Originally Posted by Geoduck
This whole business of soft and hard consonants is something I'm just not going to worry about as a first year student. With soft consonants that are not followed by vowels, it is pretty much impossible for me to hear a difference. Мать and мат sound pretty much the same to me. Yes, they are totally different words, but who cares in spoken language? There are tons of words in English which are pronounced exactly the same but have different spellings, and we never have a problem knowing which word someone is saying (in that sentence alone: there, are, which, but, have). Context should be a perfectly easy way to figure out what someone means. I think it is much more important to learn how to communicate efficiently before you learn how to speak with a Moscow accent. I know that some people, however, do aspire for a good accent, but I agree with kalinka_vinnie that you will need a phonetics teacher who can focus on how you individually are using your speech organs.