Want to type in Russian but only have an English keyboard? Press the Latin key that sounds like each letter - the corner of every key shows which - and your typing turns into Russian on the fly. Then copy your text anywhere.
How to Type in Russian on an English Keyboard
This tool lets you write Russian on an ordinary English keyboard, with nothing to install. It works by sound: press the Latin letter closest to the Russian one and it is transliterated to Russian as you type - and every on-screen key shows, in its corner, exactly which Latin key produces that letter. Prefer to point and click? Each letter is also a button on the board, and it drops straight into the text at the cursor. When you are done, hit Copy All and paste the text wherever you need it.
How the keys map. You type on your normal keyboard and each Latin key turns into the Russian letter that sounds like it - and the corner of every on-screen key shows which Latin key to press. The plain ones just work: a→а, b→б, d→д, k→к, m→м, o→о, t→т. Sounds that English writes with two letters get a single key: w→ш, h→ч, x→х, c→ц, j→й, y→ы and q→я. The rest sit on the nearby punctuation keys: [→ю, ]→щ, '→ж, ;→ь (soft sign), =→ъ (hard sign), \→э and `→ё. Hold Shift for capitals.
A note on phonetic Russian. This is a phonetic (homophonic) layout, not the standard ЙЦУКЕН keyboard used in Russia - it matches each Cyrillic letter to the Latin key it sounds like, so you can type Russian by ear without learning a new key map. The idea goes back to the 1970s, when it was worked out for American students of Russian and later settled as the AATSEEL "Student" layout. Two of its keys make no sound of their own: the soft sign ь and hard sign ъ only change how the letter before them is read. If you would rather use the real national layout, our Russian keyboard has the ЙЦУКЕН arrangement.
Click Shift on the left of the bar to lock the letters to upper case, and click it again to go back; holding your physical Shift while you click works too. Four more keys sit in our usual on-screen-keyboard style, each with its icon and label: Undo and Redo step back and forth through your edits, Clear empties the box, and Copy All puts the whole text on your clipboard. Your draft is kept in this browser, so it is still there when you come back, and nothing you type is ever sent anywhere - there is no sign-up and nothing to install.
Everything runs in your browser - nothing you type is sent anywhere, there is no sign-up, and it works the same on a phone or tablet. This is a phonetic helper for quick typing; to use the real national layout instead, open our Russian keyboard, or practise your speed with the Russian typing test.
Want this keyboard on your own website? You can embed it with a single line of HTML.
Frequently Asked Questions
You type on your ordinary keyboard and each Latin key is replaced, as you type, by the letter that sounds like it - so typing privet gives привет. It is a phonetic scheme, so there is no new key map to learn: every on-screen key shows its Latin key in the corner, and you can also click the letters on the board. When the text is ready, press Copy All and paste it wherever you need it.
You do not need a Russian keyboard at all. Press the Latin key that sounds like each Russian letter and it is transliterated as you type - every on-screen key shows, in its corner, which Latin key to press. Prefer the mouse? Click any letter on the board and it drops in at the cursor. When the text is ready, press Copy All and paste it wherever you need - your usual keyboard layout never changes.
These sit on the keys nearest their sound. The soft sign ь is on ; and the hard sign ъ on =; й is on j, ы on y, э on \ and ё on ` (top-left). Every on-screen key shows its Latin key in the corner, so you can glance rather than memorise, and you can also just click the letter.
No. This is a phonetic layout - you press the Latin key that sounds like the Russian letter (type privet, get привет). The keyboard sold in Russia is the positional ЙЦУКЕН layout, where the keys are in completely different places. If you want to learn or use that one, it is on our Russian keyboard, with a Russian typing test to practise.
Hold Shift while you type, exactly as you would in English - Shift+a gives the capital. On the board you can instead click Shift on the left to lock the letters to upper case, then click a letter, and click Shift again to go back.
Undo and Redo step backwards and forwards through your edits, Clear empties the text box, and Copy All copies everything in the box to your clipboard so you can paste it elsewhere. Each is a plain button with an icon and a label, so no keyboard shortcut is needed.
Yes to both. The board works with a tap, handy on a phone or tablet where switching the system keyboard is fiddly. And everything runs in your browser: what you type is never sent to a server, there are no accounts and nothing to install. Your current text is saved only in this browser, and Clear removes it.
This page transliterates by sound into another script; the tool offers Russian (Cyrillic), Greek and Arabic. The buttons under the box also switch to the accent-typing pages for Spanish, French, German and a dozen more Latin-script languages. For a full national keyboard to type whole words, every language has one on our online keyboard, with a typing test to practise.