Kazakh grammar for beginners · Read Kazakh without learning Cyrillic
Kazakh is written today in a 42-letter Cyrillic alphabet, but the country is switching to Latin — and the official 2021 design is built from the same letters as Turkish. Learn the mapping and you can read Kazakh immediately, without memorising Cyrillic shapes.
Kazakh has changed script three times in a century, and is in the middle of a fourth change now. Until 1929 it was written in Arabic script. From 1929 to 1940 it used a Latin alphabet. In 1940 the Kazakhs, like every other Turkic people in the Soviet Union, were required to adopt Cyrillic — which is still what you will meet in books, signage and song lyrics today.
In 2017 Kazakhstan decided to go back to Latin. The design took three attempts: apostrophes in 2017, acute accents in 2018, and the current version approved in 2021, which uses the umlauts and breves that most Turkic Latin alphabets already use. Rollout now runs to 2031, and it has slipped before — so for the foreseeable future you need to be able to read both.
This site shows you both at once. Every Kazakh word here carries its 2021 Latin form, generated from the Cyrillic by a fixed table, so you can read the whole course without learning a single Cyrillic shape.
The Cyrillic alphabet has 42 letters: the 33 Russian ones plus 9 added for sounds Russian does not have. But about a third of those 42 appear only inside Russian loanwords, and they disappear entirely in the Latin alphabet — which has just 31 letters.
Those 31 are almost the Turkish set: a, b, d, e, f, g, ğ, h, i, ı, j, k, l, m, n, o, ö, p, r, s, ş, t, u, ü, v, y, z — 27 letters you already write. Only four shapes are new to you: ä (an e held one step more open), q (a k made deep in the throat), ñ (the ng sound), and ū (a back rounded u that Turkish does not distinguish from plain u).
These three letters do not mean what you expect. In the 2021 alphabet, Cyrillic і becomes Latin ı (dotless) and is the FRONT vowel; Cyrillic ы becomes Latin y and is the BACK vowel; and Cyrillic и and й both become Latin i.
So Kazakh Latin y is a vowel, not the glide it is in Turkish — and dotless ı is the front one, the exact reverse of the Turkish instinct. The word for "language" comes out as tıl where Turkish writes dil; "girl" is qyz where Turkish writes kız; "house" is üi where Turkish writes ev.
Capitalisation still follows the Turkish rule you already know: the capital of i is İ, and the capital of ı is I. Read ı and y by what they are rather than by their Turkish shapes, and the rest of the alphabet falls into place.
| Cyrillic | Latin | Sound | Turkish |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ә ә | Ä ä | the a in English "apple" — one step more open than e | the e in el, gel, ben |
| Ғ ғ | Ğ ğ | the g of "garden" pushed right back in the throat — and, unlike Turkish ğ, actually pronounced | ğ, but audible |
| Қ қ | Q q | the c of "clock", but made further back | k — Turkish writes one letter for both |
| Ң ң | Ñ ñ | the ng of English "hunger" — one nasal sound, with no hard g after it | the n in Ankara, banka, tank |
| Ө ө | Ö ö | the ö of German and Turkish | ö |
| Ұ ұ | Ū ū | a short back rounded u, roughly the u of English "put" | u |
| Ү ү | Ü ü | a front rounded u | ü |
| Һ һ | H h | a soft h; turns up in a handful of Perso-Arabic loanwords and nowhere else | h |
| І і | I ı | a short front i, like the i of English "bit" — written dotless | i, but written ı |
| А а | A a | the a of English "but" — further back than Turkish a | a |
| Б б | B b | b as in "best" | b |
| Г г | G g | g as in "gate"; used next to front vowels | g |
| Д д | D d | d as in "door" | d |
| Е е | E e | e as in "end" — but pronounced "ye" at the start of a word | e |
| Ж ж | J j | the j of French "jour" | j — but usually where Turkish has y |
| З з | Z z | z as in "was" | z |
| И и | İ i | not a plain vowel: it stands for ы or і followed by й | i |
| Й й | İ i | the y of English "yes" — written i, not y | y, but written i |
| К к | K k | the c of "care"; used next to front vowels | k |
| Л л | L l | l as in "old" | l |
| М м | M m | m as in "mother" | m |
| Н н | N n | n as in "no" | n |
| О о | O o | the o of English "or", but shorter | o |
| П п | P p | p as in "past" | p |
| Р р | R r | r as in "arrow" | r |
| С с | S s | s as in "summer" | s — but often where Turkish has ş |
| Т т | T t | t as in "top" | t — but often where Turkish has d |
| У у | U u | the oo of "pool" — and a w glide next to another vowel | u, v |
| Ш ш | Ş ş | sh as in "ship" | ş — but often where Turkish has ç |
| Ы ы | Y y | a back unrounded i — written y, not ı | ı, but written y |
| В в | V v | v as in "vase" | v |
| Ё ё | Yo yo | the jo of "younger" | yo |
| Ф ф | F f | f as in "father"; foreign words only | f |
| Х х | H h | h as in "hat", harsher than һ; occurs only in Arabic and Persian borrowings, but unlike the letters below it is kept in the Latin alphabet | h |
| Ц ц | Ts ts | the ts of "its"; Russian loanwords only | ts |
| Ч ч | Ch ch | ch as in "church" | ç |
| Щ щ | Şş şş | sh-ch; Russian loanwords only | şç |
| Э э | E e | e; only at the start of Russian words | e |
| Ю ю | Yu yu | the yu of "you" | yu |
| Я я | Ya ya | the ya of "yarn" | ya |
| Ъ ъ | — | hard sign, silent | |
| Ь ь | — | soft sign, silent |
Ordered by the official 2021 Latin alphabet (A Ä B D E F G Ğ H I İ J K L M N Ñ O Ö P Q R S Ş T U Ū Ü V Y Z), not by the Cyrillic sequence. KZ marks the nine letters Russian does not have — these carry the distinctly Kazakh sounds. RU marks letters confined to loanwords. Note that the 2021 alphabet has only 31 letters and simply leaves out ё, ц, ч, щ, ъ, ь, э, ю and я: they have no official Latin form at all. The forms shown for them here (ch, ts, yo, yu, ya) are the conventional spellings this site falls back on so that Russian loanwords remain readable — they are not part of the standard.
qyz қыз
girl, daughter · Turkish: kız
köz көз
eye · Turkish: göz
bes бес
five · Turkish: beş
üi үй
house · Turkish: ev
Latin üi, not üy — Kazakh writes i (й) as i.
bala бала
child · Turkish: çocuk
kıtap кітап
book · Turkish: kitap
Latin kıtap — the dotless ı is the front vowel here, matching the Turkish i.
äje әже
grandmother · Turkish: nine, babaanne
No Turkish cognate. The ä (ә) is the sound you already make in Turkish el or ben — but in Kazakh it is a letter in its own right, so ä (ә) and e (е) tell words apart.
tañ таң
morning, dawn · Turkish: tan
You already say this sound in Ankara or banka. In Turkish it only appears before k or g; Kazakh ñ (ң) stands on its own — here at the end of a word.
ekı екі
two · Turkish: iki
Spelled with e (е), but a word-initial e (е) is pronounced "ye" — so this sounds like "yekı". The Latin spelling does not show it.