Pronunciation...

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Hi, everyone. Yet again, it's me, with a pronunciation question.

From reading Omniglot's table on Cyrillic, as well as listening to some of the material I bought, I came to a realization... well, a conclusion. If it's correct, it's a realization.

I had thought that е, ё, ю, and я were pronounced as йе, йо, йу, and йа after a consonant... but it looks like they're pronounced as those at the beginning of a word or after another vowel or a ъ. From what I understand, they're pronounced as e, o, and у after a -soft- consonant (я not occurring in these places), or, after a normal consonant, as ьe, ьo, ьу, and ьa... is this right?

For example... one of the first words I tried to pronounce, бояться, would be pronounced бо-йать-сьа?

Большое cпасибо.

Не валяй дурака

[devinshire.livejournal.com]

Is there a better way to translate "валять дурака" to English than "to play the fool"? In some of the contexts I've heard this, "to play the fool" doesn't seem like the most appropriate translation. Help?

Песны

[bohemienne.livejournal.com]

Hi guys! One of my favourite ways to keep myself immersed in the Russian language and getting used to the sound of it is by listening to Русское Радио online. Because song lyrics are generally sung much more slowly than usual rapid-fire Russian conversation, I can understand much more of the lyrics.

I'd like to make sure I'm actually understanding them correctly, though... does anyone know of any good Russian song lyrics sites? Just general popular songs. In particular right now I'm searching for the lyrics to "Притяженья больше нет", but I'd be happy for any major songs right now. I remember everyone being crazy about "Шоколадный Зайц" when I was in Moscow last summer, which was how I learned the verb "to melt" ;)

There's another song I've been trying to find out the artist of, but I don't know the song's title or anything... about all I can make out if it is the phrase "опыть весна"... It got a lot of play on Русское Радио a few months but I never caught the name. If you know what song this is I'd really appreciate the help.