Russian: the Alphabet and the Keyboard

This post was originally written by Shady_arc for Duolingo Russian course.

Hello! This is largely a copy of a post we made at our Incubator page. Still, the more people have this information, the better.

You can find exercises gradually teaching you the Russian letters HERE.

Here is a short page of exercises to teach you the alphabet (a video by ShadyArc is also available, though a bit fast-paced).

You can also read about it at these two pages.

Depending on how the situation unfolds, you may or may not immediately see Russian letters in your lessons. Duolingo uses a Latin transliteration by default. If you cannot see Cyrillics but wish to, use the small button at the top to switch to Russian. It will read Aa or Яя.

Now, some tips on installing a Russian keyboard on your device:

Windows

Open the Control Panel, then go to Clock, Language, and Region. There, select Change keyboard or other input methods.

Click the Change keyboard button and add any languages your heart desires. You can have more than one keyboard layout for a language! To switch between languages, a keyboard shortcut is normally used (Shift+Alt by default, but you can change that). A phonetic keyboard can be found here. Windows 8 and higher have their own "mnemonic" layout (not without flaws, though)

Check the Microsoft site for a more thorough guide. 

Mac

Open the Apple menu and click System Preferences. Select Keyboard and click the Input Sources button. You can add languages there. Mac has a phonetic one right there if you need it.

Also, check the option Show Input menu in menu bar. That is it. The default shortcut to switch languages is ⌘ + Space

Or, in more detail, HERE.

iPad

Go to your Settings and find the General tab. Select Keyboard→Keyboards and click Add New Keyboard...

Android phone

Go to Settings and find the Controls tab. Select language and input. Click the settings icon next to the keyboard, then click select input languages

(here is a longer explanation)

 

Different Layouts

Now, let us discuss different keyboards that exist. Russians do not use special rocket-shaped keyboards to type. After all, a normal keyboard already has over 100 keys, why not just paint their letters there, right?

This is exactly what it looks IRL. A keyboard has Russian and Latin letters side by side. Russian users switch the language they use by pressing a keyboard shortcut (e.g.,Shift + Alt or ⌘ + Space)

There are two main layouts for a learner:

• the standard (ЙЦУКЕН) is what Russians actually use. It makes sense if Russian is your love for life or if you have easy access to Russian keyboards (stickers?). Or maybe you live or plan to live in Russia, eh? For obvious reasons, it also makes total sense on a phone or a tablet. They have no physical keyboard anyway! Besides, they might turn out to be less customizable—but a standard keyboard is always there.
  

• a phonetic keyboard (say, ЯВЕРТЫ) which sort-of-matches Russian letters to Latin letters close in pronunciation (also maps extra keys somewhere). I think, these layouts are just fine if you are moderately interested in Russian but that's it. A phonetic keyboard has an obvious advantage if your physical keyboard does not have Russian letters.

On a PC or a Mac a phonetic keyboard mapping is always a choice (Macs even have one in the basic package), and the switching between the languages is done by keyboard shortcuts (Shift+Alt / ⌘ + Space)

There are even tools to create your own layouts: for example, http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/.

You can also use Google Input Tools.

Now there is a chrome extension that changes the layouts automatically as your exercises require English or Russian input. Thanks to FelixAuer.