Thread: Russian Sounds

I am not new to reading Russian. I have just learned to say soft consonants as well! I think:

the Russian T is like in think (stopping the puff of air in th)
the Russian D is like in that

then in the Russian anthem,

why do they say: Odna Ty Na Cvete

where the T's and D's are in pure British way?

Originally Posted by penguinhead

then in the Russian anthem,

why do they say: Odna Ty Na Cvete

where the T's and D's are in pure British way?

I'm not sure what is 'in pure british way" w.r.t. consonants in Russian. In the sample that you provided, the first D and the first T are 'hard' and are articulated against upper teeth, that last 'T' is 'soft' and is articulated agains alveolar ridge, palatalized.

Russian т and д are not the sounds in English think and that. д and т are "stops", i.e., they stop the flow of air, but the "th" in the two English words do not, they are not stops but fricatives (voiceless and voiced). You can say think while holding the "th" sound as long as you want, but you can't do that with ты.

Russian т and д are practically the same as English t and d. The sounds thin and the don't exist in Russian at all, I don't know where you read that / who told you that.

Greetings! I have taken notice, that russian consonant sounds takes an influence of some vowel sounds. I mean, that "hardness" of the consonant depends of the vowel standing after it.
There are russian vowels: а, е, ё, и, о, у, ы, э, ю, я and some of them (а, о, у, ы) make the consonant 'т' to sound "hard", and
another ones (e, ё, и, ю, я) make the same consonant (т) to sound "soft".
And it can be used as the rule for all consonants, excepting ж, ц, ч, ш, щ.

How do you think, can it be useful?

Dva uxa you have it backwards.

The letters used to spell the vowels are in pairs, and one pair comes after palatalized consonants, the other pair after nonpalatalized. (This is a little generalized). There are only five phonemic vowels /aeoiu/ in Russian, and they are spelled
а э о ы у
or
я е ё и ю
depending on preceding consonant and some spelling rules.