# Forum Learning Russian Language Pronunciation, Speech & Accent  how to do a russian accent

## Mr Happy Go Lucky

Hello, 
This may seem rather weird to some folks, but here's the upshot of my request:
I want to learn to do a Russian accent. 
I want to speak English like Russians do, that is to imitate standard Russian talk, like when they've just arrived in America and start getting around.
How do I go about this task? 
Here's the skinny I already know (picked it up from the coffers of the internet): 
Pronunciation:
1. Use V for W: say "vest" in lieu of "west"
2. Use z/s for th: say "zis/sink" in lieu of "this/think"
3. Use i: for i: say "seek" in lieu of "sick"
Grammar:
1. Skip 'the/a/to': say "I live in country/I want buy car" in lieu of "I live in the country/I want to buy a car" 
But I have a hunch there's more to that, maybe you know more and can give me some heads up on the subject matter so I can improve on my Russian accent.
I don't have an eye for accents, so I can't really distill anything from just listening to Russians speak English, I need solid advise.

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## BappaBa

::     

> After we saw No Country for Old Men, my girlfriend and I argued about Anton Chigurh's background. "He's Russian!" I said. "He's Mexican," she insisted. "Come on, his accent is obviously Eastern European, I said." "No, it sounds more Mexican!" she said.

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## E-learner

You didn't mention an important feature of the Russian accent -- the peculiar rhythm. Russians tend to pronounce every word separately whereas you native speakers join words into clusters. A good example of it you can find at the beginning of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86oL5Wje ... re=related 
What is "wrong" with this example is the *r*'s, which are too good. For a really heavy accent you should do proper Russian *r*'s, if you can.
Perhaps even more important is to do proper Russian *h*'s (who, history, ahead, perhaps etc). 
Of course, these are only the tip of the iceberg.  ::

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## vox05

> I want to speak English like Russians do, that is to imitate standard Russian talk, like when they've just arrived in America and start getting around.

 Are there other English-speaking contries in the rest of the world? (As opposed to world in "world champions" in superbowl)   

> 2. Use z/s for th: say "zis/sink" in lieu of "this/think"

 ^^ If you want to imitate really thick accent, most of them seem to master 'th' nevertheless. 
Pronounce 'roll' to rhyme with 'doll', 'palate' like 'belate' and so on.   

> Grammar:
> 1. Skip 'the/a/to': say "I live in country/I want buy car" in lieu of "I live in the country/I want to buy a car"

 Screw up prepositions - use direct translation of the one used in Russian - 'to fire someone from a firearm'. Translate idioms and figures of speech directly word-by-word.   

> I need solid advise.

 Confuse verbs and nouns when the differ only with s/z , th/th pair or only stress position - 'refuse/refuse'.

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## Полуношник

> 1. Use V for W: say "vest" in lieu of "west"
> 2. Use z/s for th: say "zis/sink" in lieu of "this/think"
> 3. Use i: for i: say "seek" in lieu of "sick"

 Isn't eet a French accent?   ::  
4. Pronounce t's instead of d's at the ends of words "to imitate standar*t* Russian talk, like when they've just arrive*t* in America".

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## wanja

5. Pronounce alveolar consonants like dental.

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## alexsms

Always make your consonants at the end of the words UNVOICED. The ending consonants are all the time unvoiced in Russian. For example, a Russian would say 'as I know' like 'ass I know' which immediately distinguishes Russians (weird example, but it's from my experience and i remember it well). 
Russians don't have clear distinction between your short and long vowels. The 1st vowel in 'cup' and 'carpet' would be pronounced similar. And this would be neither long nor short (something like you pronounce 'er' in 'teacher'). The same applies to all vowels, they are all neither long nor short, and also neither closed nor open. 
To exemplify, i would suggest: 
pen - pan
see - sick
sock - sort 
No distinction is made by Russians here. 
Concerning consonants, and meaning again they are unvoiced at the end, no distinction will be made between 'bed' and 'bet', they both will be pronounced in the same way, i.e. with 't' at the end and again the vowel will be like you'd pronounce 'er' in 'teacher'. 
The most difficult sound for a Russian is 'th'. We don't have it. Make it either 'z' or 's', or even 'f'. 
Nowadays, also Russians in words like 'go', 'no' tend to say [ou], not [eu]. 
It's a complicated topic you suggested, and it takes a lot more aspects, such as make your 'sh' as in 'she' or 'j' as in 'john' very hard as our equivalent sounds are not so soft as yours.  
Hope, it will help you somehow, but to fully grasp it you will have to make a system of it, cos here there are some systematic differences and they really can be traced if you learn to hear it.

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## chaika

They can't say æ as in "can" so use short e instead
Zey vi:l sey He is a bet men for He is a bad man. 
Russian also lacks the nasal velars ng and nk, so for "thinking" you will get "thin-kin".

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## Mr Happy Go Lucky

Thank you guys for chiming in with advice and tips.
That's an overwhelming amount of 411, hehe (ax me if you don't know what 411 is   ::   )
I'll pore over it at my leisure over a cup of coffee and see what I can make of it, what I can do in terms of improvement.

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## alexsms

Well, I wouldn't mind knowing about 411. So what's that? Becoming off-topic, isn't that)) 
Another tip which is more specific. In words like 'she' the vowel sound is pronounced with a more opened mouth (how i put it, Oh my God). Don't make it as wide as you do it in English, and this will get you closer. 
Make 'l' as in ''lollipop'' harder, cos we generally don't have soft sounds, 'h' is very hard as someone said in earlier post. To me, a hard 'h' (as in 'how') is the irrefutable indicator of a Russian accent.

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## Mr Happy Go Lucky

> Well, I wouldn't mind knowing about 411. So what's that? Becoming off-topic, isn't that))

 It;s the number you dial in the usa if you want to inquire about some company and the like. (directory assistance)
Its well known to one and all, in fact it's so widespread that 411 came to be a synonym for information.  :: 
You can say "I need 411 on that perp (criminal)"

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## deker

> 1. Use V for W: say "vest" in lieu of "west"
> 2. Use z/s for th: say "zis/sink" in lieu of "this/think"

 I think it will be an overplaying. That can say those who utterly have no clue about English pronounsiation. If you want sound more natural there are more thin moments like the lack of aspiration and dark L R, different intonation ets.

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## CoffeeCup

Some more points: 
pronounce double letters as two separated letters
"sipping" -> "sip+ping"
"stopped" -> "stop+ped"
"begged" -> "beg+ged" 
"-ed" ending for verbs is always pronounced with voiced "e" 
unvoiced "e" in ending is pronounced as voiced "-eh"
"rule" -> "ruleh"
"force" -> "forceh"  
Actually I've found this topic useful for native Russians too. We can check what we pronounce wrong and master it.

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## Ramil

> Actually I've found this topic useful for native Russians two. We can check what we pronounce wrong and master it.

 Yes, this topic has already crushed some illusions about my good pronunciation  ::

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## Hanna

I just want to clarify something: 
Certain accents sound pretty cool if that's your REAL accent (such as Russian (Slavic) accent, particularly for guys).  
But faking it is not cool! Why would you want to do that?  For a native English speaker to put on a fake Russian accent is...... a bit eccentric. I'd strongly recommend against this idea unless it was for a role in film/theatre. 
What precisely do you plan to say when someone asks where in Russia you're from.... or switches to Russian while you are speaking with them?

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## Russian

Imitating the speech is a good idea, probably the best one to learn to speak without the accent.

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## Medved

> They can't say æ as in "can" so use short e instead
> Zey vi:l sey He is a bet men for He is a bad man. 
> Russian also lacks the nasal velars ng and nk, so for "thinking" you will get "thin-kin".

 Honestly saying, It will sound like "Seen"-"keen"  ::

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## Чайковская

Actually, I think it's a pretty good idea to learn the accent that way... the same as when I wanted to learn how to use Cyrillic letters, I practiced by writing English words in Cyrillic spelling- and that was quite helpful.  So I do really like listening to Russians speak English with a heavy accent, because it helps me get used to the pronunciation, without having to concentrate so much on trying to understand exactly what it is they are saying.  For this reason I occasionally practice speaking my own English just with a faux Russian accent- that way it's easier to 'wrap my mind around' how pronunciation works.  This method has its faults, of course, but it does help me a little.

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## Dogboy182

I think you have to not be a noob.

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## Ricochet

I've found native Russians have trouble with w's. 
Work
Wrench

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## Gollandski Yozh

I'd suggest you watch a James Bond movie, or any Western movie with Russian bad guys really, for some nice, over the top examples.  
When I think about a Russian accent, I always think of Брат 2.   ::   
"I want Russian prostitute - Marilyn."
"Ben, Ben? Это Данила. I need help." 
"Thank you very much... Вот уроды!"

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## BappaBa

Red Alert 2   ::    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtwDee-OnNo

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## it-ogo

> Red Alert 2     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtwDee-OnNo

 Yep, this is a Russian accent. Strongly exaggerated but still genuine.

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## Demonic_Duck

remember to pronounce "h" as the "ch" in "loch" or "Bach".

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## Vincent Tailors

think and that are not zink and zet in Russian, that's too French.
Russians would pronounce think and that like "phink and phet"

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## lemoni

The last movie I watched, with russian "bad" guys, was SALT with Angelina Jolie.... she even was supposed to be russian and some dialogs are in russian. I think in the movie are starring some real russian guys. Yet, one can understand that Angelina is not russian  ::

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## Throbert McGee

Итальянская актриса Mariangela Melato в научно-фантастическом фильме "Flash Gordon" (1980):  YouTube - The fabulous General Kala - Flash Gordon 
"Hhhhhwat do you min, *Flesh Gor-r-r-don approachink*?"

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## Medved

> Yep, this is a Russian accent. Strongly exaggerated but still genuine.

 LoL He screwed up faking some words, like "choice" has been said purely non-russian.
I could record the same said in the neat russian manner just for fun.

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## Throbert McGee

> Always make your consonants at the end of the words UNVOICED. The ending consonants are all the time unvoiced in Russian. For example, a Russian would say 'as I know' like 'ass I know' which immediately distinguishes Russians (weird example, but it's from my experience and i remember it well).

 This isn't a problem for Russians only -- many ESL speakers have trouble with voicing (or devoicing) consonant sounds at the end of words, especially the *-s* in plural nouns and third-person singular present verbs, and the *-d* in some past tense verbs. For example, in a native speaker's pronunciation, the *-d* in *walked* should sound more like a *-t* (because of the influence of the unvoiced *-k-*), while the *-s* in *verbs* sounds like a *-z* (because the *-b-* is voiced). 
As a kid, I was always greatly amused by the ABBA lyric (from "Knowing Me, Knowing You"):   

> _In thessssse old familiar roomsssss, children will play...
> Now there'sssss only emptiness, nothing to sa-a-ay._

 The pronunciation should be "theez" and "roomz" and "there'z", but the singer very noticeably over-pronounces the "s" as it's written.  
(What makes this funnier to me is that, generally speaking, Agnetha and Frida did NOT have heavy Swedish accents in their singing, especially considering that they hardly knew English at all and learned the songs phonetically. So when they sing _roomsssss_, it really jumps out at you because most of the time, they don't "sound foreign.")

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## Throbert McGee

How to Do a Russian Accent: 
Watch _Red October_ a few times and then *do EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of everything Sean Connery does*.

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## Throbert McGee

> Red Alert 2     YouTube - C&C Red Alert 2 - Premier Romanov's broadcast

 Hmmm -- among many other problems, he gets the "n" sounds in "U*n*ited" and "*N*ew York" totally backwards. Stereotypically, the "n" in "United" should be over-dentalized ("Ю-най-тэд"), and the "N" in "New" should sound like a Spanish *ñ* ("Нью")-- but he says "Юньяйтэд" (with a soft, palatalized "ñ")and "Ну Йорк" (with a very hard, dentalized "n"). 
Which brings up another point about faking a Russian accent -- many English consonants are "alveolarized", meaning that when you pronounce them, the tip of the tongue (16 or 17) hits position 4 or 5 in this diagram:   
However, Russian consonants are generally not aveolarized; instead they are either "dentalized" (so that the tip of the tongue, 16/17, is at position 3) or "palatalized" (the front of the tongue at 15 or 16 hits the roof of the mouth at position 6 or 7).  
The best way to understand the difference is just to try it for yourself: If you're a native English speaker, say the consonant "t" a few times -- you'll notice that the tip of your tongue tends to strike the region labeled 4 and 5 in the above diagram. But native Russian speakers have two versions of the "t" sound -- one with the tongue against the upper teeth (position 3), which is called the "hard t", and one with the tongue against the palate (position 7), which is called the "soft t".  
So, an English speaker wishing to fake a Russian accent should try to *avoid* positions 4/5, and instead go for position 3 (especially before vowels like "a" and "o" and "short e", as in _tack, top, ten_) or position 7 (especially before "long e", "short i", "long u", as in _teen, tip, tune_). 
This is true for various consonants besides "t" -- for example, in English the sounds "d", "n", and "l" are all alveolarized, while the corresponding letters in Russian can be either dentalized or palatalized. And as you will notice in the diagram, the alveolar position is sort of a "happy middle" between the two "extremes" of dental and palatal. Thus, when faking a Russian accent, an English speaker needs to train his tongue to "go to extremes" with certain consonant sounds. 
P.S. Note that all of the above is also useful if you're a serious student of Russian trying to reduce your English/American accent. And you can "reverse" the advice if you're an ESL speaker trying to reduce your Russian accent!

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## Demonic_Duck

That's a really useful diagram by the way.

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## gsold

I think you must copy pronunciation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTgLxvKxRJ0.

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## Medved

*gsold*
Им чтобы скопировать - нужно годами произношение учить. Это не русский акцент, а русская речь. Им это архисложно.
Звуки все у Мутко абсолютно русские, он не пытается даже произносить вещи по-английски.

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## alexB

> As a kid, I was always greatly amused by the ABBA lyric (from "Knowing Me, Knowing You"): 
> The pronunciation should be "theez" and "roomz" and "there'z", but the singer very noticeably over-pronounces the "s" as it's written.

  Funny thing, this is exactly what I noticed one day too, and I’ve always been sure they spoke or rather sang perfect English. I think we should ask Hanna if Agnetha and Frida really hardly knew English at all. I strongly doubt that they did. I think everyone in Sweden speaks English, don’t they?.

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## Throbert McGee

AlexB -- I remember seeing a TV interview with the members of ABBA back in the late '70s or early '80s; it was on the American Sunday-evening news program _60 Minutes_, and described ABBA as "Sweden's #2 export" (after the Volvo!).  
Anyway, Bjorn and Benny spoke English quite well, but the two girls were definitely much less fluent and seemed uncomfortable with English -- and they gave very very short answers.

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## gsold

*Eugene-p*
Понятно, что это не акцент. Ну забыл я поставить смайлик.

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