Thread: a bit about russians

I was talking to a russian college professor the other day who has been speaking english for many years. Remebering this discussion I listened carefully to his speech and realized he didn't pronounce the TH sound at all. I had never even noticed this before and it didn't cause any hinderance to me understanding him. So while you definatly should pronounce the TH sound I think you'll still be understood for the most part if you don't.

Originally Posted by TATY

There is a joke:

A hillbilly gets into Harvard. On his first day he approaches two students there and asks them "Excuse me guys, where's the library at?". The two students looked at eachother, then one said "Do you not know it is not proper to end a sentence with a preposition." The hillbilly then said: "Sorry, my mistake. Where's the library at, asshole?"

hahaha, that's funny

you are right that russian do not pronounce English correctly but you know there are just people that can not prounounce english like if they were natives. they just can't pronounce it right. i can tell you here in Israel, we have a unique pronouncation in our language too, and there r some Russians including me that pronounce it like natives and there r a lot that have an awful Russian accent it just sound ugly sometimes.

Another thing that I know is that, i don't know how do they teach English today but I know that probably in soviet union, somehow, this people who learnt it back than a lot of times tend to pronouce English words in a British kind of way(or may be it's not even British?) and they can't pronounce it well enough in that case too. for ex. instead of "to work" they say something like "to wэrk".

Originally Posted by Remyisme

and they can't pronounce it well enough in that case too. for ex. instead of "to work" they say something like "to wэrk".

Not "wэrk", rather "wёk". Yes, this is British English - they don't say as much "r" as American (Canadian) do. Canadian find that pronaunciation funny.

Originally Posted by paulb

Originally Posted by olgaa

im doing this for doing in the class so are there any mistakes or awkward sounding phrases?

Here's one. It is considered bad style in English generally to start a sentence with a conjunction. In the first paragraph, you could move "therefore" after "anyone learning English". Also, in the sentences which start with "so", just take the word "so" out completely.

When speaking with friends those things are ok, but for classroom use try to avoid starting with conjunctions.

Actually, it's perfectly acceptable in a Dependent Clause (DC), Independent Clause (IC) setup.

Say you have the IC "I tripped" and the DC "while I was walking". If you do a IC DC, it would be "I tripped while I was walking." To make it a DC IC, however, it would be "While I was walking, I tripped". That is an entirely correct sentence.

The only reason they tell you not to start with a conjunction is to prevent little kids from thinking that "While I was walking" is a proper sentence, when in reality it's nothing but a lowly DC.



I may have missed something, or I may have simply changed something that wasn't necessarily incorrect because that's just not how I'd say it, but here goes:


"At present it goes without saying that having proper knowledge of the English language is vitally important. Possessing English capabilities, (you can't possess a language, but you can possess the ability to speak it) first of all, means that a speaker is able to get his or her ideas across effectively and without difficulty. Anyone learning English should pay particular attention to pronunciation which will definitely help you to come across as a bright speaker and make the public admire your speaking skills. Taking all this into consideration, I would like to draw your attention to the most widespread mistakes that Russians make connected to English pronunciation.


First of all it is essential to mention the th (you should offset sounds by quotes or it can be confusing, so refer to it as either the 'th' or "th" sound, [sorry, I don't know whether single or double quotes are correct, but I think either is better than none]) sound which is one of the most distinctive features of the English language and should be pronounced like either th or th (hold on - either 'th' or 'th'? It looks awkward to me to be comparing two things that are identical EDIT: Wait, is this a speech, and you're going to be voicing the sounds? Because that would make a lot more sense) while a quite large number of Russians, unfortunately, make it sound like s and z. This can lead to misunderstanding. If you substitute th with s in several words, they will become completely different ones with a different meaning, for instance:

I sink I think
My mouse My mouth
He’s sick He’s thick


In order to get this sound correct, try repeating a phrase like
Both my father and mother have their birthday the same month
several times or make up your own, and after some time you will get accustomed to it and your fear will vanish without a trace.


Secondly, there are a lot of students who are frustrated by being unable to see the difference between words like
man and men
pet pat
expensive expansive

and merely think they are phonetically similar.

Another complicated issue concerns nuances of pronouncing words like
Sheep ship
Bean bin
Cheap chip

What should one do to get rid of this problem? It would be useful to make a list of confusing words, separating them into two categories according to the sound, and read the list from time to time for a couple of minutes attempting to make them sound correct.

The next problem that Russians encounter is putting correct stress in such word combinations as the following ones. A typical Russian mistake is putting emphasis on the second word like we do in Russian language: Tool KIT
crime RATE
Nuclear FAMILY. However, this practice will be considered xx poor Englsih by native speakers since in word combinations like this, with a very rare exception, stress is on the first word:

TOOL kit, CRIME rate, NUCLEAR family

And last but not least, a Russian problem is creating correct intonation when making lists.
For instance, "the average Russian would read the following sentence like"
There are apples, oranges, tomatoes and potatoes on the table.
Making intonation fall gradually while it’s correct to raise it like this: "