beer = пиво

[david-us.livejournal.com]

I know this video is extremely corny, nonetheless, she is a native speaker (Marina Orlova).

http://hotforwords.rt.com/lessons/beer/

I was very surprised with her pronunciation.

She seems to be saying - pee-voh. I have always pronounced it pee-vah. I always thought the unstressed "o" was pronounced like "a".

While we're on the topic of beer. I'm wondering if the following are correct and commonly used:

светлое пиво = pale ale (How is this different from лёгкое пиво?)
тёмное пиво = dark beer
разливное пиво = draft beer

How would you say, "light beer", as in low calorie? Or, do they not have that in Russia?

Also, beer comes in either a bottle (бутылка) or can (банка) - right?

If баночное пиво is "canned beer", then how would you say "bottled beer"? Is there an adjective for that?

Thanks!

David Emerling
Memphis, TN
 

Comments

[brat-pushkin.livejournal.com]

It's pee-vah in standard language, so you're right (pronounciation varies in dialects though).

[alamar.livejournal.com]

It's a bit unnatural but completely acceptable. In fact, you can almost always pronounce Russian words letter by letter and that wouldn't be incorrect or unintelligible, just a little funny.

On the other hand, preserving shifts (like о -> а) without proper native intonation can surely make your speech harder to understand.

[huzhepidarasa.livejournal.com]

Pronouncing unstressed o's like o's is much like spelling the word out in English. Normally you don't do that.

[kimitake.livejournal.com]

... because "O" in a post-tonic syllable is should be pronounced as [a]. Actually it's not [a] but [ъ] (yer), it's some kind of neutral vowel. So should be pronounced "a" and "o" in post-tonic and in second pretonic syllable.

[vsjo-taki.livejournal.com]

"Pevah" is right pronunciation.
This lady in the video looks a bit ...corny.
I wouldn't say it makes sense to take her seriously. :-)

Светлое пиво means that the beer has light color.

Легкое пиво means that it has relativly low alcohol in.

I never heard about beer in low calorie in Russia.

> Also, beer comes in either a bottle (бутылка) or can (банка) - right?
Right.

> If баночное пиво is "canned beer", then how would you say "bottled beer"? Is there an adjective for that?
Баночное пиво - right.
Bottled beer - бутылированное пиво, but this adjective is rare and is used by professionals mainly. The beer trinkers say пиво в бутылке. "Дайте мне бутылку пива", for example.

Somebody even say бутылочное пиво, but it is not correct. Please don't repeat it.

[alamar.livejournal.com]

low calorie beer - never heard of that, I might be biased since I don't drink beer.

лёгкое пиво - also unheard of.

bottled beer - бутылочное пиво.

[sart2003.livejournal.com]

bottled beer = бутылочное пиво, пиво в бутылке

Low calorie beer? Newer saw that oxymoron in Russia

Pronounciation of this word varies, but most common is pee-vah, because of И (ee) is accented vowel, and О is not accented. In Russian non-accented O usually sounds like Ah.

[dair-spb.livejournal.com]

She pronounces it very carefully. Never met such a pronunciation in real life. "pee-vah", yes.

"Лёгкое пиво" (light beer) is called for low alcohol, not calories. 4% or less is considered light. 5-6% is about normal lager, светлое пиво. 7-8 or even 10% is "крепкое пиво" (strong beer).

Never actually thought about calories in beer ;-)

> Also, beer comes in either a bottle (бутылка) or can (банка) - right?
Right. Last 15 years we finally got can production so there is canned beer here as well.
Bottled beer is "бутылочное пиво".

"Будьте добры Балтики троечки, бутылочного, три"

[alamar.livejournal.com]

Obviously, бутылочное пиво is used as often as баночное, checked by a quick Yandex search.

If I'd heard бутылированное пиво, I'd think it's about some big technical bottles, not about the чебурашки (0,5 beer bottle's legacy name is "чебурашка", named after a soft carbonated drink).

[mithrilian.livejournal.com]

"While we're on the topic of beer. I'm wondering if the following are correct and commonly used:

светлое пиво = pale ale (How is this different from лёгкое пиво?)
тёмное пиво = dark beer
разливное пиво = draft beer"

пиво by defaul=lager=светлое пиво. In America they say beer for lager.
beer by default in Ireland=темное пиво (Guinness, Murphy etc)
light beer (amer.phenomenon)=низкокалорийное пиво
ale=эль
on tap=разливное пиво

[vsjo-taki.livejournal.com]

You have right, бутылированное пиво is for professionals, not for customers.

Mr. Yandex :-) is wrong, sorry. If millions repeat this mistake, it remains being a mistake, I think so. Let's say another way, if somebody offers me бутылочного пива, I'll answer NO. :-) Потому что я с алкашами не пью. :-)

[vovanium.livejournal.com]

Seems like she is articulating the word, so then a word is spoken such a manner (syllable by syllable), syllables are commonly pronounced like they are stressed / written.
For example, if i tell someone to memorize (or write down for same purpose) the word 'водокачка', i'll pronounce it as 'voh-doh-kach-kah' (stretching syllables), not 'vah-dah-kach-kah'.

[crimeanelf.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that светлое пиво is pale ale. Afaik ale and beer are a little different. I'm inclined to say светлое пиво is light beer (wheat? pale lager? don't know), and I never saw ale in Russia, unless imported.

[merry1978.livejournal.com]

As a linguist, I have to disagree. ;)

Бутылочное пиво is perfectly normal and is used in dictionaries as an example (see in a dictionary here:
http://www.gramota.ru/slovari/dic/?word=%E1%F3%F2%FB%EB%EE%F7%ED%FB%E9&all=x&lop=x&bts=x&zar=x&ag=x&ab=x&sin=x&lv=x&az=x&pe=x )

There is no word 'бутылированный', however. There is a professional term 'бутилированный', usually for water that is sold in bottles.

[zwilling.livejournal.com]

I'd compare that unstressed 'o' in Russian to final 'a' in English 'data'.

[merry1978.livejournal.com]

1. The main idea is that the unstressed "o" may be pronounced like 'o' or 'a'. It's the idea of the same sound for 'o' and 'a' , not the exact sound, that matters. Usually it's something in between, but the main thing is that you don't distinguish between the 'o' and 'a' in the unstressed position.

2. Светлое пиво is more or less the lager.
Темное пиво is more or less the 'dark bear', but it also could mean not only stout, but porter.

3. Low calorie beer does not exist in Russia. Alas :)

4. Bottled beer = бутылочное пиво
That's what both speakers and dictionaries say ;)

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Well, if you don't drink beer then don't misguide people. ;) Light (as in low-calorie) beer is called "лёгкое пиво" alright, but it's simply not that popular in Russia, as people prefer more full-bodied, assertive beers.

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Russian language isn't French. ;) It resists all attempts to turn it into a prescripted one quite well. So if millions repeat the mistake it becomes a new rule, simple as that, whatever the violet-wigged grannies in the institutes say.

[khathi.livejournal.com]

You never hears about low-calorie beer in Russia simply because it's never emphasized, like, say, in US. Technically low-alcohol beer will always be low-calorie as well, because of the way it's made: light beers use the wort with much lower density, which results in thin, watery beer with low alcohol and low caloric content.

[alex-mashin.livejournal.com]

There used to be a drink called "полпиво", which was twice as thin as ordinary beer.

[racoonbear.livejournal.com]

If that girl didn't break "пиво" into syllables, it would be "old Volga-river" style of pronunciation. I am from little town in NIghny Novgorod region, and in 70-s - 80-s all people there talk like that.

[icamel.livejournal.com]

if you want to be so formal, you should write бутилированное (http://www.gramota.ru/spravka/buro/search_answer/?s=%E1%F3%F2%E8%EB%E8%F0%EE%E2%E0%ED%ED%EE%E5)

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

I think she pronounces the word in an English-like manner to reflect the word's spelling. Why? I don't know. Maybe there's an answer to that in her book (http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Words-Answers-Questions-Meanings/dp/0061776319/) which I've just stumbled upon at the local Borders. But maybe not, it's more of a graphic, art work, than anything linguistic. :)

[sart2003.livejournal.com]

Aha, I see. So in this case we can call it Слабоалкогольное пиво.

[darth-biomech.livejournal.com]

I never heard in my life if somebody pronounce "пива" instead of "пиво". 0_о
Well, maybe only in sentences like "купи мне банку пива"

[vsjo-taki.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[alamar.livejournal.com]

Say who?

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Most probably. Or just "лёгкое пиво" -- to be frank, i couldn't notice the difference between American crappy beers (like, say, Coors or Bud Light) and Russian crappy ones like Клинское.

[whitest-owl.livejournal.com]

I am a little surprised that no one mentioned it before.
There is another product you can buy in Russia: безалкогольное пиво. Literally: alcohol-free beer.

[vlad-why.livejournal.com]

Оканье (http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9E%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%8C%D0%B5).
But I'm sure that the way this girl is saying it in the video has nothing to do with the dialect, now rear among young speakers due to the urbanisation and cultivation of the standard Russian through schools and media, though spoken by about half of Russians just a few decades ago.
To my ear, with regard not only to the actual vowels (pee-vaw) but also to the girl's intonation, she treats it as if it were a loanword from Russian into English said by an English speaker. And obviously, in English unstressed o's are never reduced to ah's (though they are often reduced to a different type of vowel, but that's another story).

And yes, how cheesy indeed that video is !

[malinguo.livejournal.com]

I am a phonologist and a beer fan, so I have lots to say on both subjects...

As far as that gal's pronunciation: who knows what she is doing. She is speaking English, not Russian, so she might be accommodating the English-speaking audience by giving a very careful "spelling pronunciation" of the word. It certainly does not sound like any dialect of Russian I am familiar with. My understanding of оканье is that it affects pretonic syllables, not posttonic syllables. It may affect just the syllable right before the stressed syllable, or all the syllables that precede it. There are some words, especially loanwords, where most speakers have unstressed "o"--for example, виде[o]. But for most words of the пиво type, the vowel is unrounded. By the way, in the International Phonetic Alphabet, this vowel is known as schwa: [ə]. It is only written as [ъ] in the Russian philological tradition.

So, the normal pronunciation of the word пиво in Moscow Russian is [ʼpʲivə].

As for ales vs. beers and light vs. dark: Russian has at least two words that can be translated into English as "light". As many have remarked, "легкое" means light in calories or light in alcohol; typically, if we're talking Bud Light, it will be translated as "легкое." All pilsner-type lagers are known as "светлое пиво" in Russia. "Темное пиво" is a dark lager-style beer, a.k.a. a bock.

Ales are quite difficult to find in Russia, so you're very, very unlikely to encounter a pale ale in a bar or a restaurant. If, for some reason, you get a hankering for an ale while in Moscow, head over to Продукты N1 in ГУМ. I saw some English ales there. No American beers, though--they don't seem to be imported.

If you don't know the difference between an ale and a lager, google it.