Thread: Couple of pronunciation questions

Ш Щ
И Й
I know that these two pairs of letters are supposed to sound different from each other, but I just can't hear it! Anyone have (or will make) a recording of the pronunciations of these letters?

Also, If I remember correctly, most Russian texts to not show this letter Ё. Is there a trick telling how to pronounce E when I see it? Or is it just something I have to learn word by word?

Thanks guys!

Ш say this as in English SHOW, but instead of you tongue up at the front of your mouth, pull it back as far as you can. You will get a "darker" sh sound. That's the Russian Ш.

Щ this is like what you hear in "fresh cheese" I'm sure you have heard this comparison. Your tongue is right up there at your teeth.

Unfortunately, there is no "trick" to telling whether the letter e is pronounced /e/ or /o/. You have to learn word by word. The good news is that there are very few words with the Ё. The bad news is that there are a lot of common words like моё.

Bfore the Revolution the letter E when stressed was always pronounced /o/, and there was a totally separate letter that was sounded /e/ when stressed. It looks like Ь with a horizontal bar towards the top. There is some kind of joke about the word ЛЕС, because what is now E used to be this old letter (called YAT'). Something like you can't tell the forest without the tree. Anyway, that' an injoke I guess, Russians will understand, but if you don't know pre-Revolution alphabet it will be Greek.

So now we are stuck with лег, лет, лес, лед, etc. and we have no clue which e is to be pronounced /o/ and which /e/. You have to learn the words.

It's probably no consolation, but be thankful you don't have to relearn English spelling - it is a zillion times harder. Think thin thine. Absolutely no clue to pronunciation there either! Or: this thistle. As the Russians are wont to say, просто кошмар!

As for the pronunciations, you really need a real live person. Second best, and far behind, is a CD or tape.

И - feet, meat, Peter
Й - boy, yes, guy

Й is basically like the English letter Y as in the above example. It is a consonant, but often referred to as a semo-vowel.

Бои would sound bo-ee

Бой would sound boy


Й is called "i kratkoye" which means "short И"

Thanks for the help guys!

The letter Щ is always described differently in different textbooks. I would describe it as a long (double) and palatalised SH (Ш) consonant. In fact, there's seldom a CH sound in standard Russian, although it's mainly transliterated as SHCH (borshch - борщ).

So, ш is hard and short, щ is long and soft (palatalised). If you pronounce щ as shch you will be understood but it's not common Russia, it's the Ukrainian pronunciation of the same letter.

ш - sh
щ - sh'sh'

PS
This is by no means a standard transliteration (stick to "shch" when transliterating Russian words) but just another attempt to describe the sound. To get it right, you need to listen to recordings and practice.

On the "Ё" letter:

One think to keep in mind, that 99% of words with Ё have accent on it (the exceptions are some foreign words transliterated in Russian). So all endings -ёк, -ёнок have ё when under accent. Some Russians are confused when it's ё or е, eg. афера - афёра, современный - совремённый.

Originally Posted by Анатолий

it's the Ukrainian pronunciation of the same letter.

Belorussian I think. Just listen to Lukashenko.

Originally Posted by JJ

Originally Posted by Анатолий

it's the Ukrainian pronunciation of the same letter.

Belorussian I think. Just listen to Lukashenko.

IMHO, it's both Ukrainian and Belorussian (aka Bielorussian, Belarussian, Belarusian ?). It's more obvious in the west Ukraine, though.

Pronouncing Щ as ШЧ is not considered incorrect but a bit unnatural but there are people who pronounce it that way. They may have west Slavonic background (Polish) or Ukrainian, Belarusian. Compare this to Polish SZCZ (barszcz - борщ). By the way, Serb has letter Щ, which is pronounced SHT. Not sure how it is spelt in Croatian (using Latin).

[quote=Анатолий]

Originally Posted by JJ

Originally Posted by "Анатолий":rx8izlj2

it's the Ukrainian pronunciation of the same letter.

Belorussian I think. Just listen to Lukashenko.

IMHO, it's both Ukrainian and Belorussian (aka Bielorussian, Belarussian, Belarusian ?). It's more obvious in the west Ukraine, though.

Pronouncing Щ as ШЧ is not considered incorrect but a bit unnatural but there are people who pronounce it that way. They may have west Slavonic background (Polish) or Ukrainian, Belarusian. Compare this to Polish SZCZ (barszcz - борщ). By the way, Serb has letter Щ, which is pronounced SHT. Not sure how it is spelt in Croatian (using Latin).[/quote:rx8izlj2]

Bulgarian has the same letter Щ. Like in Serbian, it's pronounced SHT, like in fishtails. Does anybody know how this sound is done in Croatian?

Sorry for the off-topic and a mistake about letter Щ in Serbian:

I have to make correction! Щ doesn't exist in Serbian, so there's no equivalent in Croatian (using Latin alphabet), only in Bulgarian and is pronounced SHT, like mentioned before.

See Serbian alphabet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillic_alphabet


Here you can find mapping between Cyrillics and Latin used in Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbo-Croatian_language

Cyrillics is used in Serbia, Montenegro, Serbian part of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia (they use their own Macedonian language)