# Forum Learning Russian Language Pronunciation, Speech & Accent  Hard and soft consonants (e.g. Л) - Help needed

## decsis

Hello
I'm learning russian since 6 month. Now, my reading skills are much better than in the beginning, but I'm still having big problems pronouncing hard and soft consonants correctly. 
Especially I'm having problems with the letter Л. My girlfriend says, my soft l sounds like the hard and the hard isn't very russian too, it sounds like a german L. Sadly she can't give me a tip to improve it...or in other words..she tried it, but it didn't work. And she asked me to asked somewhere else, maybe other peoples can explain it better. 
So, anybody here who can describe me, how to produce soft consonants in general and especially Л?
If pictures or videos are available for this topic, that would be from big help! 
Thank you so much

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## Demonic_Duck

Л is one of the easiest sounds to pronounce hard/soft in Russian! 
All you need to do to soften it is raise the middle of the tongue up to the roof of the mouth. Similarly, when saying it hard, keep the middle of your tongue low in your mouth.  Hard/soft Л

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## Medved

*Demonic_Duck* _Man your hard Л sounds like O and soft Л -- like И._ But you're absolutely right about lowering and rising of the tongue to make them hard or soft. And a thing to remember about Л is that its main sound is being made when the tip of the tongue is bouncing off the roof of the mouth or just getting in touch against it. In other words pronounce it in somewhat plosive way to make it sounding perfect. 
Explanations here: Getting started with russian phonetics - Russian Language Forums 
Here's the link: http://webfile.ru/5027843 
It's my own post there so feel free to ask here if something is not quite understandeable. And I'm going to attach some pictures maybe here and there in a short while so it'll get easier to understand the positions.

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## Demonic_Duck

> *Demonic_Duck* _Man your hard Л sounds like O and soft Л -- like И._

 I blame that on exaggerating the pronunciation and my microphone being crappy  ::  
(But of course my Russian pronunciation is far from perfect anyway...)

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## Medved

Demonic_duck
Nonono, I mean you said them in a static position of the tongue that's why they sounded like that. Otherwise they would have sounded great I guess.

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## Demonic_Duck

So is this better?  лъ, ль

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## Medved

Well, except Л sounds like ЛА, they are just perfect. Anyway in 99.99999 percents there would be another sound running after the Л so don't bother, they are excellent.

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## decsis

Hey,
Thanks for your answers and thanks Eugene-p for that lesson. 
It's really difficult for me to make them sound different, even though I can clearly hear the difference. And then, it also seems to depend a lot on which letters are before and after this consonants. 
I have just made some recordings, maybe you can see my difficulties. =( 
ль л - ль лампа - лес 
ть думает - думать достопримечательность

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## Demonic_Duck

Your л and ль sounds in the first 2 files seem OK to me although could be more pronounced (middle of tongue right down for л, right up to the roof of your mouth for ль). 
Your т and ть in думает/думать sound pretty much exactly the same to me. my attempt... 
As for «достопримечательность», that word is so damn difficult! It sounds to me like you're pronouncing both «т»s and the «л» hard when they should be soft, although the rest of the word sounds OK to me. It took me like 5 attempts to record this (lol)... ...and this is how the experts say it (audio clip is under the "pronunciation" heading) 
Another tip is, when you pronounce a consonant soft, try to say the English letter "y" as in "yacht", _at the same time as you say the consonant_. Don't say it directly after, say it _at the same time_. If the soft consonant is in word final position (e.g. infinitives of verbs such as «думать»), you may hear a very small, voiceless "y" sound after the consonant, but the important thing is, _you are also pronouncing this sound whilst saying the consonant_.

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## Medved

*decsis*
Your Л sounds absolutely english-like. ЛЬ is okay. (Лампа and лес) clearly confirm that. 
Т (ДумаеТ) sounds perfect, ТЬ in думать sounds like an *English T*. Bend the tongue more or just spread sides of the front part of the tongue from the ЛЬ position, widen them to stop the airflow *completely* pump up the air into your mouth and you will get the Т when abruptly release the pressure. 
Достопримечательность:
СТ transition not sharp enough, the T should bounce off the top of the mouth after a short complete deadstop, not just make a noising (English TH-like) sound.
И sounds English like e.g. like EE in sleeve.
ЧА both sound English-like, and if you saw that lesson you should have read that Ч is always soft and no hard vowels like A after Ч. Only Я. Read it as Я.
ЛЬ almost not existing. Make sure you are pronouncing it. Exaggerate it a bit. Make that click to force the ЛЬ sound.  *Demonic_duck*
Думает has wrong stresses there, just the А is too clear as though it would have been stressed too.
Дос*т*оприме*ч*ательность - the T is not sharp enough. Make sure it quickly stopped the airflow. And Ч is a bit English-like.
And yes, you're almost right about this Y in yacht, except It should be more like Russian И than English Y. And they use different tongue positions.
I think the И sound is a key or is a glue to understand and learn how to pronounce Russian soft sounds correct.

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## decsis

Thank you so much guys. I will hardly work on it. And demonic_duke, I'm really impressed of your pronunciation as a native english speaker. 
Unfortunately, I totally ignored the hard-soft consonants or the pronunciation in general when I started learning russian in last summer. I will try to follow your advices.
Anyway, before I've got your answer, I've found a website I haven't seen so far:  Learn Russian | Russian Alphabet | Russian Soft-sign pronunciation 
There is a special sub-section for many consonants a bit down there with many sound examples and even slow versions. I couldn't listen to the examples so far as I'm in my office and I'm not able to try it out cause It would ...look/sound pretty weird for my mates haha  ::  
BUT. They say, I should "hold the tip of your tongue at the join between your front bottom  teeth and your bottom gum. Then use the middle of your tongue to say the  syllable that contains the soft-sign." 
Hmm till now, I always heard I should put the middle of the tongue up to that middle part of the gum, but I always had the tip at the top too. 
Is it true that the tip should be at the bottom??? 
My girlfriend said it shouldn't make a difference. Does it makes a difference for you guys, if you put the tip at the top or bottom? 
and about that y which is combined with the consontant...yeah that's what I have read in my books too. Even though some said, it's not a russian и but more a й!?

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## Medved

decsis
For some sounds the position of the tip doesn't matter, while for some it does. At least I can't imagine myself saying РЬ with the tip down. And for ЛЬ it's slightly inconvenient too which will affect your fluency in future. For бь, вь, гь, дь, зь, сь, мь, нь well, just other soft consonants the tip is down, really.
My ль is with the tip touching the alveolar ridge and the middle bent upwards to the roof right away behind the ridge.

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## decsis

yeah true, it's quite impossible to say р (or german r) with the tip of the tongue at the bottom.  ::

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## Demonic_Duck

Lol, I've just been trying to do that and I can't stop laughing at the results  ::  
рь seems very difficult to pronounce.   дверь/царь
Is this any good?

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## Medved

both рь's are not enough voiced and А in царь sounds English-like. But РЬ's are basically good.

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## decsis

Ok another try with ль:  кремель - кремел

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## Medved

Much better! Almost perfect. A bit more voice in РЬ's and a bit more raised tongue in ЛЬ and it'll sound great.
Just practice to get used to the sensation and you'll be there.

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## Throbert McGee

If you REALLY want to test your skill with hard/soft *л* and *р*, there's always this *скороговорка*:*   Пароль, орёл.* 
Note that you've got a hard *ръ*, then soft *ль*, then soft *рь*, then hard *лъ* -- try saying it five times, fast! (And by the way, it literally translates to "Password, eagle.") 
Also, I wanted to repost this image that I found on Wikipedia:   
As an exercise for learning how to distinguish the hard and soft *Л* sounds in Russian, start with the *кончик язычка* (tip of the tongue, 16/17 in the diagram) against the bottom edge of your upper teeth (position 3). With your tongue there, make an "L" sound. There, that's the "hard *Л*"! Now continue to make that sound as you gradually slide the front of your tongue (16) from (3) to (4), through (5) and (6), all the way to (7). Do you hear how the sound changes? By the time you get to (7) -- at which point, you might be using the (15) area of the tongue rather than (16) -- you'll be pronouncing a "soft *Л*"!**

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## Demonic_Duck

Throbert, that's wrong, you don't slide the front of your tongue back, you move the middle of your tongue upwards.

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## Medved

*Demonic_Duck
Throbert McGee* 
Guys, you both wrong  :: 
Hard Л position (according to the diagram):
The very tip (17) is straight at the place where the upper front teeth meet the gums. (Roots of the teeth). And 16 (right near the tip) is touching the alveolar ridge at the prealveolar region (4).
Soft L position:
The very tip is touching the 5 and the 16 is touching the 6. 
Oh, yeah, and guys, to sound purely russian you gotta keep your tongue middle higher than its sides. That's tricky for english speakers, but you may chuckle that it's tricky for us to keep the tongue flat when speaking English  :: .

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## Romik

> Soft L position:
> The very tip is touching the 5 and the 16 is touching the 6.

 It seems so when I say *ля*мка but when I say паро*ль*, my tip of the tongue is touching the lower teeth and the middle of the tongue is touching the roof of the mouth (I'm Russian).

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## CoffeeCup

*Throbert McGee* It would be great if you start over a new thread with this picture and explain all the English and Russian sounds with this scheme. Of course if somebody else can it would be great if he help you. Such a thread would be of incredible importance for all who learn Russian and English. Such a thread would certainly became sticky in the "Pronunciation, Speech & Accent" section.

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## Medved

> It seems so when I say *ля*мка but when I say паро*ль*, my tip of the tongue is touching the lower teeth and the middle of the tongue is touching the roof of the mouth (I'm Russian).

 Hehe, I don't feel this way. I can say the L' this way but it's inconvenient for me. It's a matter of habit I guess.

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## Elizaveta_Petrovna

One of the effective ways to obtain the correct pronunciation of the hard /l/ is by nipping the tip of your tongue and holding it in this position while trying to prononuce /l/. There is no chance it will come out soft. But don't overdo it  :: )

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## slonenok

Another way to pronounce dark /л/ is placing the tip of your tongue against your upper teeth and trying to pronounce it with a shade of /ы/ sound - if you're familiar with it, of course.
By the way, in Russian logopedic books soft /л'/ is described as an alveolar consonant, so the difference is in the place of articulation.

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## Medved

> Another way to pronounce dark /л/ is placing the tip of your tongue against your upper teeth

 But don't press its bottomside to the inner surface of the teeth, or it will come out English-like. Only the very tip should be touching.

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## zxc

Another random pronunciation tip: Try to relax your tongue and lips when saying Russian consonants.  English speakers strain their mouths when saying consonants. 
For instance, try saying these English words:
kit
pot
tap 
Say them while holding your hand in front of your mouth to feel the air that comes out.  When pronouncing the letters t,k,p, you'll feel a puff of air come out.  It's called aspiration, and Russians don't do it with these consonants.  Try practicing saying these words to where you don't feel the puff of air (you're going to feel air, of course, because you're breathing out when you speak--but you shouldn't feel a sharp puff of air). 
(These consonants are usually only aspirated at the beginning of a word.  For instance, feel the difference between the t in 'tap' in and the t's in 'butter')

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## Throbert McGee

> For instance, try saying these English words:
> kit
> pot
> tap 
> Say them while holding your hand in front of your mouth to feel the air that comes out.  When pronouncing the letters t,k,p, you'll feel a puff of air come out.  It's called aspiration...
> (These consonants are usually only aspirated at the beginning of a word *^or at the beginning of a stressed syllable.*

 AT*T**E*NTION! AT*T**E*NTION! The second "t" in "at*te*ntion" is strongly aspirated -- as is the "t" in "a*to*mic," and the first "t" in "po*ta*to". 
However, the first "t" in "a*t*tention" is essentially silent, because in English we normally don't pronounce "doubled consonants" as two separate sounds; and the third "t" in the suffix "-*t*ion" is, of course, pronounced like "sh". The second "t" in "pota*t*o" is not strongly aspirated, and is often a bit "voiced", so that the last syllable "-to" sounds more like "dough". 
Also, contrast "*at*om" with "a*to*mic" -- in the first word, the "t" is rather unaspirated, and often voiced, so that the word is almost a homophone of "Adam." But in the second word -- _thanks to the influence of the stressed vowel "o"_ -- the "t" is totally unvoiced, but usually rather aspirated, with a strong puff of air. 
In general, this would also be true for the "p" and "k" sounds -- thus, the first "p" in the noun "a*po*calypse" is more strongly aspirated than in the adjectival form "a*p*ocal*y*ptic", since the stress moves from the "o" to the "y". However, the "k sound" (or rather, the hard-c) in both words is rather unaspirated, since the syllable "-*c*a-" is unstressed. But in "va*ca*tion", the k-sound is more aspirated, because it comes before the stressed "a".

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