Question about Cyrillic from a newbie

[chemical-alice.livejournal.com]

Hello! I have recently began the study of Russian. I bought two books and I am teaching myself, so it is really slow going and I found I have already run into a problem. It is a very basic question, so I am hoping someone will be able to help me.

My problem is this: the two books I have disagree on the pronunciation of 'е.' One book says it is pronounced like 'e' as in 'tempo.' The other book says it is pronounced like 'ye' as in 'yet.' And I have seen it used both ways as well. нет uses the 'ye' sound, but Павлюченко uses the 'e' sound (or is it pronounced with the 'ye' sound?). And when they are transliterated into English they differ with the 'e' and 'ye' spelling as well.

So which is right? Or is this a situation in which they can both be right? I am worried to study further until I figure this out because I worry it could ruin all the pronunciation and spelling I try to learn if I am saying/spelling it wrong.

Also, is there a program out there to download so I can type in Cyrillic using my normal English keyboard? I always have to search and then cut and paste a word if I want it to show up in Cyrillic.

Sorry for how basic my questions are. Thanks for any help I can get!

Comments

[kontin.livejournal.com]

е is pronounced as 'ye' a) in beginning of a word (ель, есть...) б) after wovels (проезд, боец...). After consonants no [j] is pronounced.

[no-access.livejournal.com]

"Е" in russian is pronounced in both ways. If it's the first letter in word, or is going after vowel, you should say "ye". But if its after consonant, it sounds more to "e" and it have an influence to the previous consonant: it becomes more "soft".

[kontin.livejournal.com]

Transliteration of 'e' after consonants as 'ye' is IMHO ugly and should not confuse you. Maybe it's a rude attempt to show softening effect of е, so Медведев is transliterated as Medvyedev just because he's not Медвэдэв. But he's not Медвьедьев too!

[chemical-alice.livejournal.com]

But isn't 'н' a consonant? So why is it still pronounced as 'ye'?

[chemical-alice.livejournal.com]

I didn't know it differed in sound depending on what letter it came after that makes sense, though. Thanks!

[kontin.livejournal.com]

Where? In 'нет' е must not be pronounced as 'ye'.

[alon_68]

"Soft" is Russicism here :)
The correct English term is palatalized or slender.

[alon_68]

Yes, like я, ю, ё

[chemical-alice.livejournal.com]

Really? I always thought it was pronounced as 'nyet'. So instead it is pronounced 'net'

[kontin.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, slovari.yandex (http://lingvo.yandex.ru/en?text=%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9) does offer this Russicism

keyboard

[lidycka.livejournal.com]

If you're using ms windows then just add russian in regional and language options. don't know but guess there's a way to do same thing on macs.
but anyway you'll have to guess which button is for which letter and this can be really frustrating, so i suugest you try this: http://www.mail.ru/kb
or this: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PaulGor/screen_r.htm

[chemical-alice.livejournal.com]

Confusing! :) But thank you for the help! It is beginning to make sense now.

Re: keyboard

[chemical-alice.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for those links! They are perfect! :)

[dvanoltri.livejournal.com]

n'et, e not like in "tempo" or in "net", more like in "get"

[chemical-alice.livejournal.com]

Ok! Thank you so much!

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Looks like you don't get the concept of Russian palatalized ("soft") consonants. Certain vowels (е, ё, и, ю and я) palatalize the preceding consonant, so neither the consonant sounds like its American English counterpart, nor the vowel sounds like the vowels you are accustomed to in American English. This concept is very subtle, but it must be mastered, otherwise your American English accent will be too strong (almost incomprehensible for an average Russian.)
Please listen to this sample (http://www.moshkow.net/snd/net-sound.mp3): first I pronounce your two wrong takes (nyet and net) and then the only correct one, with palatalized N: нет.

[beowabbit]

You should take a good long read of the Wikipedia article on Russian phonology. (A good textbook for self-study should explain this stuff, but maybe your textbooks are assuming you’ll get pronunciation from classroom instruction.)

Do you know Spanish by any chance? The Russian н in нет is pronounced like Spanish ñ. (н in нот is pronounced like Spanish or English n.) But in Russian, most consonants come in pairs of hard and soft or unpalatalized and palatalized consonants like Spanish n and ñ, and you can tell whether the consonant is hard or soft depending on what vowel letter is written after it (or, if it doesn’t have a vowel after it, whether it has a ь written after it or not).

It’s a little more complicated than this, because a few consonants are only hard, a few consonants are only soft, a few consonants are hard or soft depending on which of the five vowel phonemes (each of which can be written with two letters) follows it, and because the actual pronunciation of vowel phonemes varies depending on whether the consonants around them are hard or soft. (To take a particularly distinctive example, и and ы are usually pronounced strikingly differently, but they represent the same phoneme, /i/. That phoneme is pronounced very differently after a hard consonant than after a soft consonant. Similarly but maybe less dramatically, the stressed я in дядя is pronounced a lot differently from the а in Дада, even though they both represent the phoneme /a/, because the я is surrounded by soft consonants. The Wikipedia article will explain all this, although you may have to look up a bunch of the terminology. You might also poke around on the web and see if you can find a textbook specifically of Russian pronunciation; I know I’ve seen something like that.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Yet it is essential for Russian phonetics; one cannot sound anywhere near normative Russian pronounciation without mastering palatalization.

[chemical-alice.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for that sample! I could really hear the difference between the incorrect and correct ways. I stopped off at the store on my way home today and picked up a new book. This one has a lot more information dedicated to the pronunciation of Russian, so hopefully I will be able to understand palatalized consonants at lot better. Thank you so much for your help!

[chemical-alice.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for that link and all the information. Someone told me Russian is one of the hardest languages to learn, and now I am starting to believe it! :)

I stopped at the store on the way home and bought a new book that has a lot more information on pronunciation, so hopefully that will help me out. Thank you so much for all the help!

[acuzena.livejournal.com]

Funny! But really well done:)

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

That has to be one of my favorite sound clips ever.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

As far as Russian typing, http://translit.ru/ might help :)

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Also, if it helps at all on the topic of palatalization, the way I came to think about it was the transition from the -tion ending in English to the “chun” sound. tyun becomes t'un (palatalized) becomes chun.

[chemical-alice.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for that link! And the tip you offered about palatalization really makes sense. Thank you so much for the help!