Thread: ого and eго

Hi,

i have a question.

I am studying the princeton course, which in my opinion is pretty good to study russian. There it says that you pronounce the г as a v sound. So during 60 chapters i was doing this. But sometimes i heard on the recordings still a g sound. I never understood why this was.

Now a friend of mine, from Ukraine, says that the v sounds is only spoking in small villages and not in the big cities, that in the big cities its the g sound.
Can anyone help me with this? Is there a rule?

Thx

eго is never pronounced with a "g" sound. ого is also pronounced with a "v" sound, most often in adjectives (genetive). But in most cases "г" is pronounced as "г", the things I just mentioned are exceptions.

Мое произношение вот такое:
его – [ево]
кого/никого – [каво/никаво]
ого – [ого]
что – [чо or что]
чего/ничего – [чо/ничо or чево/ничево]

Мое произношение:

его - ево/ева depending on if it's stressed or not.
хорошего - харошева
пешего - пешева
ничего - ничево

ого - ово/ова/ава
полного - полнава
зелёного - зилёнава
весёлого - висёлава

сегодня - сиводне

------------------

погода - пагода
прогонять - праганять

Originally Posted by antwerpsupporter

Hi,

i have a question.

I am studying the princeton course, which in my opinion is pretty good to study russian. There it says that you pronounce the г as a v sound. So during 60 chapters i was doing this. But sometimes i heard on the recordings still a g sound. I never understood why this was.

Now a friend of mine, from Ukraine, says that the v sounds is only spoking in small villages and not in the big cities, that in the big cities its the g sound.
Can anyone help me with this? Is there a rule?

Thx

Yes, there is a rule about the Russian pronouns, ordinal numerals and adjectives in the Genitive Case ( and sometimes in Accusative, if they refer to living things), stating that the inflexions "-его", "-ово" are pronounced as /-ива/, /-ава/. Lots of examples have already been provided, however, let me offer some more examples:

Я никого /никаво/ не вижу. - Here is the pronoun "никто" in the Genitive.

Я вижу красивого /красивава/ мужчину. - Here is the adjective "красивый" in the Accusative Case, describing a man.

Я люблю своего /свайиво/ мужа. - Here is the pronoun "свой" in the Accusative, describing a man.

Где Петров? Вы видели его /йиво/? - Here is the pronoun "он" In the Accusative, naming a male.

some more examples, this time with numerals in the Genitive Case:

Сейчас половина первого /первава/.

Я буду в Москве второго /фтарова/ марта.

Я родилась двадцать седьмого /сидьмова/ апреля.

And some more examples, this time with adjectives in Genitive and Accusative:

У самого /самава/ синего /синива/ моря.

Я не люблю сладкого /слаткава/.

Дайте мне зеленого /зиленава/ чаю.

The word "сегодня" is pronounced /сиводня/, because it is a compound, coming from "сего" and "дня" (of this day).

Originally Posted by Yulia65

The word "сегодня" is pronounced /сиводня/, because it is a compound, coming from "сего" and "дня" (of this day).

To be more specific, /сиводни/, because letter "и", when unstressed (unaccentuated), is reduced to a sound resembling /и/.

Originally Posted by Yulia65

To be more specific, /сиводни/, because letter "и", when unstressed (unaccentuated), is reduced to a sound resembling /и/.

Sorry, "я" is reduced to /и/ when unstressed.

As for the the small villages and cities in Ukraine, I come from Ukraine, and never heard that. Ukrainians will not reduce "свого", "мого", "червоного". Perhaps, your Ukrainian friend was thinking about this difference between Ukrainian and Russian. Blessings in mastering Russian,

-его, -ого are widespread endings of adjectives.
Его is also form of pronoun Он.

You ALWAYS pronounce В instead of Г in these cases.

However!
Ого is interjection (English 'wow!') - Г is to be pronounced.
-ого-, -его- occur in the beginning/middle of word - Г is to be pronounced. Examples: Негодяй, Егор, Огонь, Погода, Прогоню.

It reminds me gotcha, whatcha and so on. You definitely can say "первого", and people do understand you. But "первава" is a way easier to say. This way is commnoly used and accepted as a normal way. "Г" is in the ending here, and there is a vowel after it so it is "в".

Also there are words like "Бог". I am really not sure how to read "Г" in this case =) There are variations.
Пирог, сапог and so on. Since "Г" is not in the ending here it is "К". Пироги - it is "Г" since vowel is after, but "Г" is not in ending.

Originally Posted by pushvv

Also there are words like "Бог". I am really not sure how to read "Г" in this case =) There are variations.
Пирог, сапог and so on. Since "Г" is not in the ending here it is "К". Пироги - it is "Г" since vowel is after, but "Г" is not in ending.

I was taught in my college Russian classes that пирог and сапог should be pronounced пирок and сапок, but Бог is an exception -- the "Г" is pronounced as a "voiced" letter "Х" (a sound for which there is no letter in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet!). And the vocative Господи! also begins with a "voiced Х" sound -- not a "Г" or "К", and not a normal unvoiced "Х".

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

I was taught in my college Russian classes that пирог and сапог should be pronounced пирок and сапок, but Бог is an exception -- the "Г" is pronounced as a "voiced" letter "Х" (a sound for which there is no letter in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet!). And the vocative Господи! also begins with a "voiced Х" sound -- not a "Г" or "К", and not a normal unvoiced "Х".

Throbert,
Your college teachers of Russian taught you well. Indeed, DEVOICING (or: "devocalization") of voiced Russian consonants /б/, /в/, /г/, д/, /ж/, /з/ in the end of Russian words is a norm. You provided several good examples to illustrate this devoicing.

However, the tendency to pronounce the inflexions "-ого" as /ава/ and "-его" as /ива/ is a different rule, because 1) there is no devoicing of "-г-" to /к/, and 2) this rule applies not just to any word, but to adjectives, pronouns and ordinal numerals, as was shown earlier.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

... but Бог is an exception -- the "Г" is pronounced as a "voiced" letter "Х" (a sound for which there is no letter in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet!). And the vocative Господи! also begins with a "voiced Х" sound -- not a "Г" or "К", and not a normal unvoiced "Х".

It's rare for me to hear Бог with "voiced" Х, usually we say "Бох", with "unvoiced" one, for example "Да Бог его знает! (Да Бох ево знаит!"). But in "Одному Богу известно, когда это произойдёт!" г is g. Господи with the "voiced" X sounds a bit просторечиво, I myself say it Gospody, with usual g.

more then enough examples. I know have a better idea on how to pronounce.

Thankx

Summary.

-ого and -его are pronounced with "в" (v) sound ONLY when they are SINGULAR GENITIVE endings.
(The same is true for genitive pronouns: его, него, кого, того, сего, чего etc.).

In all other cases, the regular "г" (g) is pronounced. Compare:
Я узнал много [mnO-ga] нового [nO-va-va]. - I learned a lot of new (information). Here "много" (many, much, a lot) does not have any genitive ending, so it is [g]. But "нового" is the genitive form of "новый" (new), so you pronounce "г" as [v].
100 долларов? - Это дорого! [dO-ra-ga]. 100 dollars? - It is expensive! Here, "дорого" is an adverbal form of "дорогой" (expensive), there is no genitive ending.
Я купил 2 бутылки дорогого [da-ra-gO-va] вина. - I bought 2 bottles of expensive wine. The first "г" belongs to the root, it is [g], the second "г" belongs to the genitive ending -ого, it is [v].

Итого - это SINGULAR GENITIVE от какова слова?

Originally Posted by Barsuk

It's rare for me to hear Бог with "voiced" Х, usually we say "Бох", with "unvoiced" one, for example "Да Бог его знает! (Да Бох ево знаит!"). But in "Одному Богу известно, когда это произойдёт!" г is g. Господи with the "voiced" X sounds a bit просторечиво, I myself say it Gospody, with usual g.

Thanks for this explanation, Barsuk. And, by the way, I love the Eleanor Roosevelt quotation in your .sig! But how would you translate it into Russian to preserve the "aphoristic/proverbial" quality? (I found several different Russian variations of this quotation by Googling, but I'm really not sure which one sounds the best.)