Quote Originally Posted by Боб Уайтман
Quote Originally Posted by waxwing
I still don't understand the difference. This has been discussed more than once on this forum, but all my textbooks told me that these soft vowels like я and ю palatalize the preceding consonant. Is that not true?
That IS true. The difference is that the [й] sound is not pronounced if Я, Е, Ё, Ю follow a palatalized consonant immediately (as пять [p'at'], тюк [t'uk], лёд [l'ot]), but it IS pronounced when a Ь separates a vowel from a preceding consonant (as бурьян [bur'yan], вьюга [v'yuga], льёт [l'yot]). Many foreigners don't feel the difference, but it is essential in Russian. Compare: Он льёт воду на лёд. "He pours water onto the ice", the final consonant in both "льёт" and "лёд" is identical, but the words are pronounced differently.
OK, we appreciate your input, but this was posted over a year ago, and waxwing died a while ago, so there's no point in dragging up old threads. Also this is just one in a hundred of threads on the same topic.