ABSTRACT
Phonetic transcriptions of the sounds of Russian letters are sometimes used by English speakers. However, the current standard transliteration of (written) Russian letters into English is that of the Library of Congress (LOC), Washington, DC. The LOC transliteration is used worldwide. There are also some other transliteration conventions, such as the British Standard transliteration used by Oxford University Press. Spelling of foreign names is based on an approximation of the word to Russian phonetic (pronunciation) rules. There are some basic spelling rules in Russian that are important for word formation and declension. Certain vowels cannot be written after certain consonants in any position within a word (prefix, root, suffix, ending). These rules affect the declension of nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numerals, verb conjugations and the formation of various verbal forms. Russian makes a distinction between hard and soft stems and endings. The use of small and capital letters does not always correspond in Russian and English.
