Thread: How to pronouce я попробую

Is Google translate right?

https://translate.google.com/#en/ru/i%20will%20try

I was expecting the у and ю at the end to be pronounced as two separate syllables. But Google Translate is merging them into one (for me difficult to pronouce) sound. Is Google Translate about right? And can anyone provide tips on how to pronounce this - for an English speaker?

Thanks

попробую pronunciation: How to pronounce попробую in Russian

-овать turns into у+endings I believe because very old forms of Slavic languages (multiple hundred years ago) used to have a different vowel that was eventually lost and replaced with ов in words that ended in it (v sounds are closely related to w sounds, and a <ow> sound couldve morphed into a singular <у> sound). овать/евать ending words are somewhat common in Russian, and even more so in its brother language Polish, where tons of words end in a <ovat'> and just like Russian, change into a uy+ending.

ANYWAY, it (like basically every single Russian word, слава Богу) is pronounced exactly according to standard spelling + vowel reduction.
The first о is directly before the stressed syllable of the word, so, in simple terms, it comes out as a "awh". Sort of like the a in "wander" with less effort.
о stressed is just о
у and its counterpart ю are immune to reduction and are always pronounced the same.

Google translate is pronounced by a program rather than a person so it's essentially complete and total rubbish. Wiktionary offers pronunciation for 90% of its words. It's just about the greatest site ever. If you ever find a word you want to know more about the very first step I recommend is to google the word + wiktionary to see if it has a page. They have full charts for conjugations and declensions of practically every word you can find.

Effective Rundown of Vowel Reduction:
Stress & Vowel Reduction in Russian - 4 Major Pronunciation Rules - Living Language Expert Forums

The hardcore innerworkings if you feel interested, on wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel_...ion_in_Russian

Google doesn't seem to pronounce the ending correctly (the Ю should be more palatalized). Although, the sounds У and Ю there do merge into one cyllable, something like those in the English "Isendallmylovingtoyou". Pay attention though that YOU and Ю sound quite a bit different. Palatalized (soft) vowels are a Russian feature that's inexistent in English so replacing native Russian palatalized sounds with combinations of English non-palatalized sounds isn't considered quite correct and is understood as a foreign accent.

Ya poprobuyu - I will try(translation). Let's consider this phrase by syllables:
Ya - ya

po - po
pro - pro (stress on o)
bu - bu
yu - you

It’s something like [pɐˈpro̞bʊᵿ]. The [j] sound in the last syllable is present only when pronouncing very carefully.
In most cases, between vowels in unstressed syllables, it disappears making the vowel after self a bit more front (e.g [jʊ]→[ᵿ]).