# Forum Learning Russian Language Pronunciation, Speech & Accent  accent

## begemot

Anybody have any ideas of how to improve your accent if spending significant time in Russia isn't possible? I just returned from Russia, and although my grammar and vocabulary are good, and I can understand everything, my accent is awful. I'd like to be able to say a few sentences without everybody immediately knowing I'm a foreigner!

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## TATY

Accent's are mainly affected byt vowels. 
For example, the main difference between an American accent and British accent is the pronunciation of vowels. 
Listen to how Russia vowels are pronounced and try and replicate them as close as possible. Try recording yourself saying Russian words and then playing it back.

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## Darobat

Also the ИК patterns.  If you don't use them, you will be immediately identified as a foreigner. 
I probably shouln't be giving suggestions as I believe my accent is terrible too.

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## begemot

what are the ИК patterns?

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## kalinka_vinnie

I think Dobry is cryptically referring to intonations. Like how your voice goes up when yoy ask questions.

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## Darobat

ИК stands for "Интонационная конструкция".  It's pretty much what kalinka_vinnie said. 
Dobry?  That's a first.

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## kalinka_vinnie

Oops, I saw the D and the O and the B, and screwed up.  ::  Forgive me, DAROBAT!

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## Darobat

> Oops, I saw the D and the O and the B, and screwed up.  Forgive me, DAROBAT!

 Alright.

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## Paxan

I don't agree with TATY that accent is mainly affected by vowels...I beleive there's a bunch of problems like palatalization..well vowels of course (mostly in a way that there's no opposition of long and short vowels in Russian...well yes sometimes the sounds really different  :: ), sound clusters,sounds that don't exists in English language...but what I really put on the top of it is consonants..not vowels...I already mentioned that in audio lounge...I mean I can really imitate American(for instance) accent doing the vowels pretty ok but still making it awful...So to say it roughly I think it's all about consonants (the secong place takes consonant+vowel clusters...well that's palatalization I'm talking about) 
Just a quick example:
Let's take a russian word "томик" and an english one "atomic". Drop the [a] sound in the word "atomic" and now we got two similarly sounding words. To make tomic sound like томик one shouldn't aspirate the [t] sound and make it dental instead of alveolar, make [м] sound palatalized and lose the aspiration (and maybe even the palatalization) articulating the[k] sound. The last two points are maybe not that clear in this exapmle (it just came from the top of my head right now...sorry :: ) however I often notice big problems with that stuff...it can be more clear if we compare words like:1. пень-pen ([п] sound should be palatalized and shouldn't be aspirated...at least that strong as they do it in english)
                2. лик - lick or week...the [k] sound in the words like lick or weeks are aspirated and palatalized..it doesn't really work with atomic actually...in atomic it is really more russian than in lick or week...well anyway I hope you understand what I mean. 
Well... anyway... I personally think that it's really harder  to master all this stuff with consonants for an English-speaking person than just to turn the short [o] sound in the word "(a)tomic" into the long one and thus make it sound pretty russian.

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## Orpheus

I'm having a similar problem. But first off, I need to know if there's a difference between a ukrainian and russian accent. They sound the same to me. There's a lady at my school who speaks russian, but ukrainian is her native tongue. Her accent is very strong, and when she speaks russian I can't understand every word she says because the accent makes the words sound different from how I say them. It's vice-versa for her too, she doesn't always understand what I say. Sometimes I choose wrong words to describe something, but she says it's my accent and pronounciation. I want to scope to her level though, so I hear and pronounce the words the same way she does. If anyone has any tips on how to clear this confusion, I'd love to have your input.

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## laxxy

> I don't agree with TATY that accent is mainly affected by vowels...I beleive there's a bunch of problems like palatalization..well vowels of course (mostly in a way that there's no opposition of long and short vowels in Russian...well yes sometimes the sounds really different ), sound clusters,sounds that don't exists in English language...but what I really put on the top of it is consonants..not vowels...I already mentioned that in audio lounge...I mean I can really imitate American(for instance) accent doing the vowels pretty ok but still making it awful...So to say it roughly I think it's all about consonants (the secong place takes consonant+vowel clusters...well that's palatalization I'm talking about) 
> Just a quick example:
> Let's take a russian word "томик" and an english one "atomic". Drop the [a] sound in the word "atomic" and now we got two similarly sounding words. To make tomic sound like томик one shouldn't aspirate the [t] sound and make it dental instead of alveolar, make [м] sound palatalized and lose the aspiration (and maybe even the palatalization) articulating the[k] sound. The last two points are maybe not that clear in this exapmle (it just came from the top of my head right now...sorry) however I often notice big problems with that stuff...it can be more clear if we compare words like:1. пень-pen ([п] sound should be palatalized and shouldn't be aspirated...at least that strong as they do it in english)

 What is your native language? 
What you are saying is true, but for many Russians those are really fine points, bordering on indistinguishable. For one, I used to be unable to hear the difference between aspirated and non-aspirated consonants until I had this specifically demonstrated to me several times. 
And in tomik vs. atomic the main difference comes from the pronunciation of the 'o' sound, imo. And if the speaker gets the russian 'i' right, he'll probably have 'm' properly palatilized as well as a bonus.

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## adoc

> I'm having a similar problem. But first off, I need to know if there's a difference between a ukrainian and russian accent. They sound the same to me. There's a lady at my school who speaks russian, but ukrainian is her native tongue. Her accent is very strong, and when she speaks russian I can't understand every word she says because the accent makes the words sound different from how I say them. It's vice-versa for her too, she doesn't always understand what I say. Sometimes I choose wrong words to describe something, but she says it's my accent and pronounciation. I want to scope to her level though, so I hear and pronounce the words the same way she does. If anyone has any tips on how to clear this confusion, I'd love to have your input.

 It's sorta like music:  if you have a good ear for it, you'll do just fine by yourself.  I've seen some professional singers, so even if they don't understand a word, they can repeat a line without an accent.  Otherwise, if you are not exposed to many russians blabbing non-stop, a professional instructor is probably needed.

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## Orpheus

> Originally Posted by Orpheus  I'm having a similar problem. But first off, I need to know if there's a difference between a ukrainian and russian accent. They sound the same to me. There's a lady at my school who speaks russian, but ukrainian is her native tongue. Her accent is very strong, and when she speaks russian I can't understand every word she says because the accent makes the words sound different from how I say them. It's vice-versa for her too, she doesn't always understand what I say. Sometimes I choose wrong words to describe something, but she says it's my accent and pronounciation. I want to scope to her level though, so I hear and pronounce the words the same way she does. If anyone has any tips on how to clear this confusion, I'd love to have your input.   It's sorta like music:  if you have a good ear for it, you'll do just fine by yourself.  I've seen some professional singers, so even if they don't understand a word, they can repeat a line without an accent.  Otherwise, if you are not exposed to many russians blabbing non-stop, a professional instructor is probably needed.

  Ahh, well it's good I'm a musician then. I'm not exposed to much russian blabbing at all, I listen to the radio a lot. Could that work?

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## adoc

I dunno. Eventually you'll have to crosscheck it anyways.

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## laxxy

> Originally Posted by Orpheus  I'm having a similar problem. But first off, I need to know if there's a difference between a ukrainian and russian accent. They sound the same to me. There's a lady at my school who speaks russian, but ukrainian is her native tongue. Her accent is very strong, and when she speaks russian I can't understand every word she says because the accent makes the words sound different from how I say them. It's vice-versa for her too, she doesn't always understand what I say. Sometimes I choose wrong words to describe something, but she says it's my accent and pronounciation. I want to scope to her level though, so I hear and pronounce the words the same way she does. If anyone has any tips on how to clear this confusion, I'd love to have your input.   It's sorta like music:  if you have a good ear for it, you'll do just fine by yourself.  I've seen some professional singers, so even if they don't understand a word, they can repeat a line without an accent.  Otherwise, if you are not exposed to many russians blabbing non-stop, a professional instructor is probably needed.

 I think your ear needs to be _really_ good for this to work, and even then you might probably learn to repeat a particular line perfectly but slip back in regular conversation. 
And exposure to blabbing, while helpful, will only get you this far. Unless you are a child of course. Go to any Russian store in America and you'll see a few people who have lived in the country for like 20-30 years but still have absolutely atrocious accents.

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## Orpheus

> Originally Posted by adoc        Originally Posted by Orpheus  I'm having a similar problem. But first off, I need to know if there's a difference between a ukrainian and russian accent. They sound the same to me. There's a lady at my school who speaks russian, but ukrainian is her native tongue. Her accent is very strong, and when she speaks russian I can't understand every word she says because the accent makes the words sound different from how I say them. It's vice-versa for her too, she doesn't always understand what I say. Sometimes I choose wrong words to describe something, but she says it's my accent and pronounciation. I want to scope to her level though, so I hear and pronounce the words the same way she does. If anyone has any tips on how to clear this confusion, I'd love to have your input.   It's sorta like music:  if you have a good ear for it, you'll do just fine by yourself.  I've seen some professional singers, so even if they don't understand a word, they can repeat a line without an accent.  Otherwise, if you are not exposed to many russians blabbing non-stop, a professional instructor is probably needed.   I think your ear needs to be _really_ good for this to work, and even then you might probably learn to repeat a particular line perfectly but slip back in regular conversation. 
> And exposure to blabbing, while helpful, will only get you this far. Unless you are a child of course. Go to any Russian store in America and you'll see a few people who have lived in the country for like 20-30 years but still have absolutely atrocious accents.

 
 Makes perfect sense, but I find russian accents very sexy for some reason and I want to have that sexy accent not only for my own, but for my speaking ability. I wonder what actually makes up an accent. Could it be where you put your tongue at while pronouncing a certain letter or what?

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## adoc

You'd like to have a Russian accent while speaking English?  Why?   :: 
Focus on your Russian pronunciation, and this will take at least several years to improve.

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## Paxan

> What is your native language? 
> What you are saying is true, but for many Russians those are really fine points, bordering on indistinguishable. For one, I used to be unable to hear the difference between aspirated and non-aspirated consonants until I had this specifically demonstrated to me several times. 
> And in tomik vs. atomic the main difference comes from the pronunciation of the 'o' sound, imo. And if the speaker gets the russian 'i' right, he'll probably have 'm' properly palatilized as well as a bonus.

 I'm russian.
The pronounciation of the 'O' sound can't be the MAIN difference...other sounds are AS WELL important

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## laxxy

> Originally Posted by laxxy  What is your native language? 
> What you are saying is true, but for many Russians those are really fine points, bordering on indistinguishable. For one, I used to be unable to hear the difference between aspirated and non-aspirated consonants until I had this specifically demonstrated to me several times. 
> And in tomik vs. atomic the main difference comes from the pronunciation of the 'o' sound, imo. And if the speaker gets the russian 'i' right, he'll probably have 'm' properly palatilized as well as a bonus.   I'm russian.
> The pronounciation of the 'O' sound can't be the MAIN difference...other sounds are AS WELL important

 all are important but some are more important than the others. I bet 9 out of 10 russians won't tell an aspirated 'k' from a non-aspirated one. OK, the 'i' is also pretty important. People would probably notice the 't' but if the vowels are right they would consider such an accent very, very slight. I think whoever said that vowels define most of the accent (at least in English<->Russian) was right.  
As for the English native speakers, the two most important things to learn are, imo, firstly vowel reduction, and secondly making sure that the 'y' in 'ya', 'yo', etc is not pronounced after soft consonants.  Those are really noticeable.

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## Paxan



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## Paxan

Да ну и конечно же "most russians*"
Стыдно жуть  ::   ::   ::

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## laxxy

> Да ну и конечно же "most russians*"
> Стыдно жуть

 well, i've taken some accent reduction classes, and needed four one-hour individual sessions to even start distinguishing aspirated vs non-aspirated consonants ("p" and "k", specifically). At one point my instructor became frustrated and showed me frequency diagrams on a PC, I could see the difference in the voice onset timing visually but still just couldn't hear it for the life of me. And I have a fairly good ear for accents. 
't' is easier because as you yourself noted one is dental and the other is not. I would not go as far as calling them 'totally different' though. And these things are in a whole different ballpark from the more obvious accent features, like the ones I mentioned above.

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## Paxan

Я людям ставлю фонетику уже 4 года...если бы я важнейшим ставил гласные, меня уволили бы просто,потому что никто бы не говорил нормально...

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## Volk

Which regions other than the Moscow region is an unstressed 'o' pronounced as 'a'? 
I only know that further out from those regions Russian speakers pronounce an unstressed 'o' as just 'o'. 
How much will you be understood if you use 'a' instead of 'o' for all of those words in another region?

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## Paxan

> Which regions other than the Moscow region is an unstressed 'o' pronounced as 'a'? 
> I only know that further out from those regions Russian speakers pronounce an unstressed 'o' as just 'o'. 
> How much will you be understood if you use 'a' instead of 'o' for all of those words in another region?

 I beleive all so-called european part of Russia pronounces "o" as "a"...more or less. You will be understood just fine in mentioned regions.

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## laxxy

> Я людям ставлю фонетику уже 4 года...если бы я важнейшим ставил гласные, меня уволили бы просто,потому что никто бы не говорил нормально...

 All of these things need to be fixed. But there is a world of difference between mixing aspirated and nonaspirated consonants and not reducing the vowels. The former will be undistinguishable to the vast majority of the russian-speaking population, while the latter will immediately tell you off as a foreigner with a huge accent. Again, I am not talking about advanced students who are trying to completely reduce their accent here.
Of course if you are working with advanced students who already figured out the more important things (i.e. the vowels), then you have to fix whatever is left.

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## laxxy

> Which regions other than the Moscow region is an unstressed 'o' pronounced as 'a'? 
> I only know that further out from those regions Russian speakers pronounce an unstressed 'o' as just 'o'. 
> How much will you be understood if you use 'a' instead of 'o' for all of those words in another region?

 Unstressed 'o' is not pronounced as 'a' really anywhere except for the Moscow city  ::  Rather, both vowels get reduced to a third sound (quite close to s.c. 'schwa', the first vowel in "about").
you'll be understood perfectly though.

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## tdk2fe

Paxan & Laxxy, 
maybe you guys could put some examples in the audio lounge?  I'm not a linguist, so a lot of things you are saying aren't making a whole lot of sense, but i'd really like to hear some examples.  Thanks! 
tdk

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## Volk

> Originally Posted by волк  Which regions other than the Moscow region is an unstressed 'o' pronounced as 'a'? 
> I only know that further out from those regions Russian speakers pronounce an unstressed 'o' as just 'o'. 
> How much will you be understood if you use 'a' instead of 'o' for all of those words in another region?   Unstressed 'o' is not pronounced as 'a' really anywhere except for the Moscow city  Rather, both vowels get reduced to a third sound (quite close to s.c. 'schwa', the first vowel in "about").
> you'll be understood perfectly though.

 Thought so, thank you. 
I would like to hear audio examples, if Paxan and Laxxy have microphones and time...

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## Paxan

> Paxan & Laxxy, 
> maybe you guys could put some examples in the audio lounge?  I'm not a linguist, so a lot of things you are saying aren't making a whole lot of sense, but i'd really like to hear some examples.  Thanks! 
> tdk

 Sure..i'll soon get my mic fixed..

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## Paxan

> The former will be undistinguishable to the vast majority of the russian-speaking population.

 Откуда такая информация?   

> Again, I am not talking about advanced students who are trying to completely reduce their accent here.
> Of course if you are working with advanced students who already figured out the more important things (i.e. the vowels), then you have to fix whatever is left

 I'm not talking about advanced students as well. I just don't agree with it. I don't think vowels are more important. Я кажется уже предлагал оставить этот спор.

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## Paxan

> Originally Posted by волк  Which regions other than the Moscow region is an unstressed 'o' pronounced as 'a'? 
> I only know that further out from those regions Russian speakers pronounce an unstressed 'o' as just 'o'. 
> How much will you be understood if you use 'a' instead of 'o' for all of those words in another region?   Unstressed 'o' is not pronounced as 'a' really anywhere except for the Moscow city  Rather, both vowels get reduced to a third sound (quite close to s.c. 'schwa', the first vowel in "about").
> you'll be understood perfectly though.

 Ну тоже спорно канечно.... ну да ладно

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## MikeM

> I'm having a similar problem. But first off, I need to know if there's a difference between a ukrainian and russian accent. They sound the same to me.

 Yes, there is. How strong it is depends on which part of Ukraine the girl came from and whether you compare it to the official Moscow/Petersburg sort of Russian or something else  ::  Assuming she is from Southern or Eastern Ukraine, she is probably speaking softer than regular Russian, her "г" might be exaggerated and too soft... There are other differences too, which I can't really explain, but I am pretty sure I would hear it immeditely... However, assuming she doesn't have a really _strong_ Ukranian accent, you shouldn't be worried much about copying her  ::

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## laxxy

> Originally Posted by laxxy  The former will be undistinguishable to the vast majority of the russian-speaking population.   Откуда такая информация?

 well, it was completely undistinguishable to me in a laboratory setting. A real world conversation is not a laboratory setting, so it would be way harder.   

> Я кажется уже предлагал оставить этот спор.

 ok fine.

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## laxxy

> Originally Posted by Orpheus  I'm having a similar problem. But first off, I need to know if there's a difference between a ukrainian and russian accent. They sound the same to me.   Yes, there is. How strong it is depends on which part of Ukraine the girl came from and whether you compare it to the official Moscow/Petersburg sort of Russian or something else  Assuming she is from Southern or Eastern Ukraine, she is probably speaking softer than regular Russian, her "г" might be exaggerated and too soft... There are other differences too, which I can't really explain, but I am pretty sure I would hear it immeditely... However, assuming she doesn't have a really _strong_ Ukranian accent, you shouldn't be worried much about copying her

 Ukrainian accent in Russian or in English?
Ukrainian accent in Russian is readily distinguishable (and vice versa), although there are varying degrees of that. 
Technically it is often not an accent imo, as a lot of people in Ukraine still speak Russian as their first language, but our pronunciation is somewhat different from the standard Russian. 
I am not sure if the Russian accent in _English_ is much different from a Ukrainian one though, although some common mistakes that Russians make should not be typical for Ukrainians (e.g. devoicing final consonants).

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## MikeM

> Ukrainian accent in Russian or in English?

 I was talking about Ukranian "accent" in Russian...

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