Thread: Can you help me with the letter O

Hi
Few days ago i Decided to learn russian
But i have a problem with the letter O
Can you tell me when do i pronounce it O?
And when do i pronounce it A?
Thank you

It depends on stress. If O is stressed it pronounced as O otherwise as A. Например "молоко" произносится как "малако".

Спасибо

Yes, but keep in mind that unstressed "O" should not be pronounced as "A" too distinctively. It should be well reduced (sort of swallowed), otherwise you gonna sound a little bit weird.

hi, i didn't understand, it's going depend on stress, it'd be enphasis??
then, how do i know if i pronounce it 'o' or 'a'?
it has some ruler to know like pronounce it?

Originally Posted by EdwardElric

hi, i didn't understand, it's going depend on stress, it'd be enphasis??
then, how do i know if i pronounce it 'o' or 'a'?
it has some ruler to know like pronounce it?

Stress, emphasis, accent... I don't know why the same simple idea is expressed in English by so many different words. Normally one syllable in a word is accented. When you learn the new word, you should learn where is the accent in it. It is in all vocabularies. It is more or less the same as in English but in Russian each vowel corresponds to one syllable and vice versa.

O has three different ways that it can be pronounced.

I've been taught the following:

"Oh"- if it is stressed
"Ah" - at the beginning of the word, or if it immediately preceeds the stressed syllable, such as in the word окно
"Uh" - everywhere else.

Two great words that help with practicing the different sounds are:

молоко - (muh-lah-kOH)
хорошо - (hu-ra-shOH)

Those are not the ways you spell the words phonetically, it's just to help read how to pronounce the words

Of course, there are other ways of pronouncing the letter O if it is influenced by й