Thread: бес

On "Радио России" there is a programme called "Радио бес политике" (that's at least what I hear).
I wonder why it isn't "Радио бес политикы" because my grammar book tells me that бес always goes с родительном падежом?

You heard this phrase incorrectly. It should be - Радио без политики, which means - Radio without politics.

бес - demon

Вы хотите писать «без политики».

Да, я тоже замечал, что некоторые происносят Е вместе И в конце слова. По крайней мере, так мне кажется. Особенно я это слышал, когда ездил в гости к другу в г. Саратове.

О! Ты был в Саратове? Понравилось?

Я бы сказал: вы хотели написать...

You wanted to write...
You want to write...
How would you say the same phrase in English? I'd select the first one.

... and you would be right!

Remember that consonants take the voicing of the last consonant in the cluster. In the phrase "без политики", п is not voiced, so that means the з is pronounced as a с.

Darobat reminded me of another common word combination "без п...." that even is wrote in one word with "с" instead of "з". But I'd better won't say it.

You can simply contract it to:
Б/П

A good example, we have two important and often missed features of Russian pronunciation here.
first, voiced consonants at the word ends get devoiced. second, unstressed vowels are reduced, so "i" is undistinguishable from "e" in that position. there were some posts here before with links to more detailed descriptions of this, iirc. It is particularly painful to see sports announcers killing themselves pronouncing all the vowels in Russian names without reduction...

Originally Posted by ReDSanchous

You can simply contract it to:
Б/П

Жжош!

>voiced consonants at the word ends get devoiced

More precisely, voiced consonants are replaced by their voiceless counterparts before silence (for ex. at the end of a sentence or phrase) or voiceless consonants.

деда gen. sg. [d'