Thread: ь before soft indicating vowel

What's the real difference in pronunciation between a syllables like пью and пю or нья and ня? I suppose the first example will be like p'+ju and the counterpart p'+u. The й-sound is pronounced longer or stronger and пю like p'u. But are there an й-sound in пю?

Originally Posted by jz12

But are there an й-sound in пю?

No.
Here we talked about pronunciations of спросоня/спросонья and you can listen to my recording спросоня and Friendy's спросонья.

http://masterrussian.net/mforum/viewtopic.php?t=3764

тя = тьа
тья = тья

тья = тьйа

я ≠ йа?

я ≡ йа

I think I have the right idea of ня, тя, ля, дя and нья, тья, лья, дья with й-sounds. (Since my native language has palatalized n,d, l and t-sounds without j-sounds). But it is a bit difficult for me to pronounce пя or вя without the й sound.

Someone have soundfiles on palatalized labials?

The "soft" vowels are written with the letters : я е и ё ю.

Following a consonant that is not already palatalized as seen by a following Ь, the so-called soft vowels merely indicate that 1) the preceding consonant is palatalized ("soft"), or 2) it was historically soft (I am thinking of центр, же, шёл, честь).

Examples after historically soft consonants:
центр is pronounced цэнтр
же - жэ
шёл - шол
чэсть

Everywhere else "soft" vowels indicate the sequence of semivowel /j/ (the Y in English "boy" for example) plus the corresponding vowel. This includes three positions: 1) following silence (i.e. word-initial), 2) following a paired palatalized consonant (Т for example), and 3) following a defined "hard" consonant, indicated with a following Ъ.

1. word-initial (I omit diacritics, too lazy to paste)
яма = /jama/
ем = /jem/
им =/jim/ but often you don't hear the /j/
ё-моё (sorry about that) /jo/
юноша /junosa/

2. after soft paired consonant
до-свиданья .., /n'ja/ (examples are not coming to me)

3. following a paired hard consonant
объём /abjom/

I think that in a crowded room you will be hard-pressed to hear the difference between, for example, пю and пью.

(Please correct me if you see something wrong. I'm not a phonetician.)

When I listen to this soundfile with syllables of soft indicating vowels and their counterpart. Is it just me, or do I hear the й-sound in these soft syllables?

http://www.princeton.edu/russian/SLA101 ... 05/005-9(1).mp3

I hear мя like мьйа..

and is нья=ния, пью=пию etc.?

Meh, sounds good to me.

My opinion is that he is pronouncing a clear й-sound in the most cases. Maybe it's another definition

that is not a native speaker.

Originally Posted by chaika

that is not a native speaker.

If that's true, I need to stop imitating his ы...

Hmm. not native?

What about the pronunciation of these words?

http://www.princeton.edu/russian/SLA101 ... 05/005-9(3).mp3

What are your opinion about the pronunciation dialogue sound-files presented on this page?

http://www.princeton.edu/russian/SLA101/Chapter%201/

Could you record word samples with soft labials v', b', f', p' , please ?