Thread: Confused about soft vowels

Originally Posted by zedeeyen

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!

Here we can see that language learning traditions in Western countries and in Russia are really different.
I learned several foreign languages. And the first thing I checked when selecting a book in a store to learn a new language was how well the pronunciation was explained. If it was limited by a table of approximation by Russian sounds, without any articulation description, and no IPA was provided, I put that book immediately back to its shelf.

However, we have to admit that the English pronunciation is not always perfectly taught to Russians.
I do not mean university courses and specialized schools. I mean the ordinary school education and some of the so-called "self-teaching books".

During my school education, I was never told that, for example, [ɪ] and [i:] (as in "fit" and "feet") are different vowels! As well as [ʊ] and [u:] ("pull" and "pool"). We were only taught that they were distinguished by their lengths. Everyone believed that you get "feet" if you drawl "fit" long. And it surprized me a lot when I learned that later.

And some textbooks I saw also explain that "fit" has a short "и" sound and "feet" has a long "и" sound, "pot" has a short "o" sound and "port" has a long "о" sound, "cut" has a short "a" sound and "cart" has a long "a" sound.

Many people I know who learned their English in school still believe in that "length-only" distinction.

Russian и is English [i:], Russians cannot pronounce fit correctly without special training. I agree with Боб about those long and short vowels.

The main problem with wrong pronunciation is not that different words can merdge, but that the phonetic image of words and phrases changes significantly and cannot be effortkessly recognized by native speakers.

Originally Posted by zedeeyen

Don't forget that English in Russia is a widespread academic subject which most learners begin in school, so beginner English texts in Russia are introductory-level academic works. In contrast, academic Russian is virtually unheard-of in anglo countries

That's a bit of an exaggeration. I think it's much closer to the truth to say that academic Russian at "pre-college" ages is virtually unheard of, at least in the States. I mean, the vast majority of public high-schools in the US offer only Spanish and perhaps French as a foreign-language, and Spanish is the only language that is likely to be taught (at a very basic level) in public elementary schools. So very very very few Americans entering a first-year college Russian course would have had ANY previous exposure to the language.

At the university level (in my own experience), Russian is taught in a highly structured and formalized way, utterly unlike the Pimsleur/Rosetta approach.

In my first-year course, the concepts of "hard" and "soft" consonants were introduced extremely early, at the same time as students are learning the alphabet, and about аканье, and about voiced/voiceless consonant pairs, etc. In other words, it was all presented as part of a systematic introduction to Cyrillic orthography.

Still, I didn't start to really "internalize" the principles of Russian pronunciation (in a non-abstract way) until my third year, partly because the focus for the first two years was overwhelmingly on written Russian and its grammar. (It was also partly because I was too lazy/busy to spend hours listening to audiotapes in the university "language lab" -- we weren't required to attend the lab; our course grades for the first two years were based almost entirely on written examinations, not oral ones; and I was double-majoring in Biology, so I had lots of other work to fill my time!)

I should add that some of the students in my first-year Russian class had no previous foreign-language study at all, and many had only studied Spanish or French, with their inflections that are overall much simpler than in Russian. (I had an advantage because in high school I'd studied Latin, which is even more heavily inflected than Russian -- so I was already painfully familiar with the concept of case-declension, for example.)

P.S. Even if I'd spent more time with the audiotapes, learning to pronounce the hard/soft consonants correctly would have still been an uphill climb for me, for the reason already pointed out by many people: these sounds aren't phonemically distinct in English, and the whole concept is a bit alien for us. But I might have learned it a little sooner.

I didn't start to really "internalize" the principles of Russian pronunciation (in a non-abstract way) until my third year

I mean, my brain understood the pronunciation rules, but my ears and tongue were still clueless!

By the way, during my entire formal education, we were never taught the IPA -- our Russian textbooks, for example, used variants of the United Nations / Library of Congress standards for Latinizing Cyrillic. As far as I know, the IPA is mainly taught in "general linguistics" courses, so that students can compare the sounds of different languages, but when you're focusing on ONE foreign language, using the IPA doesn't seem like a great advantage.

I mean, for example, ы will inevitably be a difficult sound for English speakers beginning in Russian, and it doesn't make the slightest difference whether you transliterate it as ɨ (IPA) or y (Library of Congress).

I should add that some of the students in my first-year Russian class had no previous foreign-language study at all, and many had only studied Spanish or French, with their inflections that are overall much simpler than in Russian. (I had an advantage because in high school I'd studied Latin, which is even more heavily inflected than Russian -- so I was already painfully familiar with the concept of case-declension, for example.)

I'm not sure that French and Spanish have fewer inflections than Russian. how many forms does a spanish verb have? Don't forget that obligatory, inseperable unstressed pronouns are a part of the verb, in fact.
Latin verbs have more forms have more forms, but the noun declension is much more regular than in Russian.

Originally Posted by zedeeyen

It does make the sound closer though. It doesn't make it correct, but it is closer. Ask any English speaker to say "nyet" and what you hear will be a lot closer to "нет" than if you'd asked him to say "net". You can stamp your feet and insist that it's wrong all you like, but for most people it's good enough to be going on with, until such times as they've heard how the locals pronounce it.

It is as close to the real Russian pronunciation as Russian хё(р) to English "her". (That's how this and many other words are pronounced by Russians).

There are no examples, or vanishingly few, where a slight mispronunciation of the softness of a consonant in an otherwise correct sentence can lead to ambiguity or confusion.

The key word here is "slight". What you suggest is not a slight but a total mispronunciation of Russian soft consonants.

Originally Posted by Marcus

I'm not sure that French and Spanish have fewer inflections than Russian. how many forms does a spanish verb have? Don't forget that obligatory, inseperable unstressed pronouns are a part of the verb, in fact.
Latin verbs have more forms have more forms, but the noun declension is much more regular than in Russian.

That's a good point, Marcus -- French and Spanish have simpler noun inflection than Russian, but a more complex system of verb conjugation than either Russian or English.

As to Latin, I'm not sure what you mean by saying that its noun declension is "more regular" than in Russian. Overall I would say that Latin and Russian nouns are roughly similar in their complexity, from the perspective of a native English speaker, while Latin verbs have much more complicated inflections than Russian.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

That's a good point, Marcus -- French and Spanish have simpler noun inflection than Russian, but a more complex system of verb conjugation than either Russian or English.

As to Latin, I'm not sure what you mean by saying that its noun declension is "more regular" than in Russian. Overall I would say that Latin and Russian nouns are roughly similar in their complexity, from the perspective of a native English speaker, while Latin verbs have much more complicated inflections than Russian.

It is more regular because it is fully predictable from the nom and gen sing. There are very few exceptions. While Russian nouns are declined in unpredictable ways especially if we regard the stress.
For example, first declension end stressed nouns can have a stress shift in acc. sing.
водА - вОду
but
грозА - грозУ
in nom. pl. the stress usually falls on the stem
травА - трАвы
but there are several exceptions
мечтА - мечтЫ
the stress in other cases can be both on the stem and on the ending
травА - трАвы - трАвам
головА - гОловы - головАм
And that's just the top of the iceberg.

I being a Russian speaker completely agree with Marcus except that I think that inserting the "y" as advised in English textbooks is even more detrimental than he asserts.

My advise to English speakers: if you do not know how to pronounce the soft consonants, just ignore them, but do NOT insert that weird "y".

This is especially related to cases when the consosnant is followed with "е". It is very disappointing to me to occasionally see Russian words transliterated into English as " Byelorussia" instead of "Belorussia", "Lyudmila" instead of "Ludmila" so on. If you pronounce these words with hard consonant, it is nothing more than a minor accent difference. If you insert the "y", you get other words. With vowels "я" and "ё" the situation is more difficult though and just ignoring the softness is much worse here.

But if we recall the historic development we will see that they derived from "ea->я", "eo->ё", "еу->ю". For example the Russian name Фёдор is derived from Greek "Theodor". Thus is is much natural and better reflects the pronunciation to transliterate is as "Feodor" rather than "Fyodor". Think about these vowels as of short forms of the diphthongs. Pronounce "я" as "еа", "ё" as "ео", "ю" as "еу". Note that it is closer to German to English transliteration rules as well.

Take for example the surname of a Russian writer Беляев. I occasionaly see it transliterated as "Belyaev". This makes me funny because such change makes the family to look like it was derived from Russian word "бельё" ("belyo") which means "underwear". The surname then sounds like "Underwear-man". Similarly the Moscow metro station "Беляево" when transliterated as "Belyayevo" looks like an "Underwear-station". I suggest to better transliterate and pronounce the name as "Beleaev" or "Beleayev".

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

In my first-year course, the concepts of "hard" and "soft" consonants were introduced extremely early, at the same time as students are learning the alphabet, and about аканье, and about voiced/voiceless consonant pairs, etc. In other words, it was all presented as part of a systematic introduction to Cyrillic orthography.

This is definitely not comparable. Soft/hard consonants are MUCH more important than the "аканье". It is pity that they are taught as if they were of the same level of importance. If you do not distinguish between soft and hard consonants you simply do not speak correct Russian. Note a Russian that when talking over a bad phone line when trying to speak a word distinguishably will pronounce it with exact vowels, without the "akanie".

Originally Posted by Anixx

...

Anixx! Welcome to our forum!

So... for those of us who really want to learn how to pronounce these soft consonants as they should be pronounced, what is the best way to train that? I've been on many russian learning sites, but no one goes in depth on the pronounciation it seems.. As you've said here in this thread, they usually just say "add "Y" after the consonant". Just repeating a native doesnt work for me, I need to know exactly how to move the tongue (I don't even know what "the palate" is :P

If anyone knows about any good site for pronounciation, feel free to post it here

I think they say to add "y" because "y" is always soft in English (like is in Russian, but not in some other languages), and consonants which follow each other usually (if no special effort made) both soft or both hard (the first consonant gets softened by the second one). The other always-soft English sound is "ch", it is also always soft in Russian.

There are English words that transliterated to Russian with soft consonants. Although I cannot comment how are they close to Russian pronunciation, I recommend to take a look at the them.

girl is always transliterated as гёл or гёрл, here the British speaker says "гёл" while the American says "горл" http://lingvopro.abbyyonline.com/ru/...ate/en-ru/girl

meeting is tranliterated митинг and this pronounciation of both British and American speakers confirms that the first m is soft here in English.

In the word "please" here the British speaker pronounces soft "l", "плиз" while the ameriсan speaker says "плыз" as I hear it.

business is transliterated бизнес (pronounced with soft б) and this is confirmed by both British and American speakers

In the case of "limit" the British speaker says "лимит" (both "l" and "m" soft, very close to Russian, only the "t" somewhat different) while the American one says "лымэт" here

Strangely enough, I would suggest that you start here: Russian phonology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia .If something doesn't feel right when you try speaking Russian, just consult the page to learn which sounds are different from English, and HOW they are different. For example, hard t/d/n in Russian are not alveolar but dental (the tip of the tongue is close to your teeth). "Ж" and "Ш" are different from sounds in "pleaSure" and "SHame" in that they have you slightly curve the tip of your tongue BACKWARDS (like in American English "R", only - in real speech - not that much). And that's exactly why it is easy to differentiate between Ш and Щ. You will also learn that the vowel in Russian word "мять" (to caress) is the same as in English "cat" or "map", and such a simple sound as Russian "A" doesn't have an exact correspondence with any English sound - well, at least not in most popular and "standard" dialects.

Palate is, basically, the roof of your mouth. Quite an important thing to have, or else you nose would open right into your mouth (wouldn't want that when having a cold). In Russian it is "нёбо" (don't confuse this with "небо", which means sky). Hard palate is in the front part, and it has a bone. Soft palate (deeper into the mouth) doesn't, hence "soft". Your tongue touches soft palate each time you say "k".

Palatalization means that a consonant gets a variation in it realisation: you raise the middle part of your tongue towards the palate. Which is at the top, anyway, so "raise it higher" is all you need to know. That's why some more in-depth guides suggest that you pronounce a consonant and Y "simultaneously". You see, the vowels differ in their "openness" (and also "frontness"). When you say "Aaah", there's much open space left inside your mouth. By contrast, when you say "ee" as in "meet", your tongue is raised so much that it occupies much space inside your mouth. So, in effect, raising you tongue for palatalization is moving your tongue to a position as if you were going to pronounce "ee". Or at least, something similar.

By the way, I tried watching how I pronounce sounds... When I do soft "K", the tongue is moved up enough to touch completely different part of your mouth. Try to touch an area behind your alveolar ridge with.. well, maybe a spot which is an inch (or a little less) away from the tip of your tongue. And then try saying "keeee..". I usually don't do it that close to the front. But the way I described, it would be practically impossible for you to make normal, "hard: K. Sounds awkward. Either you do it right, or it just doesn't sound well. at all

Thank you so much Shady! You explained it very well, I also now understood the difference between Ш and Щ, wich I havent before :P Everything became so clear now

I just felt like I wanted to make a brief rundown of the story with hard and soft consonants.

The first thing to start off is that the English language does not have soft consonants. Which means that even when an anglophone says an "ee" sound (as in leap), they don't soften the first L. So the vowel does not affect the consonant that is running ahead of it. However, In Russian, it does. The so called soft vowels (яеиёю) and the soft sign turn the preceding consonant to its palatalized analog. So they kind of, run together, in pairs -- soft consonant + soft vowel and hard consonant + hard vowel.

When a word starts in a soft vowel without a consonant running in front of it, we have to lift the tongue in the palatalized position in order to get the vowel sound right. It's very similar to pronouncing an Й sound, or a Y as in You (technically it's a j according to the IPA), but most of the people project this principle onto the cases where there is a consonant in front of the vowel, and just sneak in this j sound inbetween the consonant and the vowel, without softening the consonant, which is a mistake.

In this case, the whole thing sounds like MjASO (мясо - meat), which is not right. The M should not stay hard. It should go palatalized and turn into a M', and then you just don't need this j subsound as your tongue is already in the correct position to go with the vowel.
This kind of thing sticks out like a sore thumb and is being easily recognized by native speakers of Russian, revealing the fact that they are talking to a foreigner, and sometimes causing confusion and misunderstanding.

Another thing to add here is that we have very strange spelling rules. It sounds very funny when people try to enunciate the И in "ЖИТЬ". I take pity on those people when I hear that. I imagine myself saying it this way and I'm afraid that I'm going to break my tongue before I get it sound right.
The trick here is about the spelling rules of Russian. At school we're taught that "жи/ши" are written with an "И", not with an "Ы", as well as ЧУ and ЩУ are spelled with an У. But Ж & Ш are always hard*, they can't go along with soft vowels in speech, while Ч and Щ are always soft, they can't be friends with hard vowels. That's so weird!

I think it's absolutely physically impossible to say ЧАЩА. It's ЧЯЩЯ!
I think it's absolutely physically impossible to say ШИШКА. It's ШЫШКА!

If we take the word "широкий" for instance, it's pronounced шырокий. I don't know who invented this stupid rule to spell the ШЫ like that. Don't break your tongue by saying a Ш and then a soft vowel like an И or a Е. It's just absolutely inconvenient for native speakers of Russian.
Although I'm aware that it's ok to pronounce things like that for native speakers of English, because their vowels and consonants are not bound in pairs. But the natural way to say these things - is to pronunce ШИ as ШЫ (шип), ШЕ as ШЭ (шея), ЖИ as ЖЫ (жизнь), etc. The soft counterpart of Ш is Щ and it perfectly goes along with soft vowels, like щека (щека or щика), but it can't be followed by a hard vowel: щука (щюка -- take notice, the spelled У transforms into spoken Ю), and the Ч behaves in absolutely the same way, e.g. чудо should sound like чюдо.

So the thing to remember: don't not buy those ЧУ/ЩУ- and ЖИ/ШИ- things, keeping in mind that their spelling is quite illogical.

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*actually Ж can be soft, but I'm not used to the soft way of pronouncing the Ж sound, although I've heard it a lot.