I have some questions about iotated vowels (ye, ya, yo, yu). I know that they make the iotated sound when they are in the first letter or initial position as well as after vowels. The thing is, I'm not exactly sure what that means. Could anybody help explain that for me.
Some things with these are easy to figure out- either because the Russian word is so common that you have got to pick up on it (ie нет (nyet) meaning no) or because it's so obvious (such as Я as in Я Михайл. (ya as in ya Mikhail meaning I as in I am Mikhail).Others, however, are not so easy to figue out such as the e in Сделано в ссср (sd(e or ye)lano v sssr (meaning Made in the USSR). I asked a friend that has some background in Russian as well as other Cyrillic based Eastern European languages, but he wasn't familiar enough with Russian to explain it to me. Could one of you please help me?
Спасибо! (Thanks!)
Joe