big iщue

[yers.livejournal.com]

A question to all *learners* of Russian: how are you taught to pronounce щ?

99.9% of Russians pronounce it, simply, as a long soft [sh], without the slightest trace of a [ch] at the end. The [shch] pronounciation isn't even "very formal" - it's practically obsolete. But as far as I know a lot of students are taught the old pronounciation. I guess it's a kind of pedantism per se with all professors who teach a language that's foreign to them.

Did You Know: the only Russian word of non-Slavic origin in which щ occurs is крещендо, from the Italian.

Comments

[oblomov-jerusal.livejournal.com]

pronunciation of щ as sh+ch is supposed to be one of features of St.-Petersbourg accent.

[arden667.livejournal.com]

I heard the same of pronouncing the "ch" letter with the full "tch" sound, instead of just a "sh". Sorry that wasn't so clear.. I'm not on my own computer and cant do either russian or IPA letters here!

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

For IPA, would it be [ʃtʃ] for the pronunciation of щ?

Re:

[arden667.livejournal.com]

Not really. I'll see if I can copy and paste your IPA in so that it makes more sense.. What I'm saying it most of us pronounce it with the [ʃ] sound (though I'm not sure there is any real factual basis for this.. we are non-native) , but I was told that pronouncing the full [tʃ] was typical of a Petersburg accent. I hope these characters come through for you-- but if not, I think you'll still see what I mean. The box-y guy is esh. :)

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

No, they didn't come out, but I copied and pasted them into a word processing document and changed the font. Most people can view IPA glyphs with the font Lucida Sans Unicode, but there are a few others that people like. When I use IPA I go like this: <span style="font-family: Code 2000, Arial Code MS, Lucida Sans Unicode">IPA HERE</span> You can put as many fonts as you like. The way this works is that it goes down the list, seeing if your computer has the font. So, if you have Codoe 2000 then it will display the IPA in Code 2000, but if you don't, it will see if you have Arial Code MS, and if that fails, it goes to Lucida Sans Unicode. Here's an example of just copy/pasting the IPA: [tʃ] and here it is with the code [<span style="font-family: Code 2000, Arial Code MS, Lucida Sans Unicode>tʃ</span>] Hope that was helpful.

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

...And of course I messed up on my own code, wow what a bad way to show someone how to do it! [tʃ] You get a bonus if you can see what I left out =Þ

[arden667.livejournal.com]

In our book there are little english examples of all the russian letters, and I remember always being confused by the explaination of that one. They used the example "fresh sheets"... at any rate, none of our teachers have ever explained it well, and I think we all pronounce it like the regular "sh" in normal speech, but if we're really concentrating on it it gets a little more palatized. i'm not sure if that's correct pronunciation.. but that's what has developed in us russian majors so far!

[notanaccount.livejournal.com]

my prof used fresh cheese

i can't remember words it shows up in though

[langwidere.livejournal.com]

My first year Russian professor who was a native of Moscow taught us to pull back the corners of our mouth so it sounded a little harder, like you were trying to force it out.

I notice that now my tongue pulls back a little bit too. *shrug*

[corriel.livejournal.com]

I was taught this letter sounds like a long palatised "sh".

[lexabear.livejournal.com]

In my class, we didn't spend too long on letter-pronounciation lessons, but mostly picked it up as we went along. The only time I remember my professor pointing it out was as in the letter in the name Krushchov. Generally, I'll say a щ pretty much as a ш, because that's how I've heard my (non-native) professor say it all the time.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

I learned to pronounce it "shch."

However, this was too hard, and I started pronouncing it "sh." No one corrected me. :)

[hockeyophile.livejournal.com]

My Russian professor is originally from St. Petersburg, and she pronounces it like the "fresh sheets" example. It's pretty much like saying "Shhhhhhh...", but obviously not as long. As someone else said, you're sort of "forcing" the "sh" sound out and it's more "intense".

[ataltane.livejournal.com]

Thanks for clearing this up. I've suspected it for sometime now.

It's quite odd, when you see a book on Russian telling you to pronounce щ as in "fresh cheese", and the accompanying tape has a sound that has no trace of the 'т' (or the 'ч', if you think of it that way).

Still, when you think of the 5 'exceptional letters' ц ж ш ч щ, it seems clear that щ should be just the always-soft form of always-hard ш, which happens to have been graced with its own letter (of course, this is not conclusive evidence, but it made me suspicious of the usual teaching of щ).

[Unfortunately, I have now mastered the unauthentic pronunciation, and have grow n quite attached to it. I even had a sort of a dream last night about the sound-symbol complex 'shch-щ' (slightly synaesthesic)... :)]

So, does the softness of щ mean it's pronounced somewhat like a lengthened form of the (voiceless) alveolar-palatal fricative? That's ɕ in IPA (assuming you have an unicode font with a glyph for U-0x0255), /s\/ in the X-SAMPA representation of IPA, "s" with an acute accent in Polish (I think), and "x" in the pinyin representation of Mandarin Chinese... :)


Another thing: I've often noticed that when teachers of a language insist on something that isn't true, the native speakers often believe it too, even when it is clearly wrong. After all, it's hard to analyse your own language, especially when you've been told authoritatively (but not always correctly) how it works at school, and from 'folk linguistics'.

So, do Russians think of щ as being "shch"?

Спасибо болшьой,

stephen

[yers.livejournal.com]

The Polish ś probably comes closest. Still better, śś. It is, however, totally unrelated to щ historically.

it seems clear that щ should be just the always-soft form of always-hard ш, which happens to have been graced with its own letter

not quite. phonetically this is, of course, true, except for the fact that щ is not just always hard but also always doubled. щ matches the Proto-Slavic -tj- in words of Church Slavonic origin, otherwise it's the mutated (чередованная) form of the consonant groups -sk- and -st-, matched in Polish by szcz, in Czech by šť, and in Serbo-Croat by št. In the Bulgarian alphabet, щ actually stands for [шт]. there was certainly a time when the Russian щ was pronounced [shch], but that's history.

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if it was like the difference between pinyin x and sh, that is very helpful. Thank you so much for using that comparision.

[ataltane.livejournal.com]

Well, I hope it's right ;)

Actually, I'm pretty sure all the sounds I named above are more or less the same; at least that they would be given the same IPA symbol. But the IPA system only gives approximate coordinates; even within one IPA symbol there's scope for lots of variants (effected through, say tension of the tongue, exact point and shape of articulation, etc). Probably each of the sounds I mentioned above has a slightly different realisation...


s.

Re:

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but it's still helpful. I had a native speaker teaching me Mandarin, so I have a pretty good handle on how pinyin should be pronounced.

[noser.livejournal.com]

I'm Russian and pinyin x sounds like щ to me -- when someone from Beijing speaks. I heard some Chinese make it more like "сь" (is it Taiwanese?).

The pinyin x is a bad example, as even Chinese have no agreement on how to pronounce it =)

[bobthedog.livejournal.com]

My mom is from Odessa and she taught me the way she has always heard it said. She had high grades in Russian so I sometimes hear her correct even her parents.
You go for a "sh" sound, pause it for a millisecond and push the air again to make another short "sh" sound (the tongue is not moved between those two) and go for the "ch."
I can't say I've heard any Russkiys pronounce it as a long "sh."

Borshch - um...veggie broth soup? (I don't like the kind based on beets. Spinach or tomato base is better.)
Shchi - nasty cabbage soup :P
Shchuka - Pike fish
Khrushchov - Soyuz (union) leader that was on par with George W. for wits.
Tovarishch - Comrade

[yers.livejournal.com]

My mom is from Odessa and she taught me the way she has always heard it said.

said where? with all my respect to Odessa (my maternal grandfather was born there), the Russian spoken there is perhaps the single greatest fluctuation from the average.

I'm from Moscow and I've been pronouncing it as a doubled soft "sh" all my life, like everyone around me.

[shards84.livejournal.com]

2yers: а че такое это "крещендо" - честное слово в первый раз слышу... ;)

[yers.livejournal.com]

завидую всем, кто в музыкалке не учился... :)

crescendo - постепенное нарастание громкости

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

I've never anyone pronouncer, I'm "learning" from books, which always describe it as [shch], like шч, but you description makes it sound like the [ch] sound is softer at the end.

[yers.livejournal.com]

I insist that there is no "ch" at all. :)

Re:

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

OK

[shards84.livejournal.com]

2yers: where do they use this word? i've lived with Russian all my life and im pretty sure that in the Ural and Karelia region they dont use it often.. so where is it still being used?

[yers.livejournal.com]

it's a musical term

[shards84.livejournal.com]

ok - thanx, im not that good in musical terms..i only play guitar... =P