Good luck with learning Cyrillic!
(Did you know that Spanish can be pronounced while smiling? Every language has their own mouth positioning and sound creation system. French people speak in the front of their mouth, Dutch people in the back, and Germans like to over-articulate).
