Russian is the official language of Russia. Today, almost all (97%) of the public school students who live in Russia receive their education in the Russian language. 27 other languages are considered main languages throughout the different regions of Russia.  There are over 100 total languages spoken in the country of Russia, alone!

Russian is a Slavic language like Polish or Ukrainian.  Russian is the most widely-used Slavic language in the world.  This language uses a Cyrillic alphabet. The name “Cyrillic” is in honor of Cyril (a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church).

The Russian alphabet has 33 letters, 11 vowels, 20 consonants and 2 pronunciation signs.  This is how the Russian alphabet looks when you write it:

А, Б, В, Г, Д, Е, Ё, Ж, З, И, Й, К, Л, М, Н, О, П, Р, С, Т, У, Ф, Х, Ц, Ч, Ш, Щ, Ъ, Ы, Ь, Э, Ю, Я

15%, about 1 out of every 7 people in Russia, speak a foreign language in addition to Russian.  Most of these people speak English.  The other foreign languages spoken are German, French and Turkish.

Online Russian lessons for kids: dinolingo.com