Setting up a phonetic Cyrillic keyboard in Windows XP

August 12, 2007 by Josh | 9 comments

I wrote back in January about setting up my computer to allow me to type in Cyrillic. Setting it up was the easy part; the hard part was memorizing what English letters corresponded to what Cyrillic letters. The default Windows XP Cyrillic keyboard layout is the same one that is used in Russian-speaking countries – that is, there is little rhyme nor reason to how the letters are laid out on a keyboard based on the Latin alphabet. For example, the T key produces the Cyrillic Е, the Y key produces Cyrillic Н, and the W key produces the Cyrillic Ц.

Still having not mastered the Russian keyboard layout, I went hunting for a better solution – and found one. From this page, you can install a phonetic keyboard layout which makes a lot more sense. Instead of having to memorize the random (to English users) layout, with the phonetic layout, you only have to memorize the placement of 7 of the letters. The rest of them are fairly logical – for example, the D key produces Д, the U key produces У, and the S key produces С.

The fellow who maintains the site has a fairly complicated set of instructions, which I personally found to be too complicated. If you’re running Windows XP or Windows Vista, just do this:

  1. Download this zip file, and unzip it to an easily accessible (and findable!) folder.
  2. Go to the folder and double click setup.exe.
  3. Wait.
  4. That’s it.

You should now have, on your taskbar, a button that says “EN”. Click on it and click RU to switch to Russian. The keyboard layout that you’ll be using, when typing Cyrillic, will be this:

yawert.png

If, at any time, you wish to remove the phonetic keyboard, just return to the setup.exe file, double click it, and click Remove.

  1. Ashalynd’s avatar

    Ashalynd on August 19, 2007 at 6:33 am

    I’d like to mention that Russian native keyboard layout IS pretty logical – e.g. the most used letters are in the easiest row (second one, ФЫВАПРОЛДЖЭ).

    There is a simple old program called Babytype (www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=4858) that helps to learn different keyboard layouts, including Russian, English and French. If you are serious with learning Russian, I would recommend to learn the correct layout, it makes typing in Russian easier, especially if you want to do it fast.

  2. Josh’s avatar

    Josh on August 19, 2007 at 2:16 pm

    Hi Ashalynd,

    Thanks for commenting. You’re right – the native keyboard is fairly logical, and it was my mistake to say otherwise. What I should have said is, for someone using a keyboard set up for a Latin-alphabet language, learning to type with the native Russian keyboard can be difficult, especially if you’re going at it “blind”.

    Thanks for the link to Babytype – I’ll definitely check it out!

  3. José F.’s avatar

    José F. on October 4, 2007 at 7:45 pm

    I agree with Ashalynd. There are a lot of latin-to-cyrillic transliteration websites, you can use them if you don’t get used to the Russian layout… It isn’t a hard task anyways, I use the Russian alphabet with my standard Spanish keyboard.

    P.S. It is really funny when you talk to Russians using Russian, and they reply using the Latin alphabet!

  4. Viktor’s avatar

    Viktor on January 20, 2008 at 11:46 pm

    I’m Russian living in USA and I’ve been using this phonetic layout for years. It’s very useful if you don’t type fast with the native Russian layout and it’s much better than going to the transliteration website.
    I know the Russian native layout by heart but I type very slow without the Cyrillic letters on the keyboard. I tried the BabyType years ago, it’s very nice but I don’t type much and didn’t want to spend time learning typing.
    I can place the stickers with the Cyrillic letters on the Latin keyboard but having two sets of letter on the keyboard is confusing for me. So the phonetic layout is the best way for me to go and I reccomend it to everybody who needs to type in Russian occasionally.

  5. Josh’s avatar

    Josh on January 20, 2008 at 11:57 pm

    Viktor: Yeah, I’m still doing fine using the phonetic layout. I also didn’t want to slap stickers on my keyboard, especially considering I don’t type in Russian nearly as much as I type using the Latin alphabet (English, German, French).

    When did you move to the USA from Russia? Your English is quite good. :)

  6. Stepan’s avatar

    Stepan on July 22, 2008 at 11:11 am

    Hello everybody! Just download and install this but have to remove first rus keyboard from the control panel. Now works fine for me. I am russian too and I have a same problem as Victor. I type very slow without russian letters on a keyboard. I am now in Germany in a training and I have a HP notebook. Install it it is works fine.

    Thank you!

    Спасибо болЬшое!

  7. anka’s avatar

    anka on July 29, 2008 at 3:59 am

    thanks once again, Josh. come october I’ll be a full-fledged russian philology student, so this may and will come in handy.

    by the way, I can’t wait. it’s my second major and philologies are known to be difficult, specially when the knowledge of your target language is close-to-nil. than again that’s what makes it more fun

  8. admin_papa’s avatar

    admin_papa on August 30, 2008 at 8:12 pm

    Good Day

    Just wanted to share my new experience.

    If your system fails to start due to an error corresponding to missing HAL.DLL, invalid Boot.ini or any other important system boot files you can repair this by using the XP installation CD. Simply boot from your XP Setup CD and enter the Recovery Console. Then launch “attrib -H -R -S” on the C:\Boot.ini file and remove it. Launch “Bootcfg /Rebuild” and then Fixboot

    Regards,
    Carl

  9. Jade’s avatar

    Jade on January 25, 2009 at 5:27 am

    Thanks for the tip, I searched a fonetic keyboard for ages and I find this one very useful ; )