Thread: How to pronounce double "и" & what is this symbol?

Originally Posted by Боб Уайтман

As I understand, it was not a play on words. Marcus corrected iCake.
iCake gave an example "Иисус воскресе" to illustrate the pronunciation of "Иисус". But we do not say like that. It is a fixed Easter greeting, a set phrase: "Христос воскресе" (or just "Христос воскрес" - in modern Russian, the ending "-е" is archaic here). Then iCake admitted it was his mistake.

I really appreciate you pointing this out, Bob. I went back and re-read; I think you are right. Somehow, I missed that.
My apologies, Marcus!

Originally Posted by Marcus

Double н as well as other consonants are usually pronounced as long consonants after a stressed vowel.

Marcus, I'd like to clarify that when you say 'stressed' that is referring to where the accent goes?

Thanks, iCake; yes, it was helpful!

Originally Posted by Боб Уайтман

General advice for a beginner: when in doubt, it's better to pronounce a double consonant prolonged. Sometimes it may sound as a hypercorrect pronunciation, but it is much better then ignoring consonant lengthening where it must be lengthened.

Thanks for the advice on this, too.

Originally Posted by genuinefarmgirl

Marcus, I'd like to clarify that when you say 'stressed' that is referring to where the accent goes?

Yes, you are right.

Originally Posted by genuinefarmgirl

Marcus, I'd like to clarify that when you say 'stressed' that is referring to where the accent goes?

Exactly. Actually, "accented vowel", "accented syllable", "stressed vowel" and "stressed syllable" all mean the same in regard to Russian.

As you probably know, every Russian word has a stress. If it is a monosyllabic word (like дом, сад, друг etc.) then its sole syllable is stressed, it is just obvious and there is no need to indicate the stress position (actually, they are pronounced as до́м, са́д, дру́г etc.), I hope you can see the diactritic.

If it is a polysyllabic word (with more than one syllable), than the following is true:
1) one of the syllables is stressed;
2) all other syllables are unstressed.
But there is generally no way to predict the stress position, so they usually put a stress mark in dictionaries, in books for children and in textbooks for foreign students:
ла́мпа (1^st of 2), вода́ (2^nd of 2);
о́блако (1^st of 3), доро́га (2^nd of 3), голова́ (3^rd of 3);
пе́редано (1^st of 4), изо́гнутый (2^nd of 4), переса́дка (3^rd of 4), сковорода́ (4^th of 4) etc.

However, the stress mark is not a part of the Russian writing, we do not use it in texts, since native speakers put the correct stress automatically when reading: лампа, вода, облако, дорога, голова, передано, изогнутый, пересадка, сковорода.

There are some exceptions to that principle:
1) some auxiliary words do not have their own stress at all, being pronounced with the main word to which they are attached as a single whole. They are mainly prepositions (по, для, из etc.), conjunctions (и, а etc.) and some particles (не, ни, бы, же etc.).
2) some compound words can have two stresses or more, but they are quite rare: доро̀жнострои́тельный "road-buliding" (the first stress on "О" is an "additional stress" and the second stress on "И" is the main stress). I do not think you need to bother with those cases at this moment.

So, in this regard "stress" and "accent" mean the same. But Russians prefer calling it "stress" just because "accent" is ambiguous (it has many other meanings: foreign accent, local accent etc.). So, we usually call it "stress" in English (in Russian it is "ударе́ние").

We also sometimes say "stressed syllable", and sometimes say "stressed vowel". Basically, it means the same. The nubmer of syllables in a Russian word is equal to the number of vowels in it, because one vowel always forms one syllable.

Expanding a little on the same topic:

What's the proper pronunciation of three "и"'s in a row i.e.:

"...благодати и истины."

Originally Posted by genuinefarmgirl

Expanding a little on the same topic:

What's the proper pronunciation of three "и"'s in a row i.e.:

"...благодати и истины."

Originally Posted by Marcus

Native speakers won't be able to answer your question correctly. Listen to recordings.

Yes, I agree with Marcus. With this aproach you can ask about anything you run into. For example I can easily come up with 4 or even five "и's" in a row

Облигации и издержки
О богослужении и Иисусе.

And there will be no trouble for me to pronounce any of those two...

Originally Posted by Marcus

Native speakers won't be able to answer your question correctly. Listen to recordings.

OK...so I'll just have to chase down one of my Russian-speaking friends and get them to pronounce it for me.

Originally Posted by iCake

Yes, I agree with Marcus. With this approach you can ask about anything you run into. For example I can easily come up with 4 or even five "и's" in a row

Облигации и издержки
О богослужении и Иисусе.

Thanks; I guess I'm rather ignorant in this area yet but I'm learning.

And there will be no trouble for me to pronounce any of those two...

I don't doubt it!