Soft sign.

[golddustdreams.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why a soft sign sometimes follows a consonant that's before a vowel that makes it soft anyway.

For example, how does пьеса differ from песа? I thought the letter e always makes the preceding consonant soft. Isn't this redundant?

doma

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

can someone translate this for me, into russian
at night, i go home.
thanks
Ashley