Thread: How you write it and how you pronounce it!

Why don't you try telling that to the Chinese and the French


Anyway, Russian spelling is noticeably learner-friendly, and that's quite an accomplishment.

Originally Posted by HA

Anyway, Russian spelling is noticeably learner-friendly, and that's quite an accomplishment.

That is quite true, until you start throwing in ь ъ ы and й.

Since we learners basically ignore all ь and ъ, pronounce ы as и and ignore й when it comes at the end of the the word (and sometimes elsewhere), it is quite common to see things like ти пишеш историу.

As usual i'm just blathering on meaninglessly.

Originally Posted by HA

Why don't you try telling that to the Chinese and the French


Anyway, Russian spelling is noticeably learner-friendly, and that's quite an accomplishment.

Well, Chinese and Japanese are in its' own league here, I don't think it's a fair comparison. But I believe French is more phonetic than Russian -- you simply have to know the rules, and there are not too many of them.

So is Spanish.

Originally Posted by Rtyom

So is Spanish.

Heh, Spanish must be about the easiest language ever for English-speakers.

Originally Posted by laxxy

Originally Posted by HA

Why don't you try telling that to the Chinese and the French


Anyway, Russian spelling is noticeably learner-friendly, and that's quite an accomplishment.

Well, Chinese and Japanese are in its' own league here, I don't think it's a fair comparison. But I believe French is more phonetic than Russian -- you simply have to know the rules, and there are not too many of them.

Yes, French looks like it isn't phontetic, well it isn't, but there are rules for pronunciation. English however has very shakey "rules" with loads of exceptions for each one.

I remember at school they taught us "I before E, except after C"

Originally Posted by TATY

Originally Posted by laxxy

Originally Posted by HA

Why don't you try telling that to the Chinese and the French


Anyway, Russian spelling is noticeably learner-friendly, and that's quite an accomplishment.

Well, Chinese and Japanese are in its' own league here, I don't think it's a fair comparison. But I believe French is more phonetic than Russian -- you simply have to know the rules, and there are not too many of them.

Yes, French looks like it isn't phontetic, well it isn't, but there are rules for pronunciation. English however has very shakey "rules" with loads of exceptions for each one.

I remember at school they taught us "I before E, except after C"

That (i.e. spelling words I already know) has never really been a problem for me, actually. The problem was more in how to find out that "lease" rhymes with "niece" rather than "tease", and such...
By comparison, French (iirc) is a lot more predictable and that "s" between vowels is always read as "z" -- quite phonetic to me.

Originally Posted by TATY

Originally Posted by laxxy

Originally Posted by HA

Why don't you try telling that to the Chinese and the French


Anyway, Russian spelling is noticeably learner-friendly, and that's quite an accomplishment.

Well, Chinese and Japanese are in its' own league here, I don't think it's a fair comparison. But I believe French is more phonetic than Russian -- you simply have to know the rules, and there are not too many of them.

Yes, French looks like it isn't phontetic, well it isn't, but there are rules for pronunciation. English however has very shakey "rules" with loads of exceptions for each one.

I remember at school they taught us "I before E, except after C"

There would be fewer exceptions if you memorized the supplementary rules... that only applies if you're dealing with a long e sound. Long a sound, e goes first.

I believe the full rule is:

Use i before e except after c

or when sounded like a as in neighbor or weigh;

and except seize and seizure and also leisure, weird, height, and either, forfeit, and neither.

What about sceince?

Originally Posted by chaika

I believe the full rule is:

Use i before e except after c

or when sounded like a as in neighbor or weigh;

and except seize and seizure and also leisure, weird, height, and either, forfeit, and neither.

What about "their"?

Originally Posted by kwatts59

Originally Posted by chaika

I believe the full rule is:

Use i before e except after c

or when sounded like a as in neighbor or weigh;

and except seize and seizure and also leisure, weird, height, and either, forfeit, and neither.

What about "their"?

And Heir

Those are both long "a" sounds.

Originally Posted by challenger

Those are both long "a" sounds.

Erm.

You said weight, had a long "a" sound.

In Their and Heir it is a long E song (E as in get)

Weight and Their are different.

Originally Posted by TATY

Originally Posted by challenger

Those are both long "a" sounds.

Erm.

You said weight, had a long "a" sound.

In Their and Heir it is a long E song (E as in get)

Weight and Their are different.

Are you British? If so, I can't expect that American morphological rules would apply to your pronunciation, but "get" has a short E sound, and Weight and Their are both long A sounds.

Originally Posted by Oggi

Is my observation correct?:
Russian is a language that is pronounced very much the way it is written.
Exceptions seem to be when some letters are not pronounced.
The pronunciation of this one: яз is more like: йз

What do you think?

you are not right
you have to listen some people with south russian accent, some others from vologda and some from moscow region
feel the difference

in moscow region the accent is with more А sound instead of O
like the australian accent in english

to the opposite of that in vologda they use O always

so the words

корова и молоко
in vologda will be pronounced like they are written
and in moscow region as
кАрова и мАлАко

карова даёт малако,
корова - молоко!

that is true!

Originally Posted by Dimitri

Originally Posted by laxxy

Originally Posted by Dimitri

пляж - pljash

тут слышится ж.. что-то между ш и ж, не чистое ш

It means that you are listening to non-standard Russian.

Я слышу нормальный русский. И я слышу среднее между ш и ж

я вас умоляю, в тель-авиве руский будет с еврейским акцентом ж))

Originally Posted by philippiq

Originally Posted by Dimitri

Originally Posted by laxxy

Originally Posted by Dimitri

пляж - pljash

тут слышится ж.. что-то между ш и ж, не чистое ш

It means that you are listening to non-standard Russian.

Я слышу нормальный русский. И я слышу среднее между ш и ж

я вас умоляю, в Тель-Авиве русский будет с еврейским акцентом ж))

Ну я вообще-то еще телевизор смотрю и с друзьями из Москвы по телефону разговариваю. Тоже еврейский акцент? )

Originally Posted by challenger

Originally Posted by TATY

Originally Posted by challenger

Those are both long "a" sounds.

Erm.

You said weight, had a long "a" sound.

In Their and Heir it is a long E song (E as in get)

Weight and Their are different.

Are you British? If so, I can't expect that American morphological rules would apply to your pronunciation, but "get" has a short E sound, and Weight and Their are both long A sounds.

Well then your rules only work if you are American.

And I still don't think even in American accents Weight and Their contain the same vowel sound.

If that is so then Heir would pronounced the same as the name of the letter A, with an R sound after. When isn't it actually pronounced the same as the word "air". Saying things like "Long A sound" and "Long E sound" when talking about English is not a good idea because: 1. They are so many accents, and 2. English spelling is messed up.

Are you actually saying Weight and Their contain then same vowel sounds in standard American?

If we look at this list of American vowels:



Weight, Straight, etc. is the third Row. E.g. Weight and Hate are the same apart from the initial consonant.

Their, Heir, are the Hair and Cared, Bared row, (third from bottom).