(no subject)

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall that the ending -ться is pronounced like -ца. Is this correct? If so, is -тся pronounced the same?

Comments

[oryx_and_crake]

Yes, and people sometimes confuse them. (Like some native speakers of English often confuse its, it's and its', or their, they're and there.) Don't do that ever. The infinitive always has ь in it, the present tense does not.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Doesn't sound like it'd get that confusing ... I mean, from context, you could tell the difference between something like, "нужно мне не бояться" and "он боятся" ...

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

is pronounced like -ца

Not exactly - ц is hard, but ться is soft. Of course, they sound very similar, but there is that difference.

is -тся pronounced the same?

Yes, due to Russian's regressive palalization assimilation.

[oryx_and_crake]

You'd be amazed, but some people would write that as "не нужно боятся" и "они бояться". (it's either они боятся or он боится).
The "it's and its" stuff is also pretty straightforward, but some people manage to get it wrong anyway. To me, it's amazing. And it's always native speakers who does that. Some people even produce phrases like "The dog's are playing outside." They told me it all comes from not teaching English grammar in schools because it "stuns the students' creativity". (I don't know whether this is true.)

[oryx_and_crake]

there is no soft sound in ться exactly because you don't pronounce it as it is written (ть-ся) but like -ца. And this is why people mix up -ться and -тся - there is no difference in pronounciation.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

Really? All this time, I could have sworn I was hearing a soft "с" there - maybe it's just because I was expecting it to be soft. I'm going to have to ask one of the Russian professors to say verbs for me the next time I'm on campus.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Haha. One day I will form a proper Russian sentence here. ;) It'll probably be in a year or two, though.

It makes sense that native speakers would confuse homophones, though — they learned to speak the language, not write it.

(And, yeah. I tutored an eleven-year-old girl in Math once, a while back. She put apostrophes in all of her plurals. I had to remind myself that I was not tutoring her in English.)

[oryx_and_crake]

Well, there should not be a soft "c" anyway. With a very exact pronounciation, you can hear "тса" in both cases. E.g. "Давайте же мыться, купаться" will be "мытса, купатса", and "он купается" will sound as "он купаетса".

[oryx_and_crake]

"they learned to speak the language, not write it"

WHY ON EARTH... OK, never mind.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. I meant that they learned it as sounds first. Transcribing the sounds can be difficult.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

Why wouldn't there be a soft c, since it's followed by я? Is this limited to verb particle -cя, or are there other cases where a c followed by я is hard?

[oryx_and_crake]

I have no idea why. It's just the way it is.
I think that normally the c before я gets soft, as in сядем. The verb ending is probably a special case - right now I cannot think of another example of ся pronounced as са. It's probably the same story as with го that is normally pronounced го except in adjective endings - as in красивого (accusative of красивый, beautiful) that is pronounced as красивава (красивово in some regions).

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Now I have to adjust my pronunciation. =)

[oryx_and_crake]

Wait, wait. Ask someone else first, just to make sure.

[mricon.livejournal.com]

Russian kids are usually taught a simple cheat to tell which one to use:

не нужно что делать? бояться
они что делают? боятся

Substituting the verb in question with "что делает?" in the corresponding conjugation will make it very clear whether there is a soft sign there or not.

[padruka1988.livejournal.com]

When I first started learning Russian, pronunciation was DRILLED into my head... I was so discouraged/bored at first because I wanted to move onto learning words and sentences... But in retrospect, all that hardcore listening and relistening to recordings, and having my pronunciation correct millions of times REALLY helps. So before I proceed to explain, let me offer you a piece of advice that, as you read, really helped me. If you have a teacher, family member, or friend who speaks Russian natively (or someone who has spoken it for a very long time and has near-native pronunciation), ask them to correct every single one of your pronunciation mistakes. Russian is so awesome in the sense that there are very few times when you don't say the word as it is spelled (compared to ENGLISH, which is horrible about being consistent with letter sounds). Ask them to demonstrate the miniscule difference between ца, тся, ться, тса (I'm assuming there is some word with that letter combination... one doesn't come to mind right now). Eventually, you will start to hear those little differences (don't worry if you don't hear any difference the first few tries!), and then that will help your pronunciation... Thus your accent will become less noticeable. :)))

OK.

ца is almost exactly like "geTS" + ah. The only difference is that (and I don't know your nationality, so we'll just use American and British... because I know this is common) we tend to not pronounce the -t-, and the -s- becomes the more dominant sound. Try to overdo the beginning -t- sound, and it will be great.

ться has a мякий знак (literally, "soft sign"... and i don't know if I spelled that right) in it, so the -t- will be slightly softer than ц. There will be a millisecond of a hold or a pause after the -t-. The BIGGEST thing here, though, is to say "tsyah" and NOT NOT NOT NOT "tsah". You don't really have to overdo the yah, just make it clear that you're not saying "tsah".

тся is the same as above, but make -s- sound come directly after the -t-... No super tiny pause between the sounds.

тса - depending upon where it is in the word and how the word is broken up... you may not get a -ts- sound. I wish I had a word to demonstrate... If anyone else does, please share. Anyway, the thing here is to not say yah, but ah.

IF YOU SKIP ALL THAT AND JUST SCROLL DOWN HERE, TO THE BOTTOM, THEN JUST REMEMBER THIS:
а = ah
я = yah

Even though these letters, depending upon which syllable the accent is upon in the word, can have slightly different pronunciations (я sometimes will sound like a yeh or yuh sound if there's no accent on it)... Something that you should ALWAYS make clear, especially if you are not certain, is there is ABSOLUTELY NO y- before а and there is 99.9999% of the time a y- before я.

This is probably quite confusing because I've probably over analyzed and explained everything, but if you get THIS picky about the language, you will have stellar pronunciation. :)))

[padruka1988.livejournal.com]

Note: Native speakers generally don't think about this, just like in English, we don't think about it... It just happens when we speak. So to a native speaker, saying ться and тса sound the same would make sense... There is a certain element of knowing what the person will say (when you both speak the same language fluently), so there's no need to listen to the whole word. But as you surely have noticed, when someone speaks to you in English and they say words just a LITTLE bit differently... It's sometimes confusing and you have no idea what they're saying.

[mricon.livejournal.com]

Because you need to consider the ending itself and not the components that make it up. :) A native speaker would pronounce "ться/тся" verbal suffixes as they would a non-stressed "ца" in any other word.

[mricon.livejournal.com]

These rules don't apply to the verbal particle ться/тся.
It is pronounced exactly like an unstressed "ца".

[madrumos.livejournal.com]

I disgree. I think, like others have said above, -ться and -тся are pronounced identically: like -ца (or more accurately, like ts followed by a schwa or even looser sound, assuming it is unstressed). I've always had professors, including native Russians, explain that you do not ever pronounce "tsyah", it is always "tsah". In my opinion (and theirs) there is no millisecond hold or pause; the soft sign is ignored entirely. The reason for all of this is that т and с automatically combine down to ц when they're next to each other, and because ц can't be soft, any soft signs in between or any soft vowels after become hard. Therefore, the ь in -ться disappears, and the я becomes а, giving us ца.

[padruka1988.livejournal.com]

I am absolutely, positively sure that there is a difference between ться и тся и ца и тса. Of the people that I've studied with, not a single one ever failed to correct me when I say ться и тся identically. Non-native speakers don't hear this difference... I mean, think about a foreign language that you don't know at all... All of it mixes together and sounds the same because your brain cannot recognize and separate anything. The difference IS really small, almost undetectable. Native speakers just put in the small difference without thinking about it, and they (probably) haven't been taught there is a difference because they just automatically say it correctly. Like of and off... I was never told that these were pronounced differently, my kindergarten teacher just read the words and it was so. I never even considered those two words similar or confusing because I didn't learn them in the same minute. However, most people who are learning Russian verbs learn the infinitive + 6 conjugations all at the same time. A native speaker's parents probably didn't say, "ГОВОРИТЬ - Я ГОВОРЮ, ТЫ ГОВОРИШЬ, ОН ГОВОРИТ, МЫ ГОВОРИМ, ВЫ ГОВОРИТЕ, ОНИ ГОВОРЯТ"... One day, "little native speaker" heard mom say "О чём говоришь?" and maybe a few days later, the child heard "Говорят, что будет идти дождь"... And children do not put these different forms together and realize "OH, these all come from the same original verb!" because our minds don't work that way when we are that young (that is an entirely different subject all together). Young children just repeat, or at least try, to repeat exactly what they hear. And because of this, adult native speakers just don't think about the difference. However, English speakers... who don't have the ь or ъ... Are not subconciously listening for a difference. But to Russian speaking people, it makes a LOT of difference.

семья vs семя? two VERY different things.
врать vs врат? to lie and the gates have NOTHING in common, but the мякий знак changes the sound of the -t-, and then we understand what the other person is talking about.

Can it be inferred from context? Of course. But as I said earlier... When non-native speakers speak in a foreign language and they don't pronounce those subtle sounds... The native listener may not understand the non-native speaker.

A lot of this has to do with speech pathology and the whole science of communication, and in the real world, nobody (probably) will have a cry if you pronounce ть and т in the same way... But it can make life a little bit easier.

[padruka1988.livejournal.com]

Also, it is quite difficult to explain sounds by typing them out... So the whole millisecond hold thing - I'm SURE you would say, "Oh, you're pronouncing it right"... But the only way I know how to describe this is to say a millisecond hold. To a Russian speaking person, it sounds stupid and unnecessary, but to an American, it could be helpful.

The weirdest things have helped people understand different topics... So don't knock it until you try it. :))

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

This is just me being a nitpicky jackass, but could you maybe use such-and-such (<em>such-and-such</em>) instead of SUCH-AND-SUCH? It gets ... hard on the eyes.

(Also, I might be completely wrong, but I think that a few of the people who are saying бояться is pronounced the same as баяца would are native Russian speakers.)

[oryx_and_crake]

I am a native speaker and I assure you that -ться and -тся are pronounced identically. There is no "ть" or "ся" in any of them.

[oryx_and_crake]

семья and семя are indeed different, but -ться and -тся is an altogether different case. And you don't normally pronounce -т and -ть in the same way. The source of misunderstanding is probably that you are trying to pronounce the words letter by letter, and this is a wrong way - the thing you do pronounce is a syllable, and "ться" just becomes "ца" when you pronounce it, and that's the end of story.

Same thing happens with the word "счастливого" that any native speaker would pronounce as "щисливава"; and, indeed, сча and щи are two very different things, but this is how this word is pronounced, end of story.

[mtyukanov.livejournal.com]

It depends on what precedes с and whether the soft vowel is stressed. Even -ся can produce soft с, "не бойся!" will be pronounced as is. But in present and infinitive verbs -ся из both always unstressed and preceded by т. This fuses them into ц, and ц is always hard, цифра -- цыфра, цент -- цэнт.

There is one common word where тс is followed by stressed soft vowel: отсюда. You can pronounce it in four ways: "ат-сюда", "атьсюда", "атсüда" (where ü sounds like ю, but the preceding с is not softened, sounds like German ü or French u), and, finally, "атсуда".

-ся preceded by consonants other than т can also produce different sound from different speakers. Some will say "боялся", "боишься?", "боимся" with distinct soft с, some with hard, and others with something in between.

[malaya-zemlya.livejournal.com]

I really don't think there's a phonetic difference between -ться and -тся. The motion is the same. I have just double-checked myself :)

There IS some difference between this sound and -ца. The former is longer, almost like -цца. In fact, Internet slang does use -цца for verbal endings: бояцца (this is like using -z for English plural endings)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>WHY ON EARTH... OK, never mind.

Yup, the moan I suppress every day of my life :))))

[yms.livejournal.com]

AFAIK, in the old times (was it Moscow dialect?) -сь and -ся were always pronounced with hard "с" (as "-са" and "-с"). In the middle of the 20th century it was considered very literary and cultured, spoken from the scene, but not used in everyday language. Today it's almost obsolete, but "ться" is always pronounced as "-цца".

[yms.livejournal.com]

but -ться differs from -цца too. Compare "пицца" and "напиться".

[noser.livejournal.com]

I agree with oryx_and_crake. Note that "с" is hard in -ться and -тся only (and I suspect the fact that ц can't get palatalized in Russian has to do with it). In all other cases of -ся, e.g. in "боялся", "боявшийся", and so on "с" is soft.

[noser.livejournal.com]

> there is a difference between ться и тся и ца и тса.... Non-native speakers don't hear this difference...

You'd be surprised, but natives don't either. This is some kind of conspiracy, I'm telling ya.

[mtyukanov.livejournal.com]

Yes, and -кий was pronounced as -кай. Тонкой-звонкий was an exact rhyme. Sometimes р before consonants was softened: четверг -- читверьх, церковь -- цэрькофь.

[yms.livejournal.com]

spoken from the scene

i meant "spoken from the stage" :)

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

I do it every now and then!

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Oof. So it's also like the "kidz" on the internet who spell boys "boiz" and girls "gurlz"?

[malaya-zemlya.livejournal.com]

Sort of, except most of these kidz are in their late twenties.

Btw, my understanding was that "boi" means gay boy, at least it did in the Pacific North West rave scene. Not anymore?

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

I first heard it from my ex-boyfriend, who might've picked it up from there. He used it, however, to describe any male person.

[roman-v-m.livejournal.com]

As the anecdote goes: traditional Italian dish is pizza and the traditional Russian dish is напиться :-D The comic effect is created by the similar endings of both the words.

[dmitryle.livejournal.com]

There is a rare exception to this rule: the palatalized ть is pronounced in the imperative forms like (не) траться or забудься.

I also put it in a separate post (http://www.livejournal.com/users/dmitryle/95710.html) in my journal.

[http://users.livejournal.com/bc_/]

Mostly correct, but -ся wasn't hardened in participles (боящийся, боявшийся).

Yes, it was the Muscovite norm, and it held in media and in theaters until late 80ies, I think.

[http://users.livejournal.com/bc_/]

The generalization about all other cases isn't perfectly accurate, cf.:

http://www.livejournal.com/community/learn_russian/268142.html?thread=3650158#t3650158