Learn Russian

Firstly, you have the signs the right way around. :)

how do you know when a letter is going to be hard or soft?

Ok. There are two ways. One (the less common way by far) is to follow the consonant by the hard or soft sign. This is only used when the usual method (which relies on the consonant being immediately followed by a vowel) fails, and sometimes serves another function as well (more on that after I explain the important bit).

The usual way is to look at the immediately following vowel:
и, е, я, ё, ю make the preceding consonant soft
ы, э, а, о, у make the preceding consonant hard.

From the way you asked the question I'm not sure if you realised that: every consonant is hard or soft, with unmarked consonants being hard.

It seems like in English we only use the soft sounds, because borrowed words almost always take a soft sound

Well, in terms of the actual sounds we make, most English sounds in most dialects are phonetically more similar to the Russian sounds, though some of the soft sounds occur too.

Now there's a further issue that effects whether borrowed sounds are hard or soft, and this is the nature of the vowels. Softness is inextricably linked with what vowel follows - and this is true in all languages (I'm not saying it's an absolute rule anywhere, just a universal tendency). I'll stop talking in generalities and explain, shall I? :)

Right - looking at the 5 basic vowels in Russian (there being 2 letter for each one: 'а' and 'я' for 'A' for example. Ignore for the moment that the 'pair' и and ы actually are different vowels as well. [yers, or anyone: do you know why this is? were they a pair and one drifted? or did Russian used to have a 'yi', like Ukrainian, which was lost, letting an unpaired ы pair up with и?]).... as I was saying, we have 5 basic vowel qualities, i e a o & u. Now ever notice how one of each pair is much (sometimes wildly) more common than the other? Like (using 'x > y' to mean 'x is more common than y') approximately:

y+vowel vowel
и > ы
е >>>>>> э
я <<< а
ё <<<< о
ю <<< у

Why is this? Well the ones for which the 'y-form' is more common are the front vowels, i.e. those produced with the tongue near the front of the mouth, the the one for which the plain form is more common are made further from that region (back vowels). This is because the 'y' sound itself, being a sort of a 'consonantal' form of 'i', is pronounced at the upper front extent of the region in which vowels are pronounced (it's about the frontest sound there is). Similarly, a consonant is more likely to be pronounced soft (i.e. with a brief 'y' sound incorporated in it or following it) in front of the two front vowels и and е.

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So the borrowing of foreign vowels is more likely to use the 'more natural' of each vowel pairs: namely и е а о ю. Of course there are complications: ы is often chosen и over since it represents a different vowel sound which may be a better representation of the foreign sound. And э might be chosen over е the unusualness of э in Russian might make that sound very distinctively heard in foreign words (like the way I hear foreign accents are sometimes represented in Russian).

I once read - perhaps on in this community - that the sound is very different to Russian ears, but the subtle difference sounds the same to English ears.

There's a lot of FUD around this issue. The fact is that English has similar (though not exactly the same) difference. Say in 'toon' versus 'tune' .... uh... if you're American, your mileage might vary on that one :). But in my part of the world (Ireland, but also true in Britain), the first is 'тун' and the second is 'тюн' (bordering on 'чун', actually).Hey, maybe I just find them easy because Irish has the same system...

Russians cannot distinguish between "bed" and "bet" but I find that very hard to believe... Would a Russian pronounce бэд and бэт the same way?

I've always read that final voiced consonants are pronounced unvoiced, but from listening to Russian (both among native speakers and on tuition tapes) it doesn't sound like that to me. The issue is complicated, though: speakers of most kinds of English can't distinguish the final sounds of 'bet' and 'bed' from each other per se: rather, the clue lies in the length of the preceding vowel (before a voiced consonant the vowel is a fraction longer). Without those clues (which are in English, but not necessarily other language, which may have different ways of distinguishing them [like actually making the 't' and 'd' more different :)]), I can't really trust what I hear when it comes to voicing of single consonants.

Anyway, if someone could explain this process of palatilazation to me I would be very greatful.

Incidentally, in my experience of literature about Russian (in English), 'palatalisation' is used to refer to a different phenomenon: the way, for example, the way the 'с' in 'писать' ("to write") changes to 'ш' in 'пишу' ("I write"). The palatalisation we're talking about is less of a process and more of a fact of life, so I guess that's ok :)

*Film may have come from French, but the same principle applies.

The principle does indeed apply, but with the opposite conclusion: there's a 'ь' in 'фильм' because that's the way it sounds in French. (it's a hard 'l' in English). Remember that the 'i' in French is like the the 'i' in machine (or even more front), not like the 'i' in English 'film'. Pronounce the French word with that in mind, and you'll see what I mean. In fact, using Cyrillic as a phonetic alphabet :), we have approximately: 'фильм' is the French and 'фылм' is the English. (Though in Dublin, 'филлым' is what you usually hear :)

The other use of the hard/soft signs is to start a new syllable, flavouring the preceding consonant with hardness or softness as appropriate. Actually, I can't explain this area very well, since I'm a bit hazy on the hows and whys, but there's not always a new syllable: in the 'New' of 'New York' (as you've said), it's 'Нью'. AFAIK, this means "Нь + ю", while the apparently more obvious 'Ню' means 'Нь + у'. This is quite subtle to my ears, though over a syllable boundary it's quite clear: 'семья' = 'семь + я', while the (presumably made up) word 'семя' is 'семь + а'. Similar (but even more mind-boggling) things happen with the hard sign. A good example is where you have a verb like 'есть' (this being the infinitive of the verb 'to eat', not the verb 'to be', which is a different 'есть' ;) ... a common Indoeuropean conundrum..) and you want to attach the word 'с' to the front: you can't write 'сесть' because that means 'сь + эсть'. So you write 'съесть', which means 'с + есть', just like 'сьесть' means 'сь + есть'. Phew. Maybe I do understand it (though pride cometh before a fall).

s.

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семя isn't made-up, it means "seed".

I've always read that final voiced consonants are pronounced unvoiced, but from listening to Russian (both among native speakers and on tuition tapes) it doesn't sound like that to me.
Really? Russian-speaking Ukrainians pronounce the final в as [v] rather than [f] as in standard Russian, but that's about all I can think of. But another issue comes in here, the voicing of final consonants before a word that starts with a voiced consonant. But they're indistinguishable again, there's an identical [d] in обед готов ('dinner is ready') and обет безбрачия ('oath of celibacy').

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семя isn't made-up, it means "seed".

Purely fortuitous, I assure you. :)

Nice to hear (if I understand you correctly) that the textbooks are wrong on yet another thing that didn't match my experience (like the myth about the pronounciation of 'щ') :)

As for before a word that starts with a voiced consonant, I can hear that ok.

Off topic warning: linguistic ramblings ahead

Interesting. This reminds me of nothing more than Irish: Compare

her coat: 'a cóta' ('а кота', ignoring some inaccuracy with the vowels)

his coat: 'a chóta' ('а хота')

their coat: 'a gcota' ('а гота').

The reason for this is in the indoeuropean sources for the words:

a meaning 'his' < eyso
a meaning 'her' < eysos
a meaning 'their' < eysom

In Irish, consonants between vowels were lenited (weakened: typically stops became fricatives), and consonants between a nasal and a vowel were make voiced (or became nasals themselves).

In Irish though, the final s and m of the disappeared after affecting the following consonant, and the merely phonetic accommodation became grammaticised. OK, completely off topic I know, but it's a similar kind of thing to what happens in Russian (except it's still merely phonetic there)

Another Irish/Russian connection: Irish has series of hard and soft consonants too, though we use a writing system more akin to the Polish method to mark it. Personally, I think Irish should be written in Cyrillic (http://ataltane.net/conlangs/sampla-ga.pdf) :).

(Cross posted to

mothertonguemothertongue)

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Ай лайк райтинг Энглиш ин Сариллик. :D

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хе хе... фор мор зайнинесс, лоок хер:

http://www.livejournal.com/community/ru_ireland/18781.html?thread=82781#t82781

Re: Part 2

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ugly-boy.livejournal.com - Date: 2003-08-16 04:37 pm (UTC) - Expand

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ekeme-ndiba.livejournal.com

Hmm... Usually Ukrainians tend to pronounce the final "в" as [w]. But you're right, in general they don't devoice final consonants. I have an everyday chance to hear my Urkainian coworker saying "б..дь" with a distinct [d'] ;-)

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Thank you... Still a little confusing and it brings up a few more questions, and leaves one unanswered:

привет - the /r/ and /v/ are soft, here, right? Does that mean that (hypothetically, if it were a word) пръивъет would be pronounced as прывэт?
Should I assume that all consenents are hard when they do not preceed a vowel? Using привет again, the /p/ is hard because it is followed by an /r/ and not by a vowel? Thus филм is pronounced /fьilъmъ/ so the ь sign is necessary to make the /l/ soft?
What's the deal with Нью (as in Нью Йорк) when Ну is closer to the sound in English and the ю makes it soft anyway?!

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kasak.livejournal.com

пръивъет would not be pronounced прывэт. Here's why.

When you put a hard sign in front of a soft vowel, like in the word въезд. The в is hard, but the e is still a e. How it is distinguished is you add a tiny tiny pause between saying в and езд, so that the в is not softened.

On your second question, a consonant is softened whenever a soft vowel comes after it. In привет, the р and the в are both soft, because they are followed by soft vowels. If it were прыв(й)эт, the all the consonants would be hard because they are affected by hard vowels.

And regarding Нью Йорк...

Think of how someone with an Oxford English accent saying "New York." They would pronounce it like "Nyoo York." We Americans just pronounce it like Ну Йорк. The Russians were talking with the British long before they started talking to us, so they Russified New York as Нью Йорк because that's how the British pronounced it. English is weird like that. We can pronounce our entire language differently, change vowels and such, and still have it be the same word and the same language. If you did that in Russian, people would be really confused.

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Thank you for explaining the "Нью Йорк" thing, and the rest of it :D

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kasak.livejournal.com

Also, if you want to know why the л in фильм is soft, here's my theory.

Russians borrowed plenty of words from the Germans in their time: маршрут (originally meaning "marching route" now it just means "route"), картофель (potato), холм (originally meaning "island" now it means "hill," since I guess hills are islands of the steppes), кино (cinema/movies).

Taking this into account, and judging from my knowledge of the German language, I can make a guess on why the л in фильм is soft. The /l/ sound in German is different than the /l/ in English and several other Western European languages. Ours is more of a "dark" /l/, meaning that it sounds murkier compared to theirs. Their "light" /l/ sounds almost like a ль, but stops just short of the palatalization mark. All German /l/ sounds are pronounced thusly. It's not quite soft, but it's definitely a more delicate sound than the English /l/.

Again, this is just a theory. I really don't know if it's valid or not. Just my inturpretation of its Russification roots.

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Another person theorized that it comes from French word (since мьуви is closer to the more commonly used English word) and the French /l/ is a little different from the English /l/. Thanks for all your info!

Re: Part 1

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corriel.livejournal.com - Date: 2003-08-14 02:30 am (UTC) - Expand

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you add a tiny tiny pause between saying в and езд
Not a pause, but a [j] sound.

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and the ю makes it soft anyway?!
This comment (http://www.livejournal.com/community/learn_russian/18671.html?thread=149743#t149743) by

irkin sums it all up beautifully. The difference is that ню is two sounds and нью is three, with a [j] in the middle.
As if that weren't enough, Нью-Йорк is written with a hyphen. :)

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do you know why this is? were they a pair and one drifted? or did Russian used to have a 'yi', like Ukrainian, which was lost, letting an unpaired ы pair up with и?])....
It's a question that every Russian speaker or learner has once asked themself. I was eight or nine when we were explained those paired vowels at school, and I wondered if "и" had once been "йы".

No, "и" and "ы" never were a pair. "ы" was more to do, historically, with "у" than with "и". Consider these pairs of historically related words in Russian and English:

сидеть - to sit
вино - wine
vs.
тысяча - thousand
мышь - mouse

There's a bit more to that, including the 'yi' question, and I think I'm going to write a post about ы.

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That would be a good idea for a post.

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ekeme-ndiba.livejournal.com

Actually, "ы" in stems etymologically refers to Proto-Indo-European long "u". But in the word endings "ы" is a modified "и".

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Excellent. I look forward to reading it! I've been wondering about it for quite a while. Thanks as usual :)

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999999.livejournal.com

Hi, I'll stay out of most of it (volumes could be/have been written) but would just like to note that the ш in пишу was only historically palatalized; now the tongue body is not raised toward the palate. It's сь (same as c before a front vowel) that forms a minimal pair with с (followed by a back vowel or none at all) for palatalization. Unlike the Polish palatalized/Irish slender s, сь is a palatalized dental-alveolar sound, which is to say it's articulated behind the upper teeth but to the front of the hard gum ridge behind them.

(щ is closer to 'sh' but [I think] articulated more to the front)

Apologies to the original poster that I am not offering any palatalization advice, but it's really best to learn strange coronals (сь and other sounds articulated around the same place) by hearing (and, ideally, watching) a native speaker: places of articulation form a continuum, but our terms for them don't. On the other hand, if the question was only about the contexts of palatalisation, I have only this to add to what the other posters have written: The thing you get in Нью (and wherever there's a ь between a consonant and a front vowel) is an i-glide 'y', which in some languages is required after a palatalized 'n' not followed by an 'i' (Spanish doña, Polish nie); in Russian this glide is not required and is absent in ню.

Also,

ataltane, if I may raise an issue with your presentation of your intuition of relative y+vowel frequencies: you write that и is a "y+ы"; but, in fact, и does not start with a glide. It's the 'y' (й = "и краткое" = the Russian for "short i") that's an и in its consonantal form (i-glide).

Btw, it seems that it's

linguaphiles that accumulates those well-versed in phonetics and/or historical linguistics (relevant to Russian palatalization).

- Linguaphobe (Russian-born, U.S.-raised computational linguist with little phonetics in my life)

P.S. Sorry about using so many words, and thanks for being into Russian, y'all :)

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Very helpufl, thank you.

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999999.livejournal.com

No prob.

----What I wrote below sounds like too much even to the author... If you feel the same, please ignore everything that has to do with meaning and worry about the pronunciation part only-----

This (http://www.svoboda.org/programs/pe/2002/pe.092102.asp) might be useful for pronunciation help now or later:

http://www.svoboda.org/programs/pe/2002/pe.092102.asp

It's a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty story which you can read and listen to. The text is quite difficult, but at least it helps one figure out how things (e.g., palatalized, or soft, sounds) are pronounced. Once you're on that page, you'll have to click on the audio icon above the transcript.

In the first sentence spoken by a man's voice (the first sentence in the first paragraph of the transcript), the soft sounds are the following:

сь in открылась
the last н in накануне
ф in катастрофического
the last н & the glide part of я in наводнения
2nd н in нанесло
т, й (not ж, which is never soft in the standard dialect) in тяжелый
щ (always soft) in ущерб
ч, й in чешской
л (not ц, which is never soft in the standard dialect) in столице

The sentence itself is and means as follows:

Выставка "Франц Кафка и Прага" открылась накануне катастрофического наводнения, которое
exhibition "Franz Kafka and Prague" opened on-the-eve of-catastrophic (of-)flood , which

нанесло тяжелый ущерб чешской столице.
inflicted heavy damage on-Czech (on-)capital.

(The Russian for 'Czech capital' is actually in the dative.)

And, yeah, this is about an exhibition about Kafka and Prague in the Jewish Museum in New York, and the vocabulary is impressive, so I'm not trying to tell you to listen to the whole thing (I sometimes play anywhere from 3 sec to a minute of foreign radio over and over, and that really helps me internatlize the pronunciation). Links to other read-along programs are here (http://www.svoboda.org/realaudio/) - click on a link and you'll get a list of shows, all of which will have a speaker icon next to them while some will also have a clickable show title - those are the read-along ones. Warning: they seem like vocab guzzlers (though this shouldn't matter if you use them to see how things are pronounced).

Good luck!

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Wow! Thank you! I'll have a listen and see what I can hear.

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