Thanks for this, it really helped. So in short their is a difference but mostly in the very subtle ways in which IPA depicts rather than something I can actively do. I have however learnt most of the rules for the vowels in their several positions, now just consonants.

Just another quick question, this book seems to have me confused over consonants... has every letter in the alphabet got an assignable adjective (hard / soft) or do they all transform based on several rules... from what I gather я ю е ё и are soft and а э ы у о are hard. So does the same apply to consonants or do they all have hard soft values. Cause I have also read about how for example д = т in a case that I do on fully understand but does that mean т is the hard version of д or do they both have their individual hard soft versions... again sorry for rambling/confusion.