# Forum Learning Russian Language Pronunciation, Speech & Accent  unstressed е

## jz12

I am little confused about the pronunciation of an unstressed е.
in мамe (instr. of мамa) I heard the e pronounced as je.
why not ji as in тебя? 
when should I pronounce an unstressed e as je/e and not ji/i?

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## basurero

Also i have noticed that in words such as razvlechenije it sounds the same as razvlechenija. Is this how it's supposed to be or is my ear not hearing right?

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## Spiderkat

> ... 
> when should I pronounce an unstressed e as je/e and not ji/i?

 The prononciation of _е_ will depend on whether it precedes or follows the stressed letter in a word.

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## MikeM

> Also i have noticed that in words such as razvlechenije it sounds the same as razvlechenija. Is this how it's supposed to be or is my ear not hearing right?

 No they are not the same.

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## challenger

> Originally Posted by jz12  ... 
> when should I pronounce an unstressed e as je/e and not ji/i?   The prononciation of _е_ will depend on whether it precedes or follows the stressed letter in a word.

 Is that so?

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## Spiderkat

> Is that so?

 Will you pronounce меня _myenya_ or _meenya_, and в машине _vmashinye_ or _vmashine_?

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## JJ

> I am little confused about the pronunciation of an unstressed е.

 IMHO the prononsation unstressed e mostly depends on a speaker. I noticed that my kids prefer to say mostly "ee" though my wife and me usually say "ye".  

> in мамe (instr. of мамa) I heard the e pronounced as je.
> why not ji as in тебя?

 Maybe becouse there is no syllables after е. If you say the word маменьке (EDIT: Shame on me TATY it is really DAT/PREP of маменька, arch. dim. of мама) you may say ee or ye... as you wish. BTW I say in both cases ye.  ::   

> when should I pronounce an unstressed e as je/e and not ji/i?

 If you are not sure say ye.

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## TATY

Ιsn't Маме the prep. and dat. of Мама?

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## chaika

The trick is where the unstressed *e* occurs. If it is word final, it may well be that it is pronounced /e/ as in о маме, о трамвае. But within a word when unstressed /i/ will always be OK and probably the norm. 
Second,
>ji as in тебя
this is not right. if you heard that you would see тъебя or тьибя. In other words, there is not a consonant /j/ after the /t/.  But we both know you are hearing /t'ib'

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## challenger

> Originally Posted by challenger  Is that so?   Will you pronounce меня _myenya_ or _meenya_, and в машине _vmashinye_ or _vmashine_?

 I thought the pronunciation difference was because in машине the е was at the end of the word.

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## Spiderkat

> I thought the pronunciation difference was because in машине the е was at the end of the word.

 Maybe it wasn't a good example. How about рем*е*сленнический.

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## JJ

> How about рем*е*сленнический.

 И чё? ремесленнический, римесленнический, римеслиннический, ремеслиннический... and so on and so forth. All of them sounds ok to me. But as I said I pronounce unstressed ye as ye.

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## jz12

also тебя and меня?

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## challenger

> Originally Posted by challenger  I thought the pronunciation difference was because in машине the е was at the end of the word.   Maybe it wasn't a good example. How about рем*е*сленнический.

 Well, in that word, as far as I understand it, the third e softens the л, which softens the с, which closes the second e, causing it to sound like "ay." But you were saying something about whether it comes before or after the stress. I haven't heard anything about that. Are we talking about the same thing?   ::

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## Spiderkat

> Well, in that word, as far as I understand it, the third e softens the л, which softens the с, which closes the second e, causing it to sound like "ay." But you were saying something about whether it comes before or after the stress. I haven't heard anything about that. Are we talking about the same thing?

 Well, it seems that it would depend on the speaker whether the unstressed _е_ is pronounced _ye_ or _ee_. I just thought that it would sound more like _ye_ than _ee_ when following the stress in a word.

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## challenger

> Originally Posted by challenger  Well, in that word, as far as I understand it, the third e softens the л, which softens the с, which closes the second e, causing it to sound like "ay." But you were saying something about whether it comes before or after the stress. I haven't heard anything about that. Are we talking about the same thing?     Well, it seems that it would depend on the speaker whether the unstressed _е_ is pronounced _ye_ or _ee_. I just thought that it would sound more like _ye_ than _ee_ when following the stress in a word.

 Whether it's jotated depends on whether it's connected to a consonant or at the beginning of the word.

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## jz12

I meant prepositional of мама   ::

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## chaika

unstressed e is in standard language /i/ when it occurs between two palatalized consonants. This phenomenon is called и

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## TATY

[quote=chaika]unstressed e is in standard language /i/ when it occurs between two palatalized consonants. This phenomenon is called и

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## jz12

Have I understood it right when to pronounce je/ 'e? 
амeрикaнскоe - am'irikanskaje
нeмeцкоe - n'im'etskaje
читaeт - czitajit

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## TATY

> Have I understood it right when to pronounce je/ 'e? 
> амeрикaнскоe - am'irikanskaje
> нeмeцкоe - n'im'etskaje
> читaeт - czitajit

 I'd say in Читает it is je and not ji. It is between a VOWEL and a consonant, not two consonants.

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## chaika

taty, only in writing is it between a vowel and a consonant. In phonemic form there is a semiconsonant /j/ between the letter-vowels: 
/čit

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## TATY

[quote=chaika]taty, only in writing is it between a vowel and a consonant. In phonemic form there is a semiconsonant /j/ between the letter-vowels: 
/čit

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## challenger

[quote=TATY][quote=chaika]taty, only in writing is it between a vowel and a consonant. In phonemic form there is a semiconsonant /j/ between the letter-vowels: 
/čit

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## TATY

[quote=challenger][quote=TATY][quote=chaika]taty, only in writing is it between a vowel and a consonant. In phonemic form there is a semiconsonant /j/ between the letter-vowels: 
/čit

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## jz12

The negation adverb and a verb is pronounced as one word so...
не лежит - n'il'izhit 
right?

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## chaika

You guys did not read what I wrote. I used the term "morphophonemic notation", not "phonetic" when I was talking about читает. I did not say it is pronounced with an O. But now that you mention it, in the northern dialects that is exactly what you find, or at least in the 19th century. I worked on a dialect study project for my dissertation and the pronunciation of /o/ in unstressed positions was typical, exactly the читаёт you are thinking of, but stress still on the A, and no stress on the Ё. 
What I was getting at is the endings (desinences) of the present tense first conj. verbs looks like this:
-u
-oš
-ot
-om
-ot'o
-ut
Then there is a simple rule: If the stress falls on the first syllable of the ending, morphophoneme O is replaced by E and realized phonetically as /i/, and possibly /e/ as people are more literate and starting to pronounce words as they are spelled rather than as they are supposed to sound. (For example, in AmE, I bet most people here do not know that "segue" is a one-syllable word. I hear it as seg-way 99 times out of 100.) I put the second O in the 2ppl form because when the stress falls on the absolutely last syllable (in dialects), it is an O not  a E. I can't think of an actual example, but it would be something like берегите pronounced /b'i'r'i'g'i't'

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## jz12

What about камень? Is this pronounced kam'in' cos the e is unstressed AND at the end of the word? 
or...?

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## chaika

yes, same as каминь if there were such a word.

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## jz12

Thanks. I think I've now got it   ::

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## chaika

Here is the relevant part of posts from a listserve I subscribe to. More than you ever wanted to know about stress and E but I think these two posts sum up the issue very well:  
I am not a native speaker, but one of my areas of research is on Russian vowel phonetics.  Here is a simple summary that does not assume much 
phonetics background, plus some suggestions of what you can tell beginning students.  
Stessed positions:
The pronunciation of /e/ when stressed depends on the preceding consonant.  However, note that not all the consonants you ask about have the same effect on /e/.  In particular, some of the "sibilants" you 
refer to are always hard (sh, zh, ts), and some of them are always soft (ch, shch).  It is the hardness or softness that is important for /e/, not the sibilant-ness. 
Whenever you see a (stressed) e written in Russian after a zh, sh, or ts, it is pronounced like "e oborotnoe" (i.e., the same vowel as in eto 
or etazh).  You also pronounce "normal" e like "e-oborotnoe" in certain borrowed words, like kedy and tenis.  Phonetically speaking, this vowel 
is "open-mid".  In the International Phonetic Alphabet, it would be given as [?] (that's the epsilon vowel, if it doesn't come through). 
When you see "normal" e in any other position (including after ch or shch), it is not pronounced like "e-oborotnoe".  The most noticeable difference (for English speakers) is that it will have an [i]-like 
on-glide.  Additionally, it has a higher tongue position -- in IPA it is close-mid ([e]).  Many English native speakers approximate the [i] on-glide by putting in an English "y" sound (i.e., like Russian i-kratkoe) before the vowel.  That pronunciation seems to be 
intelligible to native speakers, but does give you an accent.  It is better to focus on pronouncing the preceding consonant as really soft, but that might be something to save for more advanced students, not 
beginners. 
Also, as noted in the email from Robert Rothstein, the consonant that comes after a stressed /e/ also affects the pronunciation, although to a much lesser extent than the preceding consonant does.  Basically, a following soft consonant raises the vowel somewhat, and produces an [i]-like off-glide at the end of the vowel.  This off-glide is much less 
noticeable than the [i] on-glide mentioned above.  Also, when an /e/ is found *between* two soft consonants, as in chest', some speakers will 
raise it so much that even the middle portion of the vowel sounds like [i].  (This is undoubtedly too much detail to introduce into beginning Russian classes.) 
Unstressed position:
You also asked about the pronunciation of /e/ when it is unstressed and preceded by a sibilant.  This is another case where it is the hardness/softness that is important, not really the sibilant-ness. 
After soft consonants (including ch and shch), /e/ is pronounced like [i].  So, a word like chetverg is pronounced [chitverx].  In phonetics books you will see this type of unstressed [i] transcribed using the 
soft-sign symbol.  Avanesov says that the soft-sign phonetic symbol denotes only that the vowel is short, not that it is centralized or lowered.  Bondarko 1998 (Fonetika Sovremennogo Russkogo Iazyka) is 
consistent with this view as well, but points out that the shorter a vowel gets, the less distinctly it is pronounced.  Basically, the movement of the tongue that is required for a "clear" pronunciation of 
the vowel will get shortchanged, and the tongue will become displaced towards the positions needed for the surrounding consonants.  In many cases, this *will* result in some sort of centralization, but that is 
apparently being viewed as an epiphenomenon.  If you tell your students to pronounce unstressed e preceded by ch or shch (or any other soft consonant) like a short [i] vowel, they will probably get the right result. 
After hard consonants (including ts, zh, and sh), unstressed e is pronounced like a yeri.  So, a word like tsentral'nyj should be pronounced like [tsyntral'nyj].  Again, this unstressed yeri is shorter than a stressed one would be and therefore has some changes in exactly how it sounds, but not enough to trouble beginners with.  In explaining this rule to beginners, you might first want to introduce the fact that 
orthographic [i] is pronounced like yeri when preceded by sh, zh, ts (examples:  zhit', shit', tsikl are pronounced [zhyt'], [shyt'], [tsykl]).  Then, you can just say that unstressed e reduces to i.  The change from i to yeri after sh, zh, and ts then comes for free. 
I hope this answered your questions! 
Best wishes, 
Katherine Crosswhite  
Date:    Mon, 16 Jan 2006 21:03:55 -0500
From:    E Wayles Browne <ewb2@CORNELL.EDU>
Subject: Re: pronunciation question about Russian 
Dear Katherine (and list members),
Let me thank you for your answer to Andrew's question--it's useful to me, too. But there is one part I'd like to disagree with. For a number of years I've taught a Structure of Russian course using, as
a textbook: 
Hamilton, William S.
Title:	 Introduction to Russian phonology and word structure
Published:	 Columbus, Ohio : Slavica Publishers, 1980. 
I have often had Russian native speakers (once a Russian/Belarusian native  speaker) among the students. They are in general willing to accept what I
tell them about the phonetics, but they unanimously disagree with Hamilton's transcriptions when these show pretonic or other unstressed e reducing to i. Reducing, yes. Reducing in such a way that it merges with unstressed i, no. And indeed, when I pronounce the words as I learned to in years of classes with native speakers, I myself don't reduce e after
soft  (and a after soft, and o after soft) all the way to i. I--and the native speakers in my classes-- keep the distinction between milA and melA, for instance. And I--and they--in most examples don't reduce e after
hard, or a after hard, or o after hard, all the way up to "jery" (the letter bI--I don't think much of anybody calls it jery any more, they just call it y). 
What do your phonetic studies show about the loss or maintenance of the distinction? 
Yours,
-- 
Wayles Browne, Assoc. Prof. of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics
Morrill Hall 220, Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853, U.S.A. 
I hope this ends this discussion, which has progressed way beyond the boundaries of those English-speaking students of Russian who have posted here.

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## jz12

The last e in the word четыре is pronounced ji and not je cos it is unstressed and there is a hard vowel р.   ::  
In красивое the e is pronounced je cos there is only a vowel before it. 
родители.. is it rad'it'el'i or rad'it'il'i?

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## challenger

The p is soft in четыре.

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## jz12

yes, of course. i missed it   ::

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## laxxy

> Here is the relevant part of posts from a listserve I subscribe to. More than you ever wanted to know about stress and E but I think these two posts sum up the issue very well:

 [...much skipped...]
I (a native speaker) would personally very much agree with Ms. Crosswhite, I think what she is describing is exactly what happens most of the time.   
The problem with asking (usually highly literate) native speakers is that their perception of the phonetics is almost always greatly affected by orthography, leading to biased perception.

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## Боб Уайтман

I also agree with Ms Crosswhite's explanation, it is full and detailed. However, let me try to answer the question in a simpler way. 
It might be considered from two points of view: 1) presence of [j] sound, i.e. iotation; 2) what happens with the vowel itself. 
So, let's see:
1. The presence of [j] sound (as English *Y* in "yes") in the pronunciation of Russian *Е*, irrespectively whether it is stressed or not, is regulated by a simple rule: [j] _is pronounced_ when *Е* starts a word, or when it is preceded by a vowel or a sign (*ь* or *ъ*), [j] _is not pronounced_ when it is preceded by a consonant (however most of the consonants are softened in this case).  
Examples: едва [ji-DVA], поезда [pa-ji-ZDA], роет [RO-jit], красное [KRA-sna-ji], лисье [L'I-s'ji], отъезжал [at-ji-Ž':AL], *but*: всегда [fs'i-GDA], берега [b'i-r'i-GA], станет [STA-n'it], в стакане [fsta-KA-n'i].
Thus, we pronounce the first vowel in *исток* and *ездок* in different ways: [is-TOK] - [jiz-DOK], it does not matter that *Е* is unstressed in this case, [j] sound remains in its pronunciation. _Note: everywhere [j] indicates a sound like English Y in "yes", not like English J in "jet"._ 
2. OK, let's talk about the vowel value. Unstressed Е is pronounced NEITHER as a clear [i] NOR as a clear [e]. This vowel is weak, very short, and therefore quite unclear. Its value depends on various things: speech pace, carefulness, individual pronunciation. Certainly, in a slow accurate speech you will hear a sound quite close to [e]. Especially, if you'll ask a native speaker how he pronounces a word with an unstressed Е, he would probably pronounce it slowly and more orthographically, i.e. with Е sounding almost like [e]. But if you'll listen to a fluent Russian speech, I guess you'll find unstressed Е's and И's hardly distinguishable in it. 
As for me (I'm a native speaker), I do not make any difference when pronouncing *лесА* ("forests" in plural) and *лисА* ("fox"). And I do not make a difference between *письмО нАде* "a letter to Nadya" and *письмО нАди* "Nadya's letter" in fluent speech, only a context can help. 
Thus, I think the discussion about "is the unstressed Е pronounced as [i]" or "is it pronounced as [e]" looks like the discussion "is the cat grey or black?" in an absolutely dark room. Imagine, that there is no light, and someone says "the cat looks rather black than grey", another one tries to prove it's rather grey than black. The absence of light is equivalent to the absence of stress. If you let a ray of light pass through a slightly open door, you'll know more about the cat's color. The same is with the pronunciation: if you slow down your speech, you'll hear the vowel in a more accurate manner. 
IMHO.

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## TATY

Why does J have to have a ДЖ sound in English. It causes so much confusion. Like a Polish person I know called Janek (Янєк), get's called Джанэк all the time here in England.

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