Г pronounced В - is there a rule, or do I just memorize?

[rjray.livejournal.com]

(A brief background/intro: I'm studying Russian though weekly tutoring from a local person who is a former professor of languages, and a native Russian speaker. So my learning is probably slower on a week-by-week basis than those of you who are taking college courses or otherwise having class-time more than just two hours per week.)

I was wondering if there is a grammatical rule that governs when Г is pronounced as if it were В. For example, the word "его", or in the phrase, "Что нового". I have run into a few other words in lessons, but these are the only two I can recall at the moment. Is there a rule (akin to choosing when certain letters are silent in English), or is this just a case of "memorize these special cases"?

Спасибо,
Randy

Comments

[podshuboj.livejournal.com]

I'm finishing out my 2nd year of study and the only instances I can recall off the top of my head are -ого and -его. I think that these clusters are always pronounced this way too...but that could just be oversimplification for us students.

[nastya-23.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's right, only with -ого and -его at the end.

[shimshoni.livejournal.com]

сегодня too

[miconazole.livejournal.com]

Though that is a compound of сего (this) and дня (day) so you could say the его is still at the end of the word.

[nastya-23.livejournal.com]

Yes, because it consists of "сего" and "дня". Can you recall more words with this construction in the middle?

[la-dy-ashley.livejournal.com]

I can think only of an off/topic word сейчас...

[ashalynd.livejournal.com]

IMO, it is one of the cases where the spelling lags behind the pronunciation norm. As a rule, you may assume that when -его and -ого are in the end of the words (нового, лучшего, сегодня = сего + дня), you'll always have to say "evo", "ovo" instead of "ego", "ogo". Very long time ago people really spoke these words differently, but if one does that now he would sound very archaic.

There are also some "silent" letters (e.g. т in лестница, прелестный, or л in солнце, or the first в in здравствуйте). Apart from that, Russian spelling is in most cases very close to the pronunciation... much closer than the English one :)

[grand-sbor.livejournal.com]

"Apart from that, Russian spelling is in most cases very close to the pronunciation... much closer than the English one :)"

It may be true if we don't take into account the reduction of vowels and changes in consonants at the end of a word.

[vargtimmen.livejournal.com]

много and немного are exceptions, but yeah, it's only его and ого. In old speech they were actually pronounced as Gs, but wolk_off will probably be along shortly to explain better :)

[kart.livejournal.com]

Are there any modern instances of "аго", like in
Музыка Модеста Мусоргскаго (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Pictures_at_the_Exhibition_1st_edition.jpg)?

[yozhevich.livejournal.com]

Even taking vowel reduction and word-final consonant devoicing into account, because they adhere to fairly regular rules. Whereas sometimes with English, who knows... :)

[zhirafov-nyet.livejournal.com]

That's pre-reform Russian spelling. Those were all changed to ого and его after the reform.