First Russian words for toddlers: 75 to start with.

Start with what they can see

Research on first words gives a family adding Russian a place to begin. A study of English, Cantonese and Mandarin learners aged eight to sixteen months found that babies’ first words had much in common across languages, though the share of names for things, people words and action words differed from one language to the next.¹ A seven-country study, which did not include Russian, asked mothers of twenty-month-olds to fill in matching word checklists: in every language, names for things made up the biggest share of children’s words, except among children just starting to talk.²

There is Russian data too. The standard parent word checklist has a Russian version, with norms from 768 babies aged eight to eighteen months and 1,037 toddlers aged eighteen to thirty-six months, all learning Russian only.³ Researchers using Wordbank, an open archive of these checklists, ranked each language’s words by the age at which half of children were reported to say them. The ten earliest Russian words included mommy, daddy, grandma, grandpa and aunt, along with meow, woof woof, bye and ball.⁴ So family, animals and the things in the room make a good start, and a word for something your child does, such as есть yestʼ (eat), can join them.

Words in both languages count. Bilingual children are no more likely than other children to have trouble with language, and with both languages counted together they know about as many words as children learning one.⁵ A speech or language problem shows up in every language a child uses, so a check should look at all of them,^{5, 6} and with a Russian version of the checklist, that check can include Russian too.³ The bilingual toddler guide explains more.

How Russian sounds and reads

Each word here comes with a transliteration in the BGN/PCGN system, which American and British naming authorities adopted in the 1940s for Russian names.⁷ We add one mark of our own: an accent on the stressed vowel, as in molokó, because Russian stress is hard to guess and a misplaced one changes how the word sounds. The spelling is a bridge for the first weeks; the native voice is a better guide than any spelling. A few things to listen for:

• Thirty-three letters, some of them familiar. The Russian alphabet has 33 Cyrillic letters.⁷ а, к, м and о sound much as they look. Some are false friends: в is v, н is n, р is r, с is s and у is u, so парк park looks a little like “napk”.
• Some new ones. ж is zh, the sound in the middle of “measure”, as in пожарная машина pozhárnaya mashína (fire truck). ш is sh, ч is ch, and щ, spelled shch, is a long, soft sh. ю and я are yu and ya, and ы is a vowel English does not have, as in малыш malýsh (baby).
• Hard and soft consonants. Most Russian consonants come in two versions, and the soft one is said with the middle of the tongue raised, as if a faint y followed. The soft sign ь has no sound of its own; it softens the letter before it, as at the end of есть yestʼ (eat), and shows as an apostrophe, ʼ, in the spellings here.
• Stress changes the vowels. A vowel without stress goes quieter, and an unstressed o sounds close to a: молоко molokó comes out close to “ma-la-KO”. Russian writing usually leaves stress unmarked, and stress can change the word: замок zámok (castle) with the stress moved to the end, zamók, is a lock.
• ё is always stressed. It sounds like yo, spelled yë or ë here. Russian print often leaves off its two dots;⁷ the cards keep them, as in всё vsë (done).
• A rolled r. р is a quick trill or tap of the tongue tip, as in рука ruká (hand).
• Letters that change at the end. At the end of a word, б, в, г, д, ж and з are said like p, f, k, t, sh and s, so друг drug (friend) ends in a k sound and лоб lob (forehead) in a p. The same happens before letters such as к, so ложка lózhka (spoon) sounds like “LOSH-ka”.

The 75 words

These are the free words from Their First Words in Russian, in the three stages the app uses. Every word has two native voices, a woman’s and a man’s, so you can hear it before trying it yourself. The same 75, plus 35 everyday phrases, are also free printable Russian flashcards, with an optional second language such as English.

Russian nouns are masculine, feminine or neuter, and word endings change with gender and with a word’s job in the sentence; the cards show each word in its starting form, before any ending changes. The action words here are infinitives, ending in -ть -tʼ or -ться -tʼsya, and feelings such as happy and proud are in the form a boy would use: for a girl, счастливый schastlívyy (happy) becomes счастливая schastlívaya. The artist card shows a woman, so it says художница khudózhnitsa; a man is художник khudózhnik. The scientist card also shows a woman and says учёный uchënyy, the word Russian uses for both.

First Words 0–24 months · 25 words

Growing Words 2–3 years · 25 words

Word Builder 3–5 years · 25 words

Little words for small children

Russian grown-ups talk to small children in affectionate little forms, and the cards use them. The dog is собачка sobáchka, where the plain word is собака sobáka. The cat is киса kísa; in grown-up talk a cat is кошка kóshka, or кот kot for a male. The flower is цветочек tsvetóchek, from цветок tsvetók, and the duck is уточка útochka, from утка útka. The teddy bear is a плюшевый мишка plyúshevyy míshka, a plush bear called by the pet name Russians give bears, from Misha, short for Mikhail; the plain word for a bear is медведь medvédʼ. Even the heart is a little one: сердечко serdéchko, from сердце sérdtse. Russian has its own baby talk too: ам-ам am-am for eating, бо-бо bo-bo for an owie and бай-бай bay-bay when rocking a baby to sleep.

These forms are warm, not wrong. Diminutives, as they are called, are common in Russian talk to young children, and in a study of forty-six Russian-speaking children aged nearly three to nearly five, the children got the gender endings right more often when an animal had a diminutive name than when it had the plain one.⁸ The little words suit home, and the plain ones come along later.

Two words for “you”, and family words

Russian has two words for “you”. ты ty is for family, friends and children; вы vy is the polite form, and also the plural. Parents say ты to a child, and children usually say it back to the family, grandparents included. вы is the form children learn for grown-ups outside the family, such as a teacher, so it can wait. Every “you” in these free phrases is ты:

In Я тебя люблю Ya tebyá lyublyú (I love you), тебя tebyá is ты in another form, and хочешь khócheshʼ (want), держи derzhí (hold) and спи spi (sleep) are the ты forms of their verbs.

At every age, мама máma and папа pápa are the everyday words. Это моя мама Éto moyá máma (this is my mommy) and Это мой папа Éto moy pápa (that’s my daddy) show gender at work: моя moyá for Mom and мой moy for Dad, because папа is masculine even though it ends like мама.

Using them in an ordinary day

A few Russian words can fit into a routine you already have. Here is what that might sound like:

• Breakfast: молоко molokó (milk), банан banán, ложка lózhka (spoon), and Ещё, пожалуйста Yeshchë, pozháluysta (more, please) when the bowl is empty. The mealtime guide walks through exactly this.
• Getting dressed: ботинок botínok (shoe), рука ruká (hand), and всё vsë (done) when the shoes are on.
• The park: парк park (park), дерево dérevo (tree), цветочек tsvetóchek (flower), уточка útochka (duck), мяч myach (ball).
• Bedtime: плюшевый мишка plyúshevyy míshka (teddy bear), малыш malýsh (baby), and Спокойной ночи, спи крепко Spokóynoy nóchi, spi krépko (good night, sleep tight) at lights-out.

Your child’s interest gives you an opening: “уточка útochka” when they spot a duck, then a few seconds for a reply.⁹ A point, a sound or “duck” keeps the exchange going; you can answer with the Russian word again. The two-language card routine shows how that can work with a picture beside the real meal.

Grandparents, Saturday school and one-language parents

Whether your family’s Russian comes from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Israel or somewhere else, the grandparents are often the reason: a child who can talk to бабушка bábushka (grandma) and дедушка dédushka (grandpa). Families also say the warmer бабуля babúlya and дедуля dedúlya, and many toddlers shorten grandma and grandpa to баба bába and деда déda. A video call goes better when a toddler has something to say on cue: Я тебя люблю Ya tebyá lyublyú (I love you), Спасибо Spasíbo (thank you), or Это моя мама Éto moyá máma (this is my mommy) when Mom leans into the frame. A week of saying them at bedtime gives Sunday’s call somewhere to start.

A Russian Saturday school or a bilingual preschool adds hours in Russian, and the words still need somewhere to live at home; a minute with four cards at breakfast is not homework. More speakers also mean more of the day in Russian. In a study of twenty-nine Spanish–English two-year-olds, the share of the day each language filled predicted how each was coming along, and for English, so did the number of different people the child heard it from.¹⁰ A grandparent, a teacher and a family friend each add time in Russian and another voice.

When only one parent speaks Russian, the home language has fewer voices. In a survey of 1,899 families with children aged six to ten, in which at least one parent spoke a language other than the majority language, the best odds of a child speaking it were in homes where both parents used it and no more than one also spoke the majority language; “one parent, one language” was neither necessary nor sufficient.¹¹ In a mixed home, the Russian speaker’s minutes, and the grandparents’, carry more of the weight. The other parent does not need to switch; the AAP and ASHA advise using the language you are most comfortable in.⁶ Knowing мама máma (mom), папа pápa (dad) and Ещё, пожалуйста Yeshchë, pozháluysta (more, please) well enough to answer them is a warm way to join in.

Some families chose Russian without growing up with it, and the guide to a language you don’t speak covers how that can work. And if your own Russian went quiet after childhood, you are far from alone: home languages are more likely than the community language to fade as children grow.⁵ Either way, the native voices on this page give you the word to borrow.

Paper, app, or both

The printable cards are free, with no sign-up, and can live on the fridge or beside a favorite book. The app starts with the same free words and phrases, written in Cyrillic with no transliteration. Every card has a woman’s and a man’s native voice, there are no ads, and it plays offline; the language pill turns молоко molokó into milk on the same picture. One $9.99 purchase opens the rest of the 1,000+ words and 500+ phrases, in all eight languages. Both are there for the word; the conversation over breakfast is yours. Neither is a treatment for language delay. You can come back to this page whenever you want to hear a word again.