Quote Originally Posted by zedeeyen View Post
But these orthographic distinctions are meaningless to anyone who does not understand the concept of palatalization in the first place! You have to understand the difference between ль and л before you can even start to understand the distinction between ля and лъя and лья.

And do you know what will happen if you include an in-depth explanation of palatalization in your beginner textbook? No one will buy it, they'll buy the one that teaches them how to stumble successfully through a simple conversation, because that's all they want to be able to do!
But they will understand what they don't understand and will make a choice: whether to find other resourses which explain the most important Russsian phonological feature or not. And they won't even understand that they are wrong if the explanations are wrong. Because it is meaningless for a native Russian speaker that ля is lya ль is л. if anyway palatalization is mentioned regarding soft sign, why not say about palatalization before vowels, without this "y"? Or you suggest to call soft sign a meaningless letter?