The Kazakh Alphabet

The Kazakh alphabet might seem intimidating, but most of the sounds are much like what you'd hear in English.

The trickier letters are those which of course have no English equivalent, however in order to get an idea of what they sound like that, just play the audio file below.

The Kazakh Alphabet

As you can see from the chart below, the Kazakh alphabet has both uppercase and lowercase letters. It is also a proper alphabet, i.e. every sound used in Kazakh is displayed alphabetically, just like English, Spanish, Russian, and Italian, as opposed to a language where there is some ambiguity in a word's vowels, like in Hebrew and Arabic

A a Father Ә ә Apple Б б Bowl В в Very
Г г Great Ғ ғ No English Equivalent Д д Day Е е Yet
Ё ё Yolk Ж ж Treasure З з Zip И и Meet
Й й Young К к King Қ қ No English equivalent Л л Lemon
М м Milk Н н Night Ң ң Thing О о Toe
Ө ө Woman П п Pulse Р р A flapped R, like a Spanish R С с Soft
Т т True У у Tool Ұ ұ Burn Ү ү No English Equivalent
Ф ф Front Х х Like "ch" in Scottish "loch" Һ һ Hello Ц ц Cats
Ч ч Chop Ш ш Shine Щ щ mission Ь ь *
Ы ы Like "a" in "around" but further back in the throat І і Industry Ъ ъ ** Э э Energy
Ю ю You Я я Hallelujah
Listen to the Alphabet Here:  
Audio file Courtesy of omniglot.com

* – This sign () has no sound at all, but softens the sound of the preceding consonant.
** – This sign also has no sound, but rather hardens the sound of the preceding consonant.

Both of these signs, however, are found only in Russian loanwords and are rarely used in Kazakh.