Thread: Lesson Discussion: The Russian Alphabet

This thread is dedicated to discussion of the lesson "The Russian Alphabet"
http://www.masterrussian.com/russian_alphabet.shtml

Feel free to leave your comments and ask questions about the Russian alphabet and pronunciation.

" Ы ы No English equivalent. To produce "Ы" sound, notice the positions of the tongue when pronouncing English sounds i as in kit and u as in sugar. Then place your tongue in between and emit a voiced sound."

I have read this explanation a couple of times. I find it a bit confusing because it is a bit strange to place yor tongue "in between two positions". I think for this sound a more detailed description is need, because many languages do not even have this sound. I like the following explanation: "The sound is produced with the middle of the tongue raised toward the back of the mouth. The lips are not rounded, but spread wide. Then produce a sound between i and u." This explanation also contains "between i and u" (which is quite natural, because as a close central vowel ы is between i and u haha ), but a more precise description of the position of the tongue and the shape of lips during articulation is given.
The rest of the explanations I like a lot

The only difference I could discern between my personal [i] and ы is that when I say ы I "widen my throat", if you know what I mean.

What do you guys think about the explanation of the Russian letter "P" as a flapped "tt" in "matter"? I tried to explain it like this to an American girl and it worked for her. The only thing is that I asked her to multiply that "tt" sound. But perhaps when you just read from a webpage it may be confusing...

Originally Posted by MasterAdmin

What do you guys think about the explanation of the Russian letter "P" as a flapped "tt" in "matter"? I tried to explain it like this to an American girl and it worked for her. The only thing is that I asked her to multiply that "tt" sound. But perhaps when you just read from a webpage it may be confusing...

That's a an interesting way of describing it, although I prefer to think of it as a rolled "R".
Audio samples would be even better.