Palatilaziation - Ь and Ъ

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

Can someone help me with ь (soft sign) and ъ (hard sign) [or do I have them reversed?]. My first question is, how do you know when a letter is going to be hard or soft? It seems like in English we only use the soft sounds, because borrowed words almost always take a soft sound. In other words, the Russian tendency is to make hard sound and the English tendency is to make a soft sound (thus film → фильм* ; New → Нью). I'm sure this is completely off base, it's just a trend that I've noticed.

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. It was compared to the final sound in the words bed and bet vs the words угил and угиль. 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?

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

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

Comments

[yers.livejournal.com]

I think the words should be угол and уголь, "corner" and "coal".

Would a Russian pronounce бэд and бэт the same way?
Well, I've learned not to, for one. But pairs like код/кот certainly are indistinguishable in Russian.

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is угол and уголь, because I remember that one of the words meant "coal." With the код/кот example, is the final letter pronounced /t/ or /d/?

[yers.livejournal.com]

/t/ by default, and /d/ if the next word begins with a voiced consonant (EXCEPT й, л, м, and н, which has something to do with the fact that these four voiced consonants don't have an unvoiced counterpart).