Chapter 5 of 16 · Explore the Estonian path
Optional reference · Chapter 5 of 16
The Estonian alphabet: find a letter and how it sounds
Open this when a letter stops you. Every letter in Estonian dictionary order, with its sound and a word that uses it, plus the three lengths for the curious.
≈ 5 min of reading · Practise at your own pace
What’s in this chapter
- Open this when a letter blocks you; nothing after it depends on this section.
- The letters in Estonian dictionary order, which is not the English order.
- The consonant cards carry the memory hooks the short tables left out.
- The three lengths, laid out in one table for the curious.
The alphabet, in Estonian dictionary order
Every letter, in the order a dictionary uses. Find the one that stopped you, take its sound and its example, and go back to your reading.
- aah, as in fatheraegAH-ehg“time”
- ba soft, unvoiced psõberSUH-ber“friend”
- da soft, unvoiced tsadaSAH-dah“hundred”
- eeh, as in bedtereTEH-reh“hello”
- ff — borrowed words onlyfilmfilm“film”
- ga soft, unvoiced kmägiMA-gi“hill”
- hh, and always soundedhiirheer“mouse”
- ithe i of sit, tighterilusI-loos“beautiful”
- jy, as in yesthe same job German and Finnish give itjänesYA-nes“rabbit”
- kk, harder and longer than gkasskahss“cat”
- ll, as in Englishlindlind“bird”
- mmmetsmets“forest”
- nnnimiNI-mi“name”
- ooh, as in more, cut shortkoerKOH-ehr“dog”
- pp, harder and longer than bpuupooh“tree”
- rtapped or rolledone flick of the tongue — say the tt of butter fast and you have itrebaneREH-bah-neh“fox”
- sthe s of sunsuursoohr“big”
- šsh — borrowed words onlyšokolaadshoh-koh-LAAHD“chocolate”
- zthe z of zoo — borrowed words onlyzoozohh“zoo”
- žthe s of measure — borrowed words onlygaraažgah-RAAHZH“garage”
- tt, harder and longer than dteetehh“road”
- uoo, as in bookuusoohs“new”
- vvvesiVEH-si“water”
- õuh, as in cut, with flat lipsthe letter English never had: an o with the roundness taken outõunuhwn“apple”
- äthe a of catmägiMA-gi“hill”
- öthe ur of fur, lips roundedööurr“night”
- üthe ew of fewüksewks“one”
The last four are the reason a dictionary surprises you: õ ä ö ü sit at the end, after v, so öö is filed near the back of the book and not next to o. The letters š z ž sit inside the s–t stretch, in that order. Five more letters — c, q, w, x, y — are kept for foreign names and are left out above.
The three lengths, in full
Estonian holds a sound for one of three lengths, where most languages have two. Reading almost never depends on the third, so read this for interest.
| Length | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| short | a single letter, said quickly | kala |
| long | a doubled letter, held | kaalub |
| overlong | held longer still, and spelled the same as long | kooli |
Estonian is famous for having three lengths where most languages have two. Almost nothing in reading depends on hearing the third — it separates a few pairs of grammatical forms, and the sentence separates them for you anyway.
The soft consonants nobody writes
Some consonants are said with a softer, y-coloured touch. Nothing in the spelling marks it, and no reader is expected to produce it.
Marks you will see on a printed page
The shapes differ from the English ones, and the quotation marks are the pair to learn before you open a book.
| What you see | What it is |
|---|---|
| „…“ | the Estonian quotation marks: the opening pair sits on the line, the closing pair floats |
| ‚…‘ | a quote inside a quote |
| – | the dash Estonian uses between parts of a sentence, spaced on both sides |
| Capital letters | names and sentence openings only — Estonian does not capitalise its nouns, and it does not capitalise the names of languages or months |