Thread: квартира

Greetings-

I'm having a hard time pronouncing квартира as kvar-tee-ra, the "kva" is tongue twisting for some reason... Then i thought that perhaps it's pronounced гвартира, unvoiced к is followed by voiced в, so it gets replaced with г. Is this correct?

- Jon

Originally Posted by noheat

so it gets replaced with г. Is this correct?

No.
Here's the word "kvass", you may listen to that "kva", it's much the same as in Russian. There are two variants there, make sure you listen to "kva", not "kfa":
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kvass

It is no tongue-twister.

By the way, "к" may be pronounced with voice as well as without voice, and voiced "к" is not the same as "г". In the example above you can hear both, "kfas" being the one with unvoiced "к".

http://sayandpost.com/1rc2t80vx11.mp3

Originally Posted by E-learner

voiced "к" is not the same as "г". In the example above you can hear both, "kfas" being the one with unvoiced "к".

I'm confused on this point. I thought voiced к is same as г..

voiced - unvoiced
б - п
в - ф
г - к
д - т
ж - ш
з - с

[from http://masterrussian.com/aa081201a.shtml]

Originally Posted by Lampada

http://sayandpost.com/1rc2t80vx11.mp3

thanks a lot, this helps. I think part of my problem was putting the accent on the front of the word instead of on 'и'. The KVASS example helps alot too.

Many Russian consonants are paired - voiced and voiceless.
For example:
/b/ - /p/
/v/ - /f/
/d/ - /t/
/g/ - /k/

Yes, /k/ is the voiceless correspondent to /g/. The only difference is the participation of the vocal chords.

/v/ is unusual in that it's voicing does not affect the previous consonant.
ответ is not /adv'ét/ but /atv'ét/.
On the other hand, like all the paired consonants, it becomes devoiced* before a voiceless consonant: втроём /ftrajóm/ or silence Иванов /ivanóf/

For /kv/ think of a duck: quack /kwǽk/. Now just replace the /w/ with /v/. Can you say квас /kvás/? It is not /kfás/.

(I hope all my Unicode characters come out ok!)

*Depending on your linguistic school. Some would say that /v/ does not occur before a voiceless consonant but /f/ does.

Originally Posted by noheat

Originally Posted by E-learner

voiced "к" is not the same as "г". In the example above you can hear both, "kfas" being the one with unvoiced "к".

I'm confused on this point. I thought voiced к is same as г..

http://www.filedropper.com/gk

This is me, uttering 3 sounds (in 2 groups):
1) г
2) ?????
3) к

The second one, for which, apparently, I don't know its proper name and which I refered to earlier as "voiced к" is the one you need.

I might be mistaken, as you haven't provided your sample, but for now I can see only one possible difficulty with pronouncing "kv" combination - that's if you are trying to combine the sound 3) [unvoiced] with "v" [voiced], which of course is very difficult.

noheat, what voices are easiest to pronunce for you?

Originally Posted by hazamov

noheat, what voices are easiest to pronunce for you?

Um, I don't understand your question.. What do you mean by "voices"?

I just learned this word earlier today actually and it's definitely kvarteera.

Just keep practicing it and you'll get it. Lots of Russian sounds and sound combinations have been tricky for me to learn, but they all succomb to repeated practice. I thought I would never be able to do a rolled r, but now I have no trouble with it. For the last 3 years I've been practicing my rolled r's every time I sing something

Which letters are most difficult and easiest for pronouncing for you?

You can’t “pronounce” letters, you only write them. What you mean are sounds assigned to letters.