Russian transliteration converter
Convert Russian Cyrillic to Latin letters or Latin transliteration back to Russian. Compare readable spelling and ISO 9 mappings, then copy or download your text.
Choose the direction and transliteration system.
Paste text and review the live conversion.
Copy, download, or reverse the result.
Convert between Russian and Latin letters
Transliteration changes the writing system, not the language or meaning. Text is processed in this browser and is not uploaded.
30 / 10,000 characters. Teaching acute accents are removed; ё and й are distinct.
Readable mode uses zh, kh, ts, ch, sh, shch, yo, yu and ya. It maps both й and ы to y, and both е and э to e, so exact reversal is not guaranteed. It is a practical spelling convention, not a passport standard. Prime signs ʹ and ʺ represent ь and ъ. Ordinary quotation marks are preserved unless you opt into ASCII-sign conversion.
Compare all 33 letter mappings
| Russian | Readable | ISO 9 |
|---|---|---|
| а | a | a |
| б | b | b |
| в | v | v |
| г | g | g |
| д | d | d |
| е | e | e |
| ё | yo | ë |
| ж | zh | ž |
| з | z | z |
| и | i | i |
| й | y | j |
| к | k | k |
| л | l | l |
| м | m | m |
| н | n | n |
| о | o | o |
| п | p | p |
| р | r | r |
| с | s | s |
| т | t | t |
| у | u | u |
| ф | f | f |
| х | kh | h |
| ц | ts | c |
| ч | ch | č |
| ш | sh | š |
| щ | shch | ŝ |
| ъ | ʺ | ʺ |
| ы | y | y |
| ь | ʹ | ʹ |
| э | e | è |
| ю | yu | û |
| я | ya | â |
Mapping reference: UNGEGN’s Russian romanization report and ISO 9 comparison. This converter covers the modern Russian alphabet, not all Cyrillic languages or historical letters.
Make sense of what you’re practicing
Transliteration does not translate
Привет becomes Privet in readable transliteration. Its meaning stays Russian; an English translation would be “hello”. Use transliteration when you need a Latin spelling or want to type Russian without a Cyrillic keyboard.
Choose the system for your purpose
Readable mode uses familiar combinations such as sh for ш and ya for я. ISO 9 uses distinct Latin letters and diacritics such as š and â, which preserve more spelling information. Requirements differ between publishers and official documents; use the system your destination requires.
Why Latin-to-Russian conversion can be ambiguous
A plain y may stand for й or ы, and e may stand for е or э. Multi-letter combinations can also hide letter boundaries. The readable reverse converter follows the displayed mapping and your settings; it does not infer a word from its meaning.
Keep spelling and pronunciation separate
Russian spelling does not show every spoken change. For example, unstressed о may be reduced in speech, but transliteration still represents the written о. Use the alphabet and stress tools alongside transliteration when learning to pronounce a word.