Russian Language Stack Exchange
Russian Language Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [произношение]

Questions about the pronunciation of words, as they are uttered by both native and non-native speakers.

Most of the pronunciation rules and their peculiarities are available at Wiktionary.org

196 questions
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7 answers

What is the difference between ы and и?

All other Russian vowels come in pairs, but this pair seems a bit special. So, how does one pronounce ы and и?
jrouquie
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18
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5 answers

Learning to pronounce hard R

I'm a native Russian speaker myself, but living in a English speaking country am starting to teach my pre-school daughter Russian myself at home and she is struggling with correctly pronouncing the "hard R" sound in words like in морковка Does…
Maks
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3 answers

Difference in pronunciation between "щ" and "шь"?

I understand that the difference between "щ" and "ш" is (roughly) the difference between "shya-" and "sha-". But how do you differentiate "щ" and "шь"? For example, I always differentiated, for example "н" and "нь" as "na-" and "nya-". By that…
chubbycantorset
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9 answers

Pronunciation of 'ы'

Several resources that I am using say that 'и' and 'ы' represent the same vowel sound, and that the only difference is the palatalization of consonants preceding 'и', but I perceive two different sounds. The same sources say that 'и' sounds like the…
ctype.h
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12
votes
1 answer

Is "ж" palato-alveolar or retroflex?

As a native Portuguese speaker, I was told "ж" in Russian is pronounced like the Portuguese and French "j" (IPA: ʒ), a voiced palato-alveolar fricative. However according to Wikipedia the Russian "ж" is a retroflex fricative (IPA: ʐ). Is this the…
Orion
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12
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5 answers

Pronunciation of 'э'

Should 'э' be pronounced as 'a' in "cat", or 'e' in "net"? Is its pronunciation context dependent? If so what are the rules for its pronunciation?
ctype.h
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11
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3 answers

What is Smerdyakov complaining about in the following passage of The Brothers Karamazov?

I'm reading The Brothers Karamazov in the standard French translation of the novel and Henri Mongault, the translator, mentions in one of his notes that he left out the following bit of dialogue (the part in bold) between Smerdyakov and Marya…
grandtout
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10
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3 answers

Pronunciation of unstressed 'я'?

Is there a pronunciation rule for unstressed я? I remember being told that it was closest to English i, for example, as in десять but this doesn't always hold. It seems that at the end of a word it can be either a or ya: бояться, сегодня. At the…
z7sg Ѫ
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10
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2 answers

Does preposition "c" change pronunciation of following to unvoiced?

Example sentence: Я встал с дивана. I got up from the couch. Does the "с" change the pronunciation of the following "д" to "т"? Or, does it go the other way, with the "с" changing to sound like "з"? Я встал [з] дивана. Я встал с [т]ивана.
Rob N
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10
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6 answers

Pronunciation of "всегда" and other words beginning in "вс"

I listened to various pronunciations on Forvo, Wiktionary and various dictionaries with audio files. To my (untrained) ear it always sounds as if the "в" is silent and not pronounced at all. That being said, the IPA is [fsʲɪɡˈda] and that suggests…
Em1
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9
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7 answers

Pronunciation of 'Сегодня'

According to the spelling of the word, I would think it would be pronounced Seguhdnya - Сегодня However, i've seen several lessons in Russian where it would be pronounced SeVuhdnya - (but spelled Сегодня) Is there a reason why it's pronounced…
ddavison
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9
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2 answers

Pronunciation of конечно

So recently I came across this word and I noticed that it's actually pronounced конешно. I thought I was missing something but the "voiced consonants rule", does not mention the letter ч being pronounced as ш. Does this always happen when ш comes…
Trey
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8
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5 answers

How to pronounce лёгкий

I understand that every language has tricky words, meaning, words that do not follow the normal sounds or conventions of most words or letters. However, I do want to ensure I am being taught this word correctly so that I can practice learning it…
Wes Foster
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8
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4 answers

Why is the 'г' in "мягкий" pronounced like a 'х'?

According to these consonant assimilation rules, the letters г and к form a voiced/voiceless pair, and the final consonant in the cluster voices or devoices the preceding consonant. If these rules apply, then shouldn't the 'г' in "мягкий" be…
Orion
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8
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5 answers

Pronunciation of "е"

Why is "нет" pronounced "nyet" instead of "net"? I was informed that the Cyrillic letter 'е' is equivalent to the Latin letter 'e'. Is this incorrect? If so, what is the equivalent of 'e' if one exists?
ctype.h
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