Learn Russian Pronunciation

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Welcome to episode 20 &#8211; the final exam. You should feel proud for having made it this far. It&#8217;s a small course, but still&#8230;you put in the time and effort. After this exam you should treat yourself to something..I recommend Russian blini. Ever try them? Блины are basically crepes—very thin pancakes, usually filled with some jelly or sweet cheese inside. They&#8217;re a Russian delicacy. In fact, try to say&#8230;



I
want to cook (or, more literally, &#8216;prepare&#8217;) blini.



Я
хочу приготовить блины.



Speaking
of popular Russian foods, have you ever tried пельмени?
They&#8217;re basically dumplings filled with meat&#8230;usually pork.
Here&#8217;s the word again. пельмени 




So
try to say: I want to cook dumplings.



Я
хочу приготовить пельмени.



With
two words, ask your roommate: Want shishkabob?



Хочешь
шашлык?



Want
dumplings?



Хочешь
пельмени?



He
shrugs and says the Russian word for, Okay.



Хорошо.



Moving
on: Try to say: My mother lives in Odessa.



Моя
мама живёт в Одессе.



My
dad lives in Kharkov.



Мой
папа живёт в Харькове.



Anastasia
is traveling to Dubai.



Анастасия
едет в Дубай.



I&#8217;m
traveling to Munich.



Я
еду в Мюнхен.



Speaking
of traveling, say: In New York I want to see Times Square.



В
Нью Йорке я хочу увидеть Таймс
Сквер.



Quick
quiz on voicing and devoicing. Imagine these three Russian letters:
В-С-Е



How
will that word be pronounced? Will the &#8216;В&#8217;
be voiced?



все



It
was devoiced because, if you remember that pattern, the last letter
in a cluster determines whether your vocal cords are involved. Right?
So, since the &#8216;S&#8217; sound (С) is naturally devoiced, it affects the
&#8220;v&#8221; sound that comes before it. So not &#8220;V-syeh&#8221;
but an &#8220;F&#8221; sound: Fsyeh




And
we&#8217;re going to need that word, which means &#8220;all&#8221;, in this
next sentence.



I
want to see all the main tourist sites in Paris. 




Я
хочу увидеть все
достопримечательности в Париже



Try
that again. I want to see all the main tourist sites in Amsterdam.



Я
хочу увидеть все
достопримечательности в
Амстердаме.



I
think that was the longest sentence in the whole course.



In
your studies, you&#8217;ve probably encountered the word кафе,
which is how Russians pronounce cafe. So try to say: I&#8217;m going
to the cafe. (implying, on foot)



Я
иду в кафе.



Now
that word we use for &#8220;to&#8221; the cafe&#8230;it&#8217;s the letter В.
But was it voiced or no? Say the phrase again: I&#8217;m going to the cafe.



Я
иду в кафе.



So
it was devoiced. But why? Because the letter that follows, the &#8216;k&#8217; of
cafe is naturally devoiced. And even though it&#8217;s a separate word, in
Russian, prepositions like &#8220;to, from, for&#8221; and so on, are
treated as if they are part of the word that follows. We do that in
English too, right? We say:



I&#8217;m
going t&#8217;McDonalds. We don&#8217;t say: I&#8217;m going **to** McDonalds.
The word &#8220;to&#8221; basically gets absorbed into the beginning of
McDonalds.



Say:
I&#8217;m going to the park.



Я
иду в парк.



Again,
&#8216;В&#8217; is devoiced because of the &#8216;П&#8217;
in парк. Now say&#8230;



I&#8217;m
going to Burger King.



Я
иду в Бургер Кинг. 




There,
the &#8216;В&#8217; is voiced&#8230;В
Бургер Кинг&#8230;because the &#8216;Б&#8217;
in Бургер is naturally voiced.



How
will your friend ask: Where is Burger King located?



Где
находится Бургер Кинг?



Tell
her: Burger King is located downtown.



Бургер
Кинг находится в центре.



Let&#8217;s
try this. Two phrases: I&#8217;m going to the cafe. I want dumplings.



Я
иду в кафе. Я хочу пельмени.



The
word for a mini-market in Russian is an easy cognate. Listen&#8230;



мини-маркет



So
try this: I want yogurt. I&#8217;m going to the mini-market.



Я
хочу йогурт. Я иду в мини-маркет.



Before
the word мини-маркет&#8230;was that В
voiced?



I
want a magazine. I&#8217;m going to the mini-market.



Я
хочу журнал. Я иду в мини-маркет.



Next&#8230;Try
to say: Taras was in St. Petersburg.



Тарас
был в Санкт-петербурге.



Imagine
that your friend is a violinist and she, somehow, misplaced her
instrument. It&#8217;s not in the car, not in the hotel&#8230;and then she
finds it. How will she say: 




The
violin was in the theater.



Скрипка
была в театре.



Of
course, because Скрипка ends with an
&#8220;ah&#8221; sound, making it feminine, she used the feminine past
tense—была—to match. (Or to rhyme,
really.)



Let&#8217;s
try that phrase again, but add an expression of relief. 




Thank
God. The violin was in the theater.



Слава
Богу! Скрипка была в театре.



Next:
How do we convey the idea that: I like rock&#8230;as in, rock music.



To
me&#8230;.is pleasing&#8230;.rock.



Мне
нравится рок.



Say:
I like jazz.



Мне
нравится джаз.



The
final letter was a Z (З), which is
normally voiced. But, being at the end of the word, Russians devoice
it.



Say:
I really like jazz. To me&#8230;very pleasing&#8230;jazz.



Мне
очень нравится джаз.



One
last example of devoicing the final consonant&#8230;What&#8217;s the Russian
version of Oh, my God?



О,
мой Бог.



That
final letter is a G (Г)&#8230;normally
voiced as.&#8217;guh&#8217;&#8230; but that&#8217;s the pattern in Russian. They get
devoiced at the end of a word.



Speaking
of endings&#8230;We&#8217;re at the end, not only of this exam, but of the
whole course.



Hopefully,
though, this isn&#8217;t goodbye. I have two other podcasts that you can
get. 




Russian
Made Easy



&#8230;and
my newest one&#8230;



Understanding
Spoken Russian. 




Or, if you want to really speed things up, then I hope you&#8217;ll join my <a href="http://russianaccelerator.com/sign-up.html">Russian Accelerator course</a>. We&#8217;ll get you conversational in Russian in just a few months. See you soon!



До
встречи

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 20

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Welcome to episode 19 &#8211; our last new material before the final. Hopefully you&#8217;ve noticed that, as this course progressed, I tried to get you working on things that you&#8217;re likely to say. Again, this is why I veered away from mindless pronunciation drills and tongue twisters. With that goal of practicality firmly in mind, today we&#8217;ll be learning two new verbs.



Like
in English, Russian verbs have an infinitive form, and then something
called conjugations. Take the English verb &#8220;to be&#8221;—that&#8217;s
the infinitive. The conjugations are: I am, You are, He is, and so
on. So, talking only about the infinitive forms here, in Russian,
almost all verbs end with a T and a soft-sign. Listen and repeat&#8230;



дать



играть



сказать



покупать



For
comparison, let&#8217;s listen to those without the soft sign:



дат
— играт — сказат – покупат



..and
with the soft sign again&#8230;



Those
all had an &#8216;a&#8217; vowel before that T. Let&#8217;s hear some with an И
as the final vowel.



говорить



купить



ездить



приготовить



All
of those are useful, but today, let&#8217;s work with that last one. Here
it is in context:



Even
though the kids had cereal for breakfast, they still seemed to be
hungry so I decided to приготвить some
scrambled eggs.



&#8230;or
this&#8230;



I&#8217;m
a big fan of Italian food, so for my birthday, my wife got me a book
called How to Приготовить the
Perfect Lasagna.



Imagine
you&#8217;re in your friend&#8217;s kitchen just before supper time. She straps
on an apron and says:



Я
хочу приготовить борщ.



How
would you translate that?



I
want to cook, or to prepare, borscht.



You
try it. Say: I want to cook cabbage soup.



Я
хочу приготовить щи.



I
want to cook shishkabob.



Я
хочу приготовить шашлык.



Getting
back to the infinitive form of Russian verbs, let&#8217;s listen to some
more. 




смотреть



гулять



заснуть



видеть



Again,
those are all very useful verbs, but it&#8217;s that last one I want to
focus on: видеть



Can
you get the meaning from context?



The
other day I was reading a book to my little girl which explained our
sense organs. We use our nose to smell, it explained. Our
ears to hear, and our eyes to &#8230;видеть.



Fill
in the blank: Someone who is deaf is unable to hear. Someone who&#8217;s
blind is unable to&#8230;



Now
here&#8217;s the thing about Russian verbs—and again, it&#8217;s something I
cover in great detail in all my other courses—Russian verbs come in
pairs. One version is used when talking about the action in general,
or when emphasizing the process of it. Whereas the other version is
used when you want to emphasize the result. That you finished doing
whatever it was.



For
ex: We use our eyes to see. That&#8217;s talking in general,
about the process of seeing. So the verb видеть
is the general version—what&#8217;s known as the &#8220;imperfective.&#8221;
But take a phrase like this: We went to New York to see the Statue
of Liberty. Here, all the focus is on the result. They saw it,
and that&#8217;s that. And that version in Russian is увидеть.
Almost the same as видеть but
with the letter &#8216;у&#8217; at the front. увидеть



So,
with that in mind, can you translate the following sentence?



В
Лондоне, я хочу увидеть Биг-Бен.



In
London I want to see Big Ben.



You
try it. Say: In London I want to see Westminster. (Wild guess on how
Russians will pronounce that &#8216;W&#8217;)



В
Лондоне, я хочу увидеть Вестминстер.



In
New York I want to see Broadway.



В
Нью Йорке, я хочу увидеть Бродвей.



In
St. Petersburg, I want to see the Hermitage. (pronounced: Эрмитаж)



В
Санкт-Петербурге, я хочу увидеть Эрмитаж.



Let&#8217;s
try one more round of infinitives. In these, the final vowel will be
an Ы. Listen and repeat&#8230;



быть



мыть



открыть



закрыть



Again,
compare the difference&#8230;without the soft sign at the end: закрыт



&#8230;and
with it: закрыть



Let&#8217;s
do some review. Try to say: I want to prepare, or cook, soup.



Я
хочу приготовить суп.



In
Los Angeles I want to see Disneyland.



В
Лос Анджелесе я хочу увидеть Дисенейленд.



And
from the previous lesson:



Igor
lives in Odessa.



Игорь
живёт в Одессе.



Anastasia
is traveling to Rome.



Анастасия
едет в Рим.



One
more round&#8230;



I
want to cook ravioli.



Я
хочу приготовить равиоли.



In
Los Angeles I want to see Beverly Hills.



В
Лос Анджелесе я хочу увидеть Беверли-Хиллз.



Veronika
lives in Munich.



Вероника
живёт в Мюнхене.



Robert
is traveling to Stuttgart.



Роберт
едет в Штутгарт.



I&#8217;m
traveling to Liverpool.



Я
еду в Ливерпуль.



Did you catch the soft-sign at the end? If you did you have a great ear. Alright, be sure to visit the site for the transcripts and exercises, and I&#8217;ll see you in the next episode&#8230; the final exam!

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 19

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Alright,
this is episode 18 of Learn Russian Pronunciation. Today we&#8217;re going
to expand on what we did in the last episode by including people&#8217;s
names into the mix. Let&#8217;s start with the name Igor. Listen to it in
Russian:



Игорь



There&#8217;s
a soft-sign at the end. For comparison, here&#8217;s how it would sound
without that.



Игор



But
again, properly, it&#8217;s: Игорь. Try to
say: Igor was in the theater.



Игорь
был в театре.



Now
listen as the speaker says: Igor lives in Brooklyn.



Игорь
живёт в Бруклине.



That&#8217;s
our official phrase for today, and we&#8217;ll be using it a lot, as we
practice new names and places.



So,
the speaker will same a name and a city. Repeat each one, and then
say that that person lives in that city. For ex:



Тарас
/ Мельбурн



Тарас
живёт в Мельбурне.



Careful
with the soft-sign in there, after the letter Л.
And did you add the &#8216;yeh&#8217; sound at the end? Listen again&#8230;



Тарас
живёт в Мельбурне.



Again,
the reasoning for why we have to add the &#8216;yeh&#8217; sound&#8230;that is beyond
the scope of these lessons. But I cover it in great detail in all my
other courses. I hope you advance to one of them after this
pronunciation course. Anyway, next&#8230;



Анастасия
/ Дубай



Анастасия
живёт в Дубае.



Next:
Борис / Иерусалим



Борис
живёт в Иерусалиме.



Out
of curiosity, can you guess which place this is?



Квебек



In
English, we call it: Quebec. Anyway&#8230;



Татьяна
/ Квебек 




Татьяна
живёт в Квебеке.



Next:



Олег
/ Амстердам



Олег
живёт в Амстердаме.



Doing
a little review: How would you say: I&#8217;m going to the park.



Я
иду в парк.



That
was from episode #16. иду is the &#8216;on
foot&#8217; version of &#8220;going&#8221;. Now try to say:



I&#8217;m
traveling to Quebec.



Я
еду в Квебек.



еду
is the &#8220;by vehicle&#8221; form of going.
Listen as the speaker says: Igor is traveling to Minsk.



Игорь
едет в Минск.



Say:
I&#8217;m traveling. Taras is traveling.



Я
еду. Тарас едет.



New
name, new city. Listen?



Сергей
/ Мюнхен 




So
try to say: Sergei is traveling to Munich.



Сергей
едет в Мюнхен.



Now
say: Sergei lives in Munich.



Сергей
живёт в Мюнхене.



Next:
Екатерина / Сидней



Try
to say: Ekaterina is traveling to Sydney.



Екатерина
едет в Сидней.



Next&#8230;



Вероника
/ Севастополь



 So
try to say: Veronika lives in Sevastopol.



Вероника
живёт в Севастополе.



What
country do you think this is? 




Китай



China.
And here&#8217;s a new name for you: Артём



So
try to say: Artyom is traveling to China.



Артём
едет в Китай.



Next:
Дарья / Цюрих



Daria
lives in Zurich.



Дарья
живёт в Цюрихе.



Say:
I&#8217;m traveling to Zurich.



Я
еду в Цюрих.



Mixing
in some locations from the previous lesson, try to say:



Sasha
lives in Paris.



Саша
живёт в Париже.



Roger
is traveling to Madrid.



Роджер
едет в Мадрид.



My
wife was in St. Petersburg.



Моя
жена была в Санкт-Петербурге.



Vova
is traveling to Kiev.



Вова
едет в Киев.



I
really like Chicago. What&#8217;s the super literal translation for that?



To
me very pleasing Chicago.



Мне
очень нравится Чикаго.



Try
that again. I really like Amsterdam.



Мне
очень нравится Амстердам.



That&#8217;s a lot to absorb, so be sure to head over to the site, <a href="https://russianpronunciation.com">russianpronunciation.com</a> to read the transcript and practice with all these names. And in the meantime, I&#8217;ll see you in Ep 19.

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 18

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Welcome
to episode 17. Today we&#8217;ll deal with a very common pronunciation
problem: The names of places. Like I mentioned back in Episode 2, the
first time I heard someone say &#8216;Рим&#8217; I
had no idea what they were talking about. I figured out it was a
city, but the vowel was so different I didn&#8217;t get it until she added,
Колизей, Ватикан&#8230;Понимаешь?



&#8220;Oh!
She&#8217;s talking about Rome.&#8221;



Place
names are always tough to pronounce because we so much want to say
them the way we do in English. So let&#8217;s start with some places in the
U.S. Listen carefully, and repeat:



Вашингтон



That
was the Russian version of Washington. Notice the &#8216;V&#8217; sound up front.
The letter W always poses a problem for Russians. They say &#8216;Vash&#8217;
instead of &#8216;Wash&#8217;. And do you hear the consonant cluster in there? 
An &#8216;N-G-and-T&#8217;? Listen again and tell me if the G (Г)
is voiced or not.



Вашингтон



The
G is devoiced, becoming what sound? A &#8216;k&#8217;&#8230;vash-ink-tone



You
might think, Why do I have to work on this? Surely they&#8217;ll understand
me if I call the city &#8216;Washington&#8217;. That&#8217;s its name, after all.
That&#8217;s true. I&#8217;m sure they would&#8230;but it would be pretty jarring. I
mean, when you&#8217;re speaking English, you wouldn&#8217;t tell your friends,
&#8220;Yeah, so me and my buddies we&#8217;re gonna take a trip to Москва
this summer. Then we might head over to Paris,
and then to København.&#8221;
 In English, we say Moscow and Paris and Copenhagen. Those are the
correct pronunciations and it&#8217;s odd to hear them any other way&#8230;even
if those are correct in their origin languages.



Next:
Which U.S. state is this?



Делавэр



Again,
the English W is problematic for Russians&#8230;even though they have the
fundamental sounds. They could say&#8230;Дэл-у-эр&#8230;But
they prefer to make it a V sound. Listen again.



Делавэр



So,
Russian prefers a &#8216;V&#8221; sound for our &#8216;W&#8217;
except&#8230;inexplicably&#8230;for the city of Wichita. Listen..



Уичито



See?
They can do it if they apply themselves. Here, Russian makes an
effort to approximate the sound. They use &#8216;У-И&#8217;
to make our &#8216;W&#8217;.



Another
letter that Russian can never decide on is the English letter &#8216;H&#8217;.
Sometimes they make it a G sound. Can you guess these locations?



Гавайи



Огайо



Бирмингем



The
first one was Hawaii. Listen again&#8230;Then Ohio&#8230;very odd, to my ear,
having that G (Г) in there. But what can
you do? And then Birmingham. It ends with a &#8216;gehm&#8217; sound. And yet,
these next ones, which also feature an English &#8216;H&#8217;&#8230;Russian went
with a &#8216;X&#8217; sound.



Хьюстон



Оклахома



Айдахо



Go
figure. And speaking of odd choices, check this one out. The great
state of&#8230;



Мичиган





Oddly,
Russian changed the &#8220;sh&#8221; sound – MISHagan&#8230;to a &#8220;ч&#8221;.
It&#8217;s as if they based it purely on the spelling and not how it
actually sounds. Right? Someone saw the &#8220;ch&#8221; there, and
said: Ok, here&#8217;s the official spelling.
We&#8217;ll just use out letter Ч for
that.



Same
with the city of&#8230;



Чикаго



Russian
has a &#8220;Ш&#8221;
sound&#8230;but someone saw that &#8216;ch&#8217; and went with Ч.



Sticking
with North America, which city is this?



Торонто



So,
Toronto – Торонто –
is a great example of how, in Russian, all unstressed O&#8217;s sound like
&#8216;uh&#8217;.



And
still in Canada, Russian went with the French version of Montreal.
Listen..



Монреаль



No
&#8216;T&#8217; sound in there. And careful with that soft-sign at the end.
Listen again&#8230;



Before
moving on to cities and countries on the other side of the Atlantic,
let&#8217;s review that phrase we learned in the last episode. Try to
say&#8230;I&#8217;m going to McDonalds. 




Я
иду в Макдоналдс. 




Was
our &#8216;В&#8217; voiced or devoiced? It was a full
&#8216;В&#8217; because of the M in
Макдоналдс. Now say you&#8217;re going to Starbucks.



Я
иду в Старбакс. 




Because
of the voiceless &#8216;Ст&#8217; combination, our
&#8216;В&#8217; is reduced to an F sound.



Now,
the verb иду translates as going&#8230;but
only by foot, going to places about town.
Places you could conceivably get to by foot. So let&#8217;s learn the
vehicle version of that. It&#8217;s very similar.



еду



For
ex: I&#8217;m traveling to Toronto. (obviously by vehicle)



Я
еду в Торонто.



Our
&#8216;В&#8217; is devoiced, because of the voiceless
T in Торонто.



Your
turn. Try to say: I&#8217;m traveling to Chicago. 




Я
еду в Чикаго.



I&#8217;m
traveling to Washington. 




Я
еду в Вашингтон.



I&#8217;m
traveling to Montreal. 




Я
еду в Монреаль.



Excellent.
Ok, now let&#8217;s move across the pond, as they say. Which European
capital is this?



Париж



Paris.
And this city? 




Осло





Oslo.



Again,
a reminder that all unstressed O&#8217;s sound like &#8216;uh&#8217;. And that, really,
is what I&#8217;m using all these names for in this episode&#8230;as a reminder
of the various pronunciation patterns we&#8217;ve learned. 




Next:
Listen to how Russians pronounce their city of St. Petersburg&#8230;



Санкт-Петербург



What
happens to the G (Г) at the end? Devoiced,
which turns the Г into a K sound. &#8220;boork&#8221;



Or
in Spain, the city of&#8230;.Мадрид



Again,
there&#8217;s our pattern of devoicing the final consonant. A devoiced Д
sounding like T.



But
remember, if we add a vowel after the Д,
it becomes voiced again. So try to say:



Papa
was in Madrid.



Папа
был в Мадриде.



Same
with the devoiced &#8216;Г&#8217; at the end of St.
Petersburg. If we add a vowel, the voicing returns.



Mama
was in St. Petersburg.



Мама
была в Санкт-Петербурге.



The
capital of Ukraine is Киев. A devoiced
&#8216;В&#8217; because it&#8217;s the final consonant. But
if we&#8217;re in Kiev, we add that &#8216;yeh&#8217; sound, which brings the
voicing back. 




My
husband was in Kiev. (And let&#8217;s include
the word &#8216;my&#8217; this time.)



Мой
муж был в Киеве.



Hear
the voiced &#8216;В&#8217; now? But if we&#8217;re
traveling to Kiev, we don&#8217;t add that sound. 




Try
to say: I&#8217;m traveling to Kiev. 




Я
еду в Киев.



Let&#8217;s
do a few more. I&#8217;m traveling to Oslo. 




Я
еду&#8230;в Осло.



&#8230;to
Paris. 




Я
еду в Париж.



&#8230;to
Madrid. 




Я
еду в Мадрид.



&#8230;to
St. Petersburg.



Я
еду в Санкт-Петербург. 




Speaking
of cities and pronunciation&#8230;What I find interesting is that the
Ukrainian city – currently called Днепр
after the river – used to be called Днепропетровск.
They only changed the name just a few years ago, I&#8217;m sure to
make it more visitor friendly. Which figures. I finally get the name
down, and they go and change it.



Anyway,
practice with these new place names we learned, and I&#8217;ll see you in
Episode 18.

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 17

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Today
I&#8217;d like to return to the topic of voiced and devoiced consonants,
looking at other letters this time, and more importantly, examining
how it works within consonant pairs and clusters. We recall that in
an unfamiliar word, it&#8217;s often very hard to guess the last letter.
Take the Russian word: дуб 




Is
that word spelled Д-У-П ? – which is
how it sounds – or Д-У-and a devoiced
&#8216;Б&#8217;? Hearing the word in isolation like
that, there&#8217;s no way to know.



The
issue here isn&#8217;t so much of developing our pronunciation. I mean,
it&#8217;s no challenge to say the word дуб.
The issue is realizing that what sounds like, for ex, a Z might
simply be a voiced S. Or what sounds like a T might be a devoiced D,
and so on. This not only helps with reading, of course, but with
comprehending the things we hear.



So
let&#8217;s get to work. What I want to uncover is the pattern behind
voicing and devoicing when consonants are grouped together. Tell me:
The Russian letter &#8216;В&#8217;&#8230;is it voiced or
devoiced? Put a hand to your vocal cords&#8230;Right. So spoken in
isolation, &#8216;B&#8217; is voiced. But listen to it here:



Я
иду в Старбакс.



That
was four words: Я&#8230;иду&#8230;в&#8230;Старбакс.
That &#8216;F&#8217; sound right before Starbucks was actually our Russian
&#8216;В&#8217;. It was devoiced. But why?



Let&#8217;s
look at the phrase again but instead of saying Starbucks, let&#8217;s say:
I&#8217;m going to McDonalds.



Я
иду в Макдоналдс.



Again,
it was four words: Я&#8230;иду&#8230;в&#8230;Макдоналдс.
Suddenly our Russian &#8216;В&#8217; is now
voiced? What&#8217;s going on? Let&#8217;s look at some more examples. All of the
following words will start with the Russian &#8216;В&#8217;.
Tell me if it&#8217;s voiced or devoiced. Ready?



волк&#8230;VOICED



вообще&#8230;VOICED



все&#8230;VOICELESS



вторник&#8230;VOICELESS



вполне&#8230;VOICELESS



взаимно&#8230;VOICED



вдали&#8230;VOICED



вместе&#8230;VOICED



What&#8217;s
going on with those three words where the В
was devoiced? 




все
– вторник &#8212;
вполне



Hmm&#8230;I
think I see a pattern: In Russian, voicing is determined by the
last letter in a cluster. 




Take
that first one: все



Do
you hear that &#8216;S&#8217; sound? That letter—which looks like the English
letter &#8216;C&#8217;—is naturally voiceless. That causes the В
to devoice, making it an F sound.



And
the next word: вторник Again, the В
becomes a voiceless F sound because the T that follows it is
naturally voiceless. 




And
the next word: вполне The П
which follows is naturally voiceless, and that devoices the В
into an F.



Similarly,
if the last consonant in a pair or cluster is voiced, then so are the
ones preceding it&#8230;.if possible. So we heard: взаимно.
 That 2nd letter is a Z (З)
&#8230;naturally voiced, which voices our В as
well.



Then
we heard: вдали. That 2nd
letter Д is naturally voiced, which
voices our В as well.



And
we heard: вместе The M is voiced, and
therefore so is our В.



For
our official phrases, let&#8217;s use those that we heard at the start. I&#8217;m
going to Starbucks.



Я
иду в Старбакс. 




The
&#8216;В&#8217; is devoiced here—it&#8217;s an &#8216;F sound.
Why? Because the consonants that follow—the &#8216;ST&#8217; (Ст
)of Старбакс, are voiceless. But if we&#8217; going to
McDonalds&#8230;



Я
иду в Макдоналдс.



It&#8217;s
a voiced &#8216;В&#8217; sound. Why? Because the M of
Макдоналдс is voiced. So basically, voicing shoots
backwards from the end of the group.



How
about the phrase: I&#8217;m going to the theater. Will the &#8216;В&#8217;
be voiced or devoiced? Hit pause and think about it. Listen&#8230;



Я
иду в театр. Devoiced into an &#8216;F&#8217;
sound, because the &#8216;T&#8217; of театр is
voiceless.



How
about: I&#8217;m going to the park.



Я
иду в парк. Again, &#8216;F&#8217; park&#8230;an
F sound because the П in парк is
voiceless.



What
if you&#8217;re going to the bank?



Я
иду в банк.



Now
it&#8217;s V bank&#8230;voiced, because the &#8216;Б&#8217;
in банк is voiced.



Let&#8217;s
work with a new letter. The Russian Д. On
its own, it&#8217;s voiced. Like in these words&#8230;



долго



дар



Дима



But
if it&#8217;s followed by a voiceless consonant? What sound will it become?
Hit pause and think about that. Answer: The letter Д
devoiced will sound like a T. Take the word &#8216;vodka&#8217; which, in
Russian, is: водка&#8230;(sounds like
&#8220;вот-ка&#8221;). Because that &#8216;k&#8217;
is voiceless, it forces the Д to sound
like a T.



In
Episode 13, if you recall, we worked with the letter Ж.
On its own, it&#8217;s voiced. Like in these words&#8230;



жар



жить



But
if it&#8217;s followed by a voiceless consonant, how will it sound? Hit
pause and think about that. Devoiced, the letter Ж
sounds like &#8220;sh&#8221; (Ш). Listen to
the following word, spelled L-O-ZH-K-A



ложка



Again,
the &#8216;k&#8217; is naturally voiceless, which turns the Ж
into a Ш.



All
of this works in reverse. If the last letter is voiced, then
voiceless consonants change into their voiced counterpart&#8230;if there
is one. Take the Russian letter &#8216;C&#8217;. On its own it&#8217;s voiceless. Like
in these words&#8230;



сад



сорт



сила



But
if it&#8217;s followed by a voiced consonant, how will it sound? Like in
English, a voiced S (C) sounds like a Z. Think of the word dogs
(sounds like dogz). The following word starts with the
letters С then Д.
Listen: сделать 




Since
&#8216;Д&#8217; is naturally voiced, the С
sounded like a Z (З)&#8230;Z-dyelat. If I
asked my little boy to write out that word (сделать)
I&#8217;m sure he&#8217;d use a Z (Зделать)
because that&#8217;s how it sounds.



These
are not hard and fast rules. Some voiced consonants never change, no
matter what. But I&#8217;m not going to list a bunch of rules for you to
memorize, because that&#8217;s not how language is learned. We&#8217;re just
pointing out the patterns, and trying to apply them to new
situations.



Before
we go, how would you say: I&#8217;m going to the center. 




What
sound will the letter &#8216;В&#8217; have?



Я
иду в центр.



Great
job. See you in the next episode!

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 16

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Welcome
to episode 15. Today we&#8217;ll be learning the chorus of a song called
Май. The chorus is only three lines
long, so let&#8217;s start with the first half of the first line.



А
за окном май 




That&#8217;s
four words: A&#8230;за&#8230;окном&#8230;май



&#8230;which
translates literally as: Beyond the window, it&#8217;s May. In
simpler language: It&#8217;s May outside. 




Say
the line again: А за окном май 




In
Episode 13 we briefly learned the word for &#8220;life&#8221;&#8230;Do you
recall it? It starts with a &#8220;zh&#8221; sound.



жизнь
 And although it doesn&#8217;t end with an &#8216;ah&#8217; sound,
it&#8217;s nevertheless secretly a feminine noun.



Which
is why, to say &#8220;my life&#8221; we need the feminine version of
&#8220;my.&#8221; Do you recall that word from the last lesson? моя



So
say: My life&#8230;Моя жизнь



And
what were the first four words of the chorus? А
за окном май



Say
it one more time? And now say: My life&#8230;. Excellent.



With
that out of the way, now let&#8217;s listen to a minute or so of the
song, and we&#8217;ll stop after the chorus. See if you can catch the word
that comes after &#8220;моя жизнь&#8221;



(
song clip )



What
did you hear after &#8220;моя жизнь&#8221;?
 The word was рай which translates as
paradise.



So
she&#8217;s saying: Beyond the window it&#8217;s May, my life is paradise. Listen
to her sing just that part.



Now
you say it&#8230;or sing it&#8230;: А за окном май, моя жизнь
&#8211; рай.



I
found the lyrics for this song on like ten different sites, and the
words were always identical, which tells me they&#8217;re all copying from
whatever site posted them first. And though I&#8217;m not a native speaker,
I think they&#8217;re missing one word. The online lyrics give four words
for the next line:



Шепчет
на ухо &#8211; обнимай.



&#8230;but
I hear the word &#8216;Он&#8217; before that. Он
шепчет на ухо – обнимай.



Their
version translates obscurely. Literally it would be: Whispers in
the ear – hug.



Who
whispers in the ear, you know? But if you add &#8216;он&#8217;
it makes more sense: He whispers in my ear&#8230;hug (me). But it&#8217;s not
just that it makes more sense. I hear it. So, the heck with online
lyrics, let&#8217;s try it my way: Он шепчет
на ухо – обнимай.



That
2nd
word is шеп — чет&#8230;.(shep&#8230;chet)&#8230;whispers



That
last word обнимай is a command
ending with our Short E from the last lesson.



Let&#8217;s
review what we have. Can you say the first line? It starts with А
за&#8230;



And
the second line? It starts with Он шепчет



Let&#8217;s
listen to that part again, then try to echo it&#8230; (clip)



I
have to do a real quick, random review because this is how memory
works. So&#8230;What&#8217;s the Russian word for husband? 




муж



And
for wife? 




жена



Meat
cooked on a skewer is called&#8230;? 




шашлык



And
a hot herbal drink is called&#8230;



чай



In
Russian, the fifth month of the year is called Май



Let&#8217;s
get back to the song. This time I&#8217;ll give the English translation as
a prompt.



Beyond
the window it&#8217;s May



My
life is paradise



He
whispers in the ear (meaning my ear)



hug
(me)



Let
me play the song from a few lines prior to the chorus, and see if you
can recite it or sing it along with her&#8230; (clip)



Alright,
and now the last line of the chorus.



А
я с ума&#8230;.That&#8217;s four words: А я с
ума



The
next word, схожу is a hard one to
crank out. You have an &#8220;s&#8221; sound, and then X.



That
phrase &#8220;я с ума схожу&#8221; translates as &#8220;I&#8217;m
going crazy.&#8221; Literally: I&#8217;m going out of my mind.



Because
he&#8217;s whispering in her ear, asking for a hug. And so she says&#8230;А
я с ума схожу ай-я-яй.



Let&#8217;s
try that third line again: А я с ума схожу, ай-я-яй.



The
whole chorus and I&#8217;ll prompt you with the first two words of each
line. Ready?



А
за&#8230;



Он
шепчет&#8230;.



А
я&#8230;



Again,
for memory&#8217;s sake, I need to test you on older material. How would
you say:



I
like tea. 




Мне
нравится чай. 




I
like yogurt. 




Мне
нравится йогурт. 




Where
is Starbucks located? 




Где
находится Старбакс?



Where
is the cashier located? 




Где
находится касса?



My
husband. 




Мой
муж.



My
wife. 




Моя
жена.



Last
one: Main tourist sites.



достопримечательности



Ok,
back to the song. Again, let me give you the English translation as a
prompt.



Beyond
the window it&#8217;s May



My
life is paradise



He
whispers in the ear (meaning my ear)



hug
(me)



I&#8217;m
going out of my mind&#8230;ai-ya-yai



Here&#8217;s
the song. Try the chorus with her&#8230;



If you join my <a href="http://russianaccelerator.com">Russian Accelerator course</a>, this would be a great first recording to send in to your Success Coach. When you join the course, we assign you one of our coaches who reaches out via email within the first few days. And when she does, send her this, Just record yourself reciting the chorus—you don&#8217;t have to sing it—and then send her the file. Our coaches are used to working with total beginners, so if you send them this, I&#8217;m sure she&#8217;ll be blown away.



Anyway,
keep working on it, and I&#8217;ll see you in the next episode.

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 15

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Welcome
to episode 14. Today we&#8217;ll be covering our last &#8216;tricky letter&#8217;. The
short E. Й



This
one isn&#8217;t so hard to pronounce as it is to read. For the most part,
the best way to think of it is like the &#8216;y&#8217; in boy&#8230;but very short
and sharp. Listen and repeat as our speakers say yogurt,
yoga, and York&#8230;as in New York. 




йогурт,
йога, Йорк, Нью-Йорк



And
now some words where the &#8216;й&#8217; it the final
letter. Listen? Май&#8230;чай



Let&#8217;s
make those our official words of this lesson, so let&#8217;s try to get the
meaning from context.



In
Russian, the fifth month of the year is called май



Try
this. Say: January, February, March, April, май



Next:
When you pour boiling water over herbal leaves, the resulting drink
is called&#8230;чай



Earl
Gray is famous for what drink? Чай



In
both of those, the vowel was an &#8216;a&#8217;. Now let&#8217;s try our И-краткий
after an accented or stressed O. Listen and
repeat&#8230;мой&#8230;твой&#8230;герой&#8230;домой



And
now we&#8217;ll hear it following an unstressed O. This is an odd sound,
and definitely a stumbling block for students. Listen&#8230;



шляпой



Again,
those last two letters are an O that&#8217;s unstressed—making it an &#8216;uh&#8217;
sound, as we remember—and then the short E at the end. Here are
some more:



девушкой





тряпкой



с
Мамой



с
Папой



с
Яной



Moving
on, let&#8217;s hear our short E after the vowel&#8230;Е



ей



дней



детей



чьей



Quick
review: Fill in the blank. Jan, Feb, March, April&#8230; май



The
two most popular caffeinated drinks are кофе
and&#8230;.чай



Let&#8217;s
extend our review back to the previous lesson.



I
like to read Popular Mechanics and G.Q., but Newsweek is my
favorite&#8230;журнал



The
tallest animal on Earth is the … жираф.



After
a hard workout I like to get a full-body&#8230;.массаж



I
always park my car in the …. гараж



Did
you remember to devoice those last two? Not &#8220;massaZH? but
&#8220;massash&#8221;? Excellent.



We&#8217;ll
do more review in a minute. But first, how would you pronounce the
following Russian word, spelled: М-О-and
Й (our Short E)? We heard it earlier in
the lesson&#8230; Мой&#8230;and we learned it,
actually, back in Episode 9. Remember the phrase: Oh my God.



О,
мой Бог. 




So
мой is one way to say &#8220;my&#8221;, in
Russian.



For
ex: Say: My husband



Мой
муж



My
shishkabob



Мой
шашлык



My
flower



Мой
цветок



My
beet and potato soup



Мой
борщ



My
boy



Мой
мальчик



My
soup



Мой
суп



My
tea



Мой
чай



For
feminine nouns—ones that end with an &#8220;ah&#8221; sound in their
basic form—we need a different form of &#8220;my&#8221;. Listen? 




моя



So
try to say: My wife. 




моя
жена



My
toy. 




моя
игрушка



My
pizza. 




моя
пицца



My
porridge.



моя
каша



Let&#8217;s
work some more with our Short E (Й).
Listen and repeat&#8230;



ай-я-яй



Russians
use that exclamation the same way we do in English. Like:
&#8220;Ай-я-яй&#8230;look at this traffic!&#8221;
And do you hear two &#8216;short E&#8217;s&#8217;? – ай-я-яй



Next:
In Russian, whenever we tell a friend or family member to do
something—to Look! or Listen! or Go! and so on—the command will
end with some kind of &#8216;ee&#8217; sound. Not always, but almost always. It
might be a long И
like&#8230;Смотри!
Look!
 or Скажи!
 Tell
me!



Or,
just as commonly, the command will end with our Short E sound. Like
the following&#8230;



давай



кушай



обнимай



слушай



Again,
each of those are commands&#8230;You&#8217;re telling someone. Do it! (давай)
or Eat! (кушай)
Hug me. (обнимай)
 Listen! (слушай)
And
those all ended with &#8216;a&#8217; and the Short E.



Some
commands end with O and the Short E. Like these&#8230;



построй



открой



закрой



стой



And
a few command forms end with an &#8220;u&#8221; plus the Short E. Like
these..



целуй



попробуй



рисуй



Let&#8217;s
take a moment and review the letters we&#8217;ve worked with these past
four lessons. Can you think of a word that starts with a &#8220;sh&#8221;
sound? Hit pause if you need to.



шашлык



How
about with that &#8220;sh-ch&#8221; sound? I&#8217;ll give you a hint:
Cabbage soup&#8230;



щи



And
a word that starts with a &#8220;ts&#8221; sound&#8230;like &#8220;its&#8221;&#8230;



цветок



How
about a word that starts with &#8220;zh&#8221; (Ж)?





жена



And
today&#8217;s &#8220;short E&#8221;&#8230;We really only looked at two words
which start with that sound. We heard them at the start of the
lesson. Do you recall? 




йогурт



йога



And
what were our official words for today? The 5th month of
the year is called&#8230;?



And
a hot drink that rivals coffee in popularity? 




And
finally, today, we learned two forms of the word &#8220;my.&#8221; Try
to say&#8230;



My
husband



мой
муж



My
wife. 




моя
жена



My
boy. 




мой
мальчик



My
toy. 




моя
игрушка



My
soup. 




мой
суп



My
porridge. 




моя
каша



My
tea. 




мой
чай



My
pizza.



моя
пицца



Alright.
Great job. Next lesson we&#8217;re going to learn the chorus of a really
nice song, so get those vocal cords ready and I&#8217;ll see you there.

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 14

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Welcome
to episode 13. Today we&#8217;ll be working with the letter Ж.
In English I&#8217;d sound it out with the letters &#8216;ZH&#8217;. Let&#8217;s start
by learning some common Russian words that have that sound, putting
them—as always—in context. Ready?



Imagine
you&#8217;re in a doctor&#8217;s office and on the coffee table you see: VOGUE,
Popular Mechanics, Cosmopolitan&#8230;Each of those is a журнал.



Next
word: With its seven foot neck, the tallest animal on Earth is the
жираф.



In
these next ones, listen to how Ж becomes
devoiced when it&#8217;s the final letter. We know that pattern, right? So:
Once a week I treat myself to a Swedish&#8230;массаж.



Hear
that? Devoiced, it sounds like the letter &#8220;Ш&#8221;.
Here&#8217;s another example&#8230;



The
standard American home has three bedrooms and a two-car гараж.



Let&#8217;s
try those again:



Newsweek
is my favorite &#8230; журнал



The
tallest animal on Earth is the … жираф.



After
a hard workout I like to get a full-body&#8230;.массаж



I
park my car in a …. гараж



Being
cognates, those four words are all pretty easy to absorb. But now
let&#8217;s try two purely Russian words. Can you figure them out?



Kevin
and Sara are married. When Kevin introduces Sara to new
acquaintances, he says, &#8220;This is Sara, my жена.
And when Sara is the one making introductions, she says, &#8220;This
is Kevin, my муж.&#8221;



What
were those two words again?



муж



жена



Do
you recall, back in Episode 6, we learned how to say: I was in the
bank. 




Я
был в банке.



And
a woman would phrase that&#8230;



Я
была в банке.



So
try to say: My husband was in Boston. Sidenote: Russians will leave
off the word &#8220;my&#8221; because it&#8217;s understood. So for now let&#8217;s
just say: Husband was in Boston. 




Муж
был в Бостоне.



How
about: My husband was in the bank.



Муж
был в банке.



My
wife was in London. 




Жена
была в Лондоне.



Or
try: My wife was in the theater.



Жена
была в театре.



You might be wondering why we say &#8216;в банке&#8217;. Why is there that &#8216;yeh&#8217; sound at the end? That&#8217;s a great question, but it&#8217;s beyond the scope of a pronunciation course. But I will tell you, it&#8217;s the very first topic we cover in my <a href="https://understandingspokenrussian.com/">Understanding Spoken Russian podcast</a>. By the end of Episode #1 you&#8217;ll be a master of what&#8217;s known as the prepositional case in Russian. 



Meanwhile&#8230;Let&#8217;s
review some of our recent vocabulary using the &#8216;I want&#8217; construction.
Try to say&#8230;



I
want a flower. 




Я
хочу цветок.



I
want eggs. 




Я
хочу яйца.



I
want beet and potato soup. 




Я
хочу борщ.



I
want cabbage soup. 




Я
хочу щи.



I
want shishkabob.



Я
хочу шашлык.



Now
ask your friend: Want a magazine? 




Хочешь
журнал?



Want
a massage?



Хочешь
массаж?



Again,
it&#8217;s not &#8220;massaZH&#8221; in Russian, but &#8220;massash&#8221;.
Devoiced.



When
we hear an unfamiliar word for the first time, it can be hard to
guess what that last letter is. Tell me, what&#8217;s the final letter in
the following words&#8230;



род
 




It
wasn&#8217;t a &#8216;T&#8217;, but actually a Д that was
devoiced. Next&#8230;



жив





Not
an &#8216;F&#8217; at the end but a &#8216;V&#8217; devoiced



круиз



Not
an &#8216;S&#8217; at the end but a devoiced Z.



грабёж



Not
a Ш but today&#8217;s letter Ж
 devoiced.



But
do you know what I do? I just ask. Like, with that last one,
грабёж&#8230;I&#8217;d ask Это
грабёш, или грабёЖ?



Speaking
of voiced and devoiced variants, let&#8217;s look again at our new words
from this lesson. Fill in the blanks.



During
the marriage ceremony, the minister asks: &#8220;Kevin, do you take
this woman to be your lawfully wedded&#8230;жена?&#8221;



&#8220;And
Sara, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded&#8230;муж?&#8221;



So
жена is our example for the voiced
version of Ж&#8230;and муж
has our devoiced version because it comes at the end of the
word.



Let&#8217;s
try two more words that contain ж. 




жизнь



What
does it mean? My grandfather died at the age of 97. He lived a long
and happy жизнь.



And
this word: хожу



My
son Andrei loves to tell people, &#8220;I хожу
to pre-school every day.&#8221;



Use
those two words to fill in the blanks here&#8230;



Imagine
an angry teenager: It&#8217;s my ____, let me live it the way I want.



It&#8217;s
my&#8230;life. (жизнь)



Every
day after work, I ____ to the gym. 




I
go&#8230;Я хожу&#8230;



You
don&#8217;t really need to remember those, but I wanted to share them with
you because we&#8217;ll soon be learning the chorus to a Russian song, and
these words are in it. So I wanted you to have some experience with
them before we got there. Let&#8217;s end with some review:



Newsweek
is my favorite&#8230;журнал



The
tallest animal on Earth is the жираф.



After
a hard workout I like to get a Swedish&#8230;.массаж



I
always park my car in the …. гараж



What&#8217;s
the Russian word for husband? And for wife? How do you say &#8216;life&#8217; in
Russian? And &#8216;go&#8217;, as in, I go to school. 




Alright. Great job. Check out my <a href="https://understandingspokenrussian.com/">Understanding Spoken Russian podcast</a>, and I&#8217;ll see you in the next episode.

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 13

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Welcome
to episode 12. Today we&#8217;ll be working with the letter Ц.
That&#8217;s a &#8220;ts&#8221; sound&#8230;As in that&#8217;s
&#8230;and Let&#8217;s&#8230;So, we&#8217;ll start by learning some common
Russian words that have that sound. Let&#8217;s hear them in context: 




The
Russian equivalent of a king or supreme monarch is called a&#8230;.царь





The
downtown area of a city is called the&#8230;.центр





In
Papa John&#8217;s I got a slice of pepperoni&#8230;.: пицца



Try
those again: 




The
Russian equivalent of a king is a&#8230;..



The
downtown area is called the&#8230;



Papa
John&#8217;s sells&#8230;.



Those
were pretty easy, so let&#8217;s try a purely Russian word. Again, here it
is in context:



A
rose, a carnation, a tulip&#8230;.Each of those is a kind of&#8230;цветок



Now
hold that thought as I sidetrack for a moment. Say the word &#8216;fruit.&#8217;
The Russian version is a cognate, except that they add a &#8216;k&#8217; sound
before the final T. Listen&#8230;



фрукт



Again,
we say &#8216;fruit&#8217; and they say&#8230;фрукт



So
now&#8230;I&#8217;m going to say some English words, and you say in Russian
whether the thing is a фрукт or 
цветок. Ready?



Apple&#8230;rose&#8230;orchid&#8230;banana&#8230;.kiwi&#8230;lilly&#8230;



And
while we&#8217;re reviewing: What&#8217;s the name of that porridge which
Russians love for breakfast?



каша



And
for lunch&#8230;.Meat cooked on a skewer is called&#8230;



шашлык



And
we also learned two Russian soups. The one based on cabbage is
called&#8230;



щи



And
the red one, with beets? 




борщ



Getting
back to the letter of the day, let&#8217;s learn another very Russian word.
You ready?



The
fundamental ingredient in any omelet is, of course,&#8230;.яйца



For
breakfast today, I had some toast and two scrambled&#8230;яйца



The
start of that word almost sounds like &#8220;yikes&#8221;, doesn&#8217;t it?
But it ends with the letters &#8220;ts&#8221;, and then an A. яйца
 (yah-ee-tsa)



In
Episode #8 we learned how to say, &#8220;I want&#8230;&#8221; Do you
remember that phrase?



Я
хочу



So
try to say: I want eggs.



Я
хочу яйца.



And
in Ep #4 we learned how to say good morning. Do recall it?



Доброе
утро.



So,
greet your roommate: Good morning. Want eggs?



Доброе
утро. Хочешь яйца?



Say:
No, I want fruit.



Нет,
я хочу фрукт.



Anyway&#8230;.The
other day, I was walking with my daughter Sophia past and we passed
the local florist shop. She tugged my coat: Papa, I want a flower.
 Can you say that in Russian?



Папа,
я хочу цветок.



For
more practice with this letter, I wrote a poem. It&#8217;s only eight words
long, and each one has our letter Ц in it.
We won&#8217;t bother translating it because, like all modern poetry, it
makes absolutely no sense. Anyway, repeat each word after the native
speaker&#8230;



цифра



тунец



церковь



капец



цикл



Кузнец



целый



конец



The
letter that it&#8217;s most often confused with is the Russian Z sound. (З)



So
let&#8217;s do side-by-side comparisons. 




зум&#8230;ЦУМ



зап&#8230;цап



зол&#8230;цол



зон&#8230;цон



It&#8217;s
a lot easier to distinguish those letters when they come at the end
of the word. Like these&#8230;



руз&#8230;руц



баз&#8230;бац



доз&#8230;доц



But
probably the toughest two words to distinguish—probably in the
whole language—are these:



свет&#8230;.цвет



The
first starts with an &#8216;S-V&#8217; combination. свет



The
other starts with our letter of the day: Ц&#8230;
цвет



Especially
problematic because the meanings are also related. The first means
light, as in, the light was in my eyes: свет



The
other means color: цвет



&#8230;although
that brings us back to our word for &#8216;flower&#8217;&#8230;Do you remember it?



цветок



So
the word for flower has grown, if you will, from the word color. So
that&#8217;s the connection you want to make.



And
what was the word for eggs? 




яйца



To
remember that word, you could use this phrase: I dropped the eggs.
Yikes, what a mess.



Yikes
leads us to&#8230;.яйца



And
that leads us to&#8230;the end of today&#8217;s lesson. See you in Episode #13.

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 12

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Welcome
to episode 11. Today I&#8217;ll be answering three of the most common
questions I get about Russian pronunciation. The first question is
about the Russian letter O. Here&#8217;s a typical email&#8230;



Hi
Mark, I&#8217;m confused about the letter O. Sometimes it sounds like &#8216;oh&#8217;
and sometimes it&#8217;s like an &#8216;ah&#8217; sound. How can I know which it&#8217;ll be?



Good
question. You&#8217;ve probably noticed that—no matter how long a Russian
word is—it only has one stressed syllable. Even the longest one of
all—достопримечательности—only
one vowel gets stressed. Just like English words. 




Now
in Russian, when an O gets the stress, it is indeed pronounced like
an Oh. But if it doesn&#8217;t get the stress, it sounds like &#8216;uh.&#8217;
Take the Russian word for milk. It has the letters &#8216;M-L-K&#8217; just like
English, but there&#8217;s three O&#8217;s in there: М-О-Л-О-К-О



If
you&#8217;ve never heard it pronounced by a native speaker, then there&#8217;s no
telling where the stress will be. It could be MO-loko&#8230;mo-LO-ko&#8230;or
moloKO. There&#8217;s no rule. No way to know. Listen
to the native speaker: молоко



Ok.
Now I know. The stress is on the end.



Do
you remember the word we learned that translates as &#8220;okay,&#8221;
or &#8220;sure&#8221;. Like, someone tells you to call back in five
minutes. You agree by saying&#8230;.



&#8220;Хорошо.&#8221;



Now
that word, if you&#8217;ve never seen it written, has three O&#8217;s in it, just
like молоко. And since the final O is
the one that get the stress, the other two are reduced to &#8220;uh&#8221;
sounds. huh-ruh-SHOW.



So,
again, there&#8217;s no way to guess which vowel gets the emphasis in
Russian. You have to hear it, first. That&#8217;s one of the reasons why,
as a beginner, you want to put all your emphasis on learning to speak
Russian. Because once you know the words, reading them is a breeze.
You&#8217;ll already know where the stress goes. That&#8217;s the same way you
learned to speak English. You had been speaking it for years, first.



The
second question I get a lot is about the Russian letter G (Г).
 The emails always come just after the student encounters the
word ничего. Tell me: Do you hear a
&#8216;G&#8217; sound in there? ни&#8230;че&#8230;го



Me
neither. And yet the final consonant—that &#8220;vo&#8221; sound—is
spelled with the letter G.



What
cracks me up is how frustrated the person always is. &#8220;Argh! I
thought the letter Г was pronounced as a
&#8216;guh.&#8217; So why is nichivo spelled ike that? Shouldn&#8217;t it be
with a V?&#8221;



People&#8230;English
is a million times worse. Just take our letter O. In the word &#8216;women&#8217;
it&#8217;s an &#8220;ih&#8221; sound, but in &#8216;woman&#8217; it&#8217;s an unwriteable &#8216;uh&#8217;
sound. In the word &#8216;bother&#8217; it&#8217;s an &#8216;ah&#8217; but in &#8220;mother&#8221;
it&#8217;s an &#8220;uh&#8221; sound. Even the simplest words&#8230;I mean, why
doesn&#8217;t &#8220;so&#8221; (s-o) rhyme with &#8220;do&#8221; (d-o)? The
letters N-O-W spell &#8220;now&#8221; but you put an S in front and you
get SNOW? Even double OO&#8217;s don&#8217;t make any sense. Why doesn&#8217;t good
rhyme with food? And that&#8217;s just the letter O. Heck, Russians
have a joke about English: If it&#8217;s
spelled Manchester,
it&#8217;s pronounced Liverpool.



So&#8230;Yes,
the Russian Г is sometimes pronounced as a
&#8220;v&#8221; sound. Big deal. Here, repeat the following words, and
listen for a &#8220;vuh&#8221; sound in each one.



сегодня&#8230;.его&#8230;.хорошего&#8230;.плохого&#8230;.ничего



All
those &#8220;vuh&#8221; sounds&#8230;they&#8217;re spelled with the letter Г.
And finally, I can&#8217;t help but point out: 




How
about the English G? Tell me how it&#8217;s pronounced in the word cough.
Or garage. Compared to English, Russian is a nearly perfect
spelling system, with words sounding out exactly as they&#8217;re spelled.
So please, no complaining.



Moving on&#8230; Most of the of emails I get are from people wanting to know if they&#8217;re pronouncing some word correctly. And that&#8217;s such an important point. You&#8217;re studying Russian on your own, learning words and phrases, but you have no one to practice with and so you&#8217;re understandably worried that you&#8217;re not saying things right. That&#8217;s what everyone worries about, I think: Will they understand me?



If for no other reason, that is why I encourage you to join my <a href="http://russianaccelerator.com/">Russian Accelerator course</a>. Because along with lifetime access to the course, you get a full year of our Success Coaching. There you can send in recordings of yourself speaking Russian, and our native speaking coaches will listen and let you know that they understood you, and give helpful feedback so you can get even better. It&#8217;s one of the reasons Russian Accelerator is so popular, because it&#8217;s highly interactive. You study one of the lessons, send in your recording&#8230;then you can move on with confidence. You&#8217;ll know that Yes, people understand me. I&#8217;m saying this right.



Moving
on: The last category of questions I get deal with the really tricky
Russian consonants. Like Ш versus Щ
, or З versus Ц
and so on. The good news is, that&#8217;s exactly what we&#8217;ll be
covering in the upcoming episodes of this course. For today, let&#8217;s
choose the really troublesome pair of consonants: Ш
vs Щ 




On
paper, they both look like an English W, except with flat bottoms.
Here&#8217;s the first one which is pronounced like &#8220;sh&#8221; in
English. Listen to the following syllables, each of which start with
Ш , and repeat after the native speaker&#8230;



шу



ша



ши



ше



And
now the 2nd one. Like I said, on paper it resembles an
English W, but this one has a little tail on the right. So, using
English letters I&#8217;d sound it out with &#8220;sh-ch&#8221;.
 Say the words &#8220;fish chips&#8221;&#8230;from the end of fiSH
and the start of Chips&#8230;fiSHCHips. So again, repeat
these two letter combinations after the native speaker.



щу



ща



щи



ще



Let&#8217;s
do those side by side.



шу
 – щу



ша
 – ща



ши
 – щи



ше
 – ще



To
really get these down, we&#8217;ll learn four new words today. All of them
foods. These first two are popular Russian soups. Do you hear a &#8220;sh&#8221;
or &#8220;sh-ch&#8221;? Listen and repeat:



щи



борщ



Those
both had the tricky one&#8230;the &#8220;sh-ch&#8221; consonant. Try them
again..



щи
….is a soup made from cabbage, while&#8230;



борщ&#8230;is
a red soup made from beets and potatoes.



Next
word: шашлык



When
you put raw meat on a skewer and put it over hot coals for a while,
you end up with шашлык (shashlik).
What we&#8217;d call in English shishkakbob. And do you hear how it
has that simpler sound? The plain &#8220;sh&#8221; sound? 
Twice&#8230;шашлык



And
finally, we have the word&#8230;каша&#8230;.which
is porridge, usually made from buckwheat. Pretty much every Russian
and Ukrainian child is raised on kasha for breakfast.



Let&#8217;s
try all four again. Cabbage soup is&#8230;?



Beet
and potato soup is&#8230;.?



Meat
cooked on a skewer is&#8230;



And
the breakfast staple throughout the former Soviet Union is&#8230;.



Alright.
Great job. If you have a moment, please check out my Russian
Accelerator course, and in the meantime, I&#8217;ll see you in Episode 12.

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 11

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Alright,
this is episode 10 of Learn Russian Pronunciation. Today is the
midterm, where I&#8217;ll test you on pretty much everything we&#8217;ve learned
so far. So let&#8217;s do it&#8230;



How
are the letters M-A-L pronounced in Russian? мал



Now
add a soft-sign at the end. маль



Say
those side-by-side. Without the soft-sign: мал



&#8230;and
with it: маль



Next:
How do Russians pronounce Italy&#8217;s capital?



Рим



What
is the main food item sold at places like Burger King and McDonalds?



гамбургер



Speaking
of rolled R&#8217;s, what&#8217;s the Russian name of this instrument? (violin)
Remember that mnemonic device we came up with—what I calla
PowerPhrase? I gave up the violin because all I did was make
scraping sounds. That word scrape
leads us to&#8230;



скрипка



скрипка
starts with a consonant cluster. The topic of Ep #3. So let&#8217;s try
another one from that lesson. Try to pronounce a Russian V-D-and
R&#8230;(Вдр)&#8230;Now
add an &#8220;u&#8221; sound at the end.



вдру&#8230;вдру&#8230;



Finally,
if we put a Russian G (Г) at the very end,
how will it sound? Do you think it&#8217;ll be voiced or unvoiced?



вдруг



G
was the final letter, so—following the pattern—we donэt
voice it, and so it sounds just like a K. вдруг (like
&#8220;вдрук&#8221;)



Next,
let&#8217;s try some listening practice with that pair of vowels: Ы
 and И



In
each of the following words, say &#8220;the first one&#8221; if you
hear that troublesome Ы vowel&#8230;and say
&#8220;the second one&#8221; if you hear the И
vowel. Ready?



был&#8230;.1st
one



бил&#8230;.2nd
one



мыть&#8230;.1st
one



Вы&#8230;.1st
one



Тим&#8230;.2nd
one



дым&#8230;.1st
one



You&#8217;re
doing great, let&#8217;s keep going. In Episode #8 we worked with that
Russian letter X. So tell me, what are we listening to here? (Bach
choir) 




Хор



We
say &#8216;choir&#8217;, but Russians replace that &#8220;ch&#8221; with their X
sound.



And
the composer, by the way&#8230;His name is Johann Sebastian&#8230;what? Бах



When
an artist like Taylor Swift releases a new album, she probably hopes
that every song will become a&#8230;.what&#8217;s the word in Russian? 




Хит



To
sweeten my coffee, I added a tablespoon of&#8230;what&#8217;s the word?



сахар



Great
job. And then, in Episode 9 we looked at the phenomenon of voiced and
devoiced consonants.



Let&#8217;s
take the Russian letter B&#8230;It looks like a capital English &#8216;B&#8217;. When
it stands alone, it&#8217;s voiced. V. So, how will this word be
pronounced? (ВАС) V-A-S? Will it be
voiced or unvoiced?



Вас
 




Very
much voiced. But let&#8217;s put it at the end of a word. П-Л-О-В&#8230;How
will that sound?



плов
 




Unvoiced.
Like an &#8220;F&#8221; Плов (like ПЛОФ)
by the way is how Russians say pilaf&#8230;that rice
kind of dish. Now let&#8217;s put that letter in the middle of a word.
(ЛАВА) L-A-V-A&#8230;How will it sound?



лава
 




Voiced
again. Got it? You&#8217;re doing great.



&#8230;but
we&#8217;re not done. Let&#8217;s run through the words and phrase we officially
learned in each lesson.



Ask
your friend: Pavel was in the park?



Павел
был в парке?



Change
Pavel to Maria.



Мария
была в парке?



Did
you add that &#8216;a&#8217; to the end of the verb—была&#8211;because
Maria is a woman?



Next:
I&#8217;m gonna butcher some French words here, but&#8230;The Eiffel Tower, the
Louvre museum, and the Arc D&#8217; Triumph are just a few of the _____ in
Paris. What&#8217;s the word?



достопримечательности



Next:
How do we convey the idea that: I like soccer. How do Russians
literally phrase that?



To
me&#8230;.is pleasing&#8230;.soccer.



Мне
нравится футбол.



Say:
I really like basketball. Literally&#8230;.what? To me&#8230;very
pleasing&#8230;basketball.



Мне
очень нравится баскетбол.



Ask
someone: Where is Starbucks located?



Где
находится Старбакс?



Imagine
you&#8217;re staying in a Moscow hotel. It&#8217;s morning time, so greet the
concierge, and then ask him where GOOM is. ГУМ
is a famous shopping mall.



Доброе
утро. Где находится ГУМ?



So,
you walk to Red Square, which is where GOOM is located, and on the
way you decide instead to see Lenin&#8217;s tomb. But when you get there,
the line stretches all the way along the Kremlin wall. What&#8217;s the
Russian version of, Oh, my God&#8230;



О,
мой Бог.



Imagine
you&#8217;re waiting for you bags in the airport. Finally, your Samsonite
comes chugging along the conveyor. How do you express your relief in
Russian?



Слава
Богу&#8230;Literally? Glory to God.



Next:
My wife and I have twins. Sophia is our little girl. And William is
our&#8230;.мальчик



Did
you nail that soft-sign after the L? That&#8217;s why we learned that word.
Say it again..



It
helps to almost say the English word &#8220;mile&#8221;&#8230;mile-cheek&#8230;but
bring your tongue up to the roof of your mouth. МАЛЬ-чик



Next&#8230;Fill
in the blank. When I was a boy, my favorite ____ was my G.I. Joe
doll.



Игрушка



So,
your hotel bar is offering free soft drinks. Without trying to sound
too rude, tell the bartender: I want a Sprite.



Я
хочу Спрайт.



In
your apartment, you offer to make dinner for your roommate. Pull out
a can of Campbell&#8217;s chicken broth and ask him, with two words: Want
soup?



Хочешь
суп?



You
could also phrase it the other way:



Суп
хочешь?



He
shrugs and says the Russian word for, Okay.



Хорошо.



We&#8217;re
just about done here, guys. And since I&#8217;ll be seeing you in the next
episode, how should we part ways? Literally&#8230;Until the meeting.



До
встречи

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 10

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Welcome
to episode 9. Today we&#8217;re going to examine a phenomenon known as
voiced and devoiced consonants. Here&#8217;s what I&#8217;d like you to do.
Assuming you&#8217;re not driving at the moment, put your fingers on your
throat and say the word &#8220;cats.&#8221; Now say the word &#8220;dogs.&#8221;
Feel the difference? Both words end with the letter S, but our vocal
cords only vibrate when we say &#8220;dogs.&#8221; And that vibration,
when we use our vocal cords to make a consonant, we call it voicing.
Pretty logical term.



Now
here&#8217;s a question: When did you memorize these rules for which
consonants in English are voiced? Did you study some charts in a
textbook? Or maybe your English teacher explained the rules back in
grade school? You must&#8217;ve memorized them somewhere, or else how do
you know that—for example—the letters &#8220;ed&#8221; at the end
of the word &#8216;parked&#8217; are devoiced, and yet the &#8216;ed&#8217; at the end of
&#8216;shoved&#8217; are voiced?



Of
course you didn&#8217;t memorize any rules. That&#8217;s ridiculous. What
happened was, as a kid, you had tons of exposure to these sounds and
over time you picked up the patterns. That&#8217;s all it is. And yet, do a
search of &#8220;russian pronunciation,&#8221; and every single course
you find makes a show of all the pronunciation rules they intend to
make you memorize. As if that is how language is learned.



The
way language is actually acquired—the way our brains are hard
wired—is to look for patterns. 




For
ex: The Russian letter Г 




On
its own you can feel that Г is voiced.
Our vocal cords vibrate. So listen, and repeat these words:



Галина



гулять



Гора



Гид



The
G was at the start of those words, and it was voiced each time. In
these next ones, the G will be the last letter. Listen:



Бог



враг



луг



Is
it just me, or did those all sound like they ended with a K? Listen
again&#8230;



Well,
actually, those are G&#8217;s&#8230;but they are devoiced. So it seems
that we&#8217;ve spotted a pattern. Let&#8217;s see if we can extrapolate. How
will the Russian word for &#8216;flag&#8217; be pronounced? It&#8217;s a direct
cognate, spelled with an F, an L, an A and a G. What&#8217;s your best
guess—how will it sound?



Флаг
 (like: флак)



Did
you make that G at the end sound like a K? Awesome. That means the
pattern is already sinking in. Let&#8217;s look at those last four
words—the ones where Г (G)
was the final letter—but not let&#8217;s add a vowel after that G.
Listen&#8230;



Богу



врага



луга



Флагом



Huh&#8230;Our
&#8216;G&#8217; is now voiced again. Interesting. Listen again.



So
how do you think the Russian word for a &#8216;toga&#8217; will be pronounced?
You know, like that white robe the ancient Romans used to wear.
T-O-Г-A&#8230;What&#8217;s your guess? Listen&#8230;



Тога



Was
the G voiced or not? It was voiced. Gosh, how did you get that right?
We haven&#8217;t memorized any pronunciation charts yet. Don&#8217;t we need a
long and complicated list of rules before we can correctly pronounce
Russian words?



No.
We just need to spot the patterns.



Let&#8217;s
try that again with a different letter. The Russian Д
(D). Like the letter Г,
the Russian letter Д is voiced when
it stands alone. And in these words? Listen&#8230;



доллар



диск



дать



дуб



The
Д was at the start of those words, and it
was voiced each time. In these next ones, it will be the last letter.
Listen.



мёд



год



сад



Again&#8230;.Is
it just me, or did those all sound like they ended with a T? Listen
again.



Well,
actually, those are D&#8217;s&#8230;but, being at the very end of those
words, they&#8217;re devoiced. So again, let&#8217;s see if we can extrapolate.
How will the Russian word for &#8216;code&#8217; be pronounced? Just three
letter: K-O-Д



код



Did
you make that Д at the end sound like the
letter Т? Awesome. Let&#8217;s look at those
last four words—the ones where Д was the
final letter—and let&#8217;s add a vowel after it. Listen&#8230;



мёдом



году



саду



кода



Huh&#8230;Our
Д is voiced again. So, here&#8217;s a quiz:
There&#8217;s a very popular, very cheap Russian automobile, and it&#8217;s
spelled like this: L-A-D-A. How do you think the word is pronounced?



Лада



Did
you voice the Д? Excellent!



To
help us internalize these patterns, let&#8217;s learn two гыуагд
phrases. For now, just listen and repeat:



О,
мой Бог&#8230;



That
was three words. O, мой Бог



Imagine
you and your partner have been arguing about something for hours. It
seems like you&#8217;ve finally agreed to disagree and you walk away&#8230;and
then the other person brings it up again. You say, &#8220;Oh
(groan&#8230;groan). Are we still talking about this?&#8221;



(i.e.
Oh my God!) Are we still talking about this?!



What
would you say there, where I groaned? &#8220;Oh my God, are we
still discussing this?&#8221;



That&#8217;s
what О, мой Бог means. Literally,
Oh&#8230;my&#8230;.God.



That
last word is spelled Б-О-Г but the G
(Г) is devoiced. Бог



Here&#8217;s
our second phrase: Слава Богу



That&#8217;s
just two words. Listen again?



What
does it mean? Well, let&#8217;s say you&#8217;re out somewhere with friends when
you realize your wallet is missing. In a panic, you check everywhere.
Can&#8217;t find it. So you go to the cafe where you guys had lunch. And
there it is, under the table where you&#8217;d been eating. You pick
it&#8230;&#8221;Слава Богу&#8230;I found
it!&#8221;



In
normal English, we&#8217;d say, &#8220;Thank God.&#8221; But literally in
Russian Слава Богу translates as
Glory to God. And since the G (Г) is
no longer the final letter, it&#8217;s back to being voiced.



Let&#8217;s
do those side by side. Oh my God&#8230;



О,
мой Бог.



Thank
God&#8230;lit: Glory to God&#8230;



Слава
Богу



For today&#8217;s review, see if you can recall on your own, the official word or phrase from the first eight episodes. You do that, and I&#8217;ll see you in Ep. 10&#8230; our mid-term!

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 9

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Welcome
to episode 8. Today we&#8217;re going to work with this letter: Х
&#8230;which, on paper, looks like an X. It&#8217;s similar to that
sound we make when we don&#8217;t like some food. эххх
(yuch)



When
importing words from other languages, Russian sometimes use Х
in place of a &#8220;ch&#8221; sound.



So,
&#8220;choir&#8221; becomes: хор



And
&#8220;character&#8221; – like, he&#8217;s got a nice character –
becomes: характер



But
more often, they use it in place of the English &#8216;h&#8217;. For example,
Halloween becomes:



Хэллоуин



Hooligan
becomes хулиган



A
hit, in the sense of a hit song, is: хит 
(Remember, Russians don&#8217;t have an &#8220;ih&#8221;, so that
vowel becomes an &#8220;ee.&#8221;) 




The
Hulk becomes: Халк&#8230;and so on.



One
of the most common Russian words with this sound is: хорошо



If
you&#8217;ve been at Russian for a while, you&#8217;ve likely encountered that
word, but here it is in context, just in
case. Imagine that you were just riding an amazing roller coaster.
&#8220;How was it?&#8221; your Russian friend asks. And you say&#8230;



&#8220;Очень
хорошо!&#8221;



Hey,
how was the new Terminator movie?



&#8220;Очень
хорошо!&#8221;



So
in that context, хорошо translates as
good. 




But
it&#8217;s also used to agree with some proposal. For ex: &#8220;Hey Mark,
wanna shoot some hoops?&#8221;



&#8220;Хорошо.
Let me just put sneakers on.&#8221;



&#8220;Alright.
Be outside in five minutes and I&#8217;ll pick you up.&#8221;



&#8220;Хорошо.&#8221;



So
here it translates as, &#8220;Ok, sure&#8221;.



I
never found it too hard to pronounce that letter when it was the
start of a word. But for some reason it&#8217;s a little tougher when it&#8217;s
in the middle. For example, the word Manhattan in Russian is
pronounced: Манхэттен



Or
this word: сахар. &#8230;which is Russian
for &#8216;sugar&#8217;&#8230; (a word they took from German.)



Try
to say: I like sugar. Lit: To me is pleasing sugar.



Мне
нравится сахар.



Another
word where X is in the middle is: нахал. It&#8217;s
kind of a bad word. Like, &#8220;Man, I
hate that guy! He&#8217;s such a нахал!&#8221;
 Usually translates as
jerk.



Oddly,
Russians decided to use the Х sound when
pronouncing the state of Texas. Odd, because they could sound it out
much more accurately with other letters: (Т-Э-К-С-А-С.)
But instead, they used х for the
English X. Listen: Техас. 




It&#8217;s
almost as if someone just looked at the word and decided,
&#8220;Okay, this is how we&#8217;re gonna spell it.&#8221; As opposed to
listening.



So
try to say: Olga was in Texas.



Ольга
была в Техасе.



Or
this: Houston is located in Texas.



Хьюстон
находится в Техасе.



The
official word I&#8217;d like to teach you today is actually a two word
phrase: Я хочу



Again,
you&#8217;ve probably encountered that phrase elsewhere, but having taught
thousands of people Russian over the years, I can say it seems pretty
hard for some students to pronounce. They either don&#8217;t say it
strongly enough&#8230;.basically turning it into an (English) H&#8230;Ya
hochu.



Or
they hit it way too hard: Я хочу (aggressive
X)



Remember
earlier, how my friend invited me to play hoops? Imagine afterwards,
I mention I&#8217;m thirsty. He opens his fridge: &#8220;I&#8217;ve got Sprite and
Pepsi.&#8221; 




So
I say&#8230;&#8221;Я хочу Спрайт.&#8221;



&#8220;Хорошо.&#8221;
(soda can pops
open) &#8220;На,&#8221;&#8230;he
says, handing me the can.



So,
я хочу translates as I
want. Try to say: I want sugar.



Я
хочу сахар.



I
want ketchup.



Я
хочу кетчуп.



Mind
you, it&#8217;s pretty rude—in any language—to phrase things this way.
But we&#8217;re just practicing our new construction.



To
ask a friend if they want something, we need a different form of the
verb—what&#8217;s known as a conjugation. Listen:



Хочешь?



You
want?



Mark,
want soup?



Марк,
хочешь суп?



Хорошо.



You
try it. Say: Irina, want a hamburger?



Ирина,
хочешь гамбургер?



Pavel,
want a hotdog?



Павел,
хочешь хот-дог?



Say:
I want a salad.



Я
хочу салат.



I
want borscht&#8230;.(which is a soup made from beets and potatoes.)



Я
хочу борщ.



Let&#8217;s
end with some review. You&#8217;ve just arrived to St. Petersburg and your
friend asks what you&#8217;d like to see. With one word, say: the main
tourist sites. 




достопримечательности



How
do you greet someone in the morning? 




доброе
утро



And
how might you part ways with a friend? 




до
встречи&#8230;Which literally means? Until the meeting



Let&#8217;s
say you&#8217;re talking about holidays. Try to say: I like Halloween.



Мне
нравится Хэллоуин.



In
a bar, your friend is offering to buy you a beer. Tell him: I want a
Heineken.



Я
хочу Хайнекен.



Turns
out, the bar is out of beer, so how does your friend ask: Want a
Pepsi?



Хочешь
Пепси?



Okay.



Хорошо.



If you got most of those, you&#8217;re doing great. Hopefully you&#8217;re feeling more confident about your <a href="https://russianpronunciation.com">Russian pronunciation</a>. And if so, I encourage you to check out my video-based course, called <a href="http://russianaccelerator.com/why-it-works.html">Russian Accelerator</a>. And in the meantime, I&#8217;ll see you in the next episode.

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 8

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Welcome
to episode 7 of Learn Russian Pronunciation. Today we&#8217;re going to
learn a sneaky little trick, a pronunciation hack, I guess they&#8217;d
call it, to help with a very common Russian word. I call it a whisper
vowel. So here&#8217;s the word we&#8217;ll be focusing on today: нравится



It
starts with an N – R combination. It&#8217;s very hard, for me, anyway,
to jump from pure silence, directly into that N sound. So I add a
whisper vowel in front of it. The sound &#8220;ih&#8221;.



Like
this: ih-nravitsa. 




It&#8217;s
just for practice, so I can get a feel for the word. Then I alternate
back and forth. Like this:
ih-nravitsa&#8230;нравится&#8230;.ih-nravitsa&#8230;нравится



What
does the word mean? It&#8217;s very tempting just to tell you the
translation, but again, that would be lazy teaching&#8230;and it&#8217;s not
the best way for you to really grasp the word. These examples are
gonna be a little awkward, but let&#8217;s just see what translation you
come up with. So&#8230;This woman&#8230;



(audio
clip)



I
find her voice very mellifluous. I love listening to it. But this guy
(annoying guy from Independence Day)&#8230;Ugh, his voice, to me, is not
nravitsa.



Or
this example: I find mushrooms disgusting. But onions, to me, are
very nravitsa.



Tricky,
isn&#8217;t it? Almost every course out there will translate нравится
as &#8220;like&#8221;. That is:



I
like pizza. &#8211; Мне нравится пицца.



And
I am telling you, that is not correct. Because the word literally
translates as &#8220;is pleasing.&#8221;



Pizza
to me is pleasing.



Пицца
мне нравится.



It&#8217;s
much more commonly phrased this way: To me&#8230;.is
pleasing&#8230;.whatever. 




To
me is pleasing soup.



Мне
нравится суп.



Yes,
if I&#8217;m interpreting for someone, of course I&#8217;ll use normal English
and translate it as: I like soup. 




But
to speak Russian grammatically, you have to think the way they think.
And with this verb, нравится&#8230;you&#8217;re
not &#8220;liking&#8221; anything. It is the food—or whatever it
is—that&#8217;s doing the action. The pizza is pleasing to you.



This
is called Super-Literal Translation. It&#8217;s an absolutely vital step in
trying to learn the language. So basically, here&#8217;s the process: I
want to tell say: I like rice. But before saying anything in
Russian, you have to think of the Super Literal way that Russians
phrase that idea, which is: To me&#8230;is pleasing&#8230;rice. And that is
the version that we then translate from: Мне&#8230;.нравится&#8230;рис.



Again, this course is meant to focus on pronunciation issues, which is why I keep directing you my other, conversational courses like Russian Made Easy or my online video course, called <a href="http://russianaccelerator.com/">Russian Accelerator</a>. Because in those courses, I give you the SLT—the super literal translation—of every single phrase, training you to think in Russian. So be sure to check those out&#8230;but for now, let&#8217;s get back to our word of the day. Try to say: To me&#8230;is pleasing&#8230;football.



Мне
нравится футбол.



I
like basketball.



Мне
нравится баскетбол.



Try
not to pause between your words. Remember, that&#8217;s what fluency is all
about. No pauses.



So
not this: Мне. Нравится. Бокс. But
instead&#8230;Мне-нравится-бокс&#8230;Like
it&#8217;s one long word. Бокс by the way,
is the sport of boxing.



Alright,
let&#8217;s do some review. Ask your friend: Pavel was in the bank?



Павел
был в банке?



Change
Pavel to Maria.



Мария
была в банке?



Did
you add that &#8216;a&#8217; to the end of the verb—была&#8211;because
Maria is a woman? That was our big vowel from the last episode,
right? Ы And do you remember the formal
way to say &#8220;you&#8221; in Russian? 




Вы



Good.
And the version you&#8217;d use with friends? 




Ты



Imagine
that a man is about to introduce himself. Listen?



Меня
зовут Игорь.



Repeat
his name and add, Very pleasant. 




Игорь?
Очень приятно.



So
let&#8217;s use that word очень&#8230;(which
means &#8220;very.&#8221;) In normal English, I might say: I really
like tennis. In Russian, they would would phrase that idea like this:
To me very pleasing tennis. Listen&#8230;



Мне
очень нравится теннис.



Try
to say: I really like soccer. That is: To me very pleasing 
football.



Мне
очень нравится футбол.



Remember,
keep that sound flowing. No pauses, especially not between очень
 and нравится. If you want
to pause for effect, you could do this: Мне&#8230;ОЧЕНЬ
 нравится.



Now
the word очень ends with a soft-sign.
So let&#8217;s compare. Let&#8217;s take away the soft-sign&#8230;



очен
 (that&#8217;s not a word in Russian)



And
now, properly, with a soft-sign at the end: очень



Again,
side by side: No soft-sign: очен



And
with it&#8230;. очень



It&#8217;s
almost like the first &#8220;n&#8221; in the word onion. (slowly)
onion&#8230;There&#8217;s a nyeh sound. Listen again: очень



So,
imagine you&#8217;re at a Russian friend&#8217;s house having dinner. What do you
think she&#8217;s asking you:



Тебе
нравится суп?



To
you is leasing the soup? In other words, do you like the soup?



Say:
Yes. Very. Да. Очень.



Let&#8217;s
try that again. Тебе нравится салат?



To
you is pleasing the salad?



Say:
Yes. Very.



A
little more review from earlier episodes. What&#8217;s the Russian word for
&#8216;boy&#8217;?



мальчик



And
the word for &#8216;toy&#8217;? 




игрушка



And
speaking of rolled R&#8217;s&#8230;How do you greet someone in the morning?



доброе
утро



Quick
question—answer this in Russian: What&#8217;s the capital of Italy?



Рим



And
speaking of that city: The Trevi Fountain, the Coliseum, the
Pantheon&#8230;those are just a few of the&#8230;.what&#8217;s the word? 




достопримечательности



Say:
I really like Rome. Lit: To me very pleasing Rome.



Мне
очень нравится Рим.



I
really like Berlin. 




Мне
очень нравится Берлин.



Alright.
Keep up the great work, and I&#8217;ll see you in Episode #8.

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 7

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Alright,
this is episode 6. Today we&#8217;re going to hone in on the most
troublesome vowel for non-Russians. Listen and repeat: Ы



On
paper, it looks like a lower-case English b, next to a capital I. But
again, it&#8217;s a single letter in the Cyrillic alphabet. Listen again..Ы



Now
there&#8217;s another Russian vowel that sounds very similar to it. Listen:
И



Let&#8217;s
listen to them side by side. The first&#8230;Ы and
the other one И



So
that first one, I find myself tightening my throat to make the sound.
There&#8217;s almost this &#8220;uh&#8221; sound at the start of it. Whereas
this one&#8230;И&#8230;really matches the E in
American English.



For
comparison, let&#8217;s put some consonants in front of those. We&#8217;ll start
with a V sound&#8230; 




Вы
 (&#8230;versus&#8230;) Ви



That
first one, Вы, is how Russians say &#8220;you&#8221;
when speaking formally to someone. It&#8217;s the &#8216;you&#8217; that you&#8217;d use when
talking to your boss, or really any adult you don&#8217;t know. Listen to
them again side-by-side: Вы&#8230;.Ви



You
might be wondering&#8230;Man, the difference is so small. Does it
really matter? And to be honest, it just depends. Depends on the
words, on the phrase. Native speakers want to understand you, okay?
They&#8217;re trying. But sometimes, one tiny vowel can change the whole
meaning. Allow me to demonstrate that point by sharing a true story.



So,
I was visiting a friend once, in Russia, in a city called Krasnodar.
She was a language major at the university, okay? She spoke English
great. Fluently. But remember&#8230;fluent is not the same thing as
speaking without an accent. And though she and I mostly spoke in
Russian, she wanted the chance to use her English with me, a
native speaker, so I asked her to tell me about her grandparents. 




People,
this is a true story. So she says her grandmother was a painter, and
her grandfather worked with wood. So this one time he carved a sheep.
I&#8217;d seen other wood carvings around the city—I&#8217;d seen one of
horses, and in the city center there was a big wood carving of some
Cossack warrior—so I could believe he&#8217;d done one of a sheep. She
had no photos of it, so I asked her to show me how big it was. She
made a face, and then she said, &#8220;From here&#8230;&#8221; then she
walked across the room, &#8220;&#8230;to here.&#8221;



I
was like, Wow. That&#8217;s really big. What&#8217;d they do with it?



She
made a face like it was obvious. &#8220;They used it to cross the
river,&#8221; she said.



So
I&#8217;m trying to envision this ginormous wooden sheep, like something
out of Game of Thrones, like a Trojan Horse or something, and people
are clinging to it as they float down the river.



&#8220;Yes,&#8221;
she said. &#8220;And it had two big sails.&#8221;



That&#8217;s
when my arm hairs stood up, and I realized: Holy God, this woman has
been saying the word &#8220;ship.&#8221; The man built a wooden
ship&#8230;not a sheep!



One
tiny little vowel and the whole story takes on a totally different
meaning. That&#8217;s why we&#8217;re focusing on the Russian vowel Ы
today. When we&#8217;re speaking Russian, we don&#8217;t want to be
telling any stories about giant wooden sheep.



On
a side note: Most Russians, even ones with a lot of experience in
English, living in country, they can not distinguish between &#8220;ih&#8221;
and &#8220;ee.&#8221; Ship / sheep, fit / feet,
and so on. That&#8217;s why all Russians make all their &#8220;ih&#8221;
sounds into &#8220;ee.&#8221; Instead of saying: This is a big hit
in my country. It comes out, Zees eez a beeg heet een my
KAN-tree.



They
simply don&#8217;t hear it.



Speaking
a foreign language with an accent is the norm. It&#8217;s absolutely fine.
We just need to make sure that we&#8217;re understood. So let&#8217;s get back to
that troublesome letter Ы.



Repeat
the following after the speaker: Ты&#8230;.Ти



That
first one, Ты, is the word Russian word
for &#8220;you&#8221; when speaking to a friend or family member. Try
it again?



Next:
Мы&#8230;Ми



Let&#8217;s
also add a letter after the vowel. Compare these: Быть&#8230;..Бить



The
meanings of those two verbs are wildly different. The first means &#8220;to
be.&#8221; The second means, &#8220;to beat someone, or something.&#8221;
Let&#8217;s try the past tense of those. Again, the only difference is the
vowel. Listen&#8230; Был&#8230;vs&#8230;Бил



One
trick I found immensely helpful was to puff your cheeks when you say
that first one. Like when
you&#8217;re cold. Brrr. For a moment, your lips close fully and your
cheeks puff out. Brr.



Был.
 They feel very similar. 




Let&#8217;s
make that our official phrase of the day. The speaker will say: I
was in the bank. Listen and repeat. Я
был в банке.



A
woman would say it with an &#8220;ah&#8221; sound at the end of the
verb. So she&#8217;ll say была. Listen&#8230;



Я
была в банке.



How
would a guy say: I was in McDonalds.



Я
был в Макдоналдсе.



And
a woman would say it:



Я
была в Макдоналдсе.



I
was in the theater.



(man)
Я был в театре.



(woman)
Я была в театре.



How
would you say: The boy was in the park.



Мальчик
был в парке.



How
about: The toy was in the bank.



Игрушка
была в банке.



Notice how the speaker used the feminine version, была, because &#8216;игрушка&#8217; is feminine. This whole business of word gender, it&#8217;s beyond the scope of this pronunciation course, but we deal with in great detail in my Russian Made Easy podcast, and also in my new podcast called <a href="https://understandingspokenrussian.com/">Understanding Spoken Russian</a>. There you&#8217;ll really learn to pick out the gender of nouns and verbs just by ear, which is a great skill. Again, that podcast is called Understanding Spoken Russian. It&#8217;s in all the usual places: iTunes, Google Play.



Let&#8217;s
continue our review. What should you say to someone first thing in
the morning?



доброе
утро



And
to someone when you see them in the afternoon? 




добрый
день



Next,
ask someone on the street: Where is located the theater?



Где
находится театр?



How
would a woman say: My name is Olga.



Меня
зовут Ольга.



Did
you catch that soft-sign after the letter &#8216;L&#8217;? Not &#8216;Olga&#8217; but Ольга.
Gotta bring that tongue up.



Anyway,
tell her: Very pleasant&#8230;as in, It&#8217;s very pleasant to meet you. 




Очень
приятно



You
need to leave but you&#8217;ll see her later, so what do you tell her? 




До
встречи



And
finally, if you go to Washington D.C., the White House, the Capital
building, the Lincoln memorial, the Washington Monument&#8230;these are
some of the&#8230;what&#8217;s the word? 




достопримечательности



Alright,
let&#8217;s do some more work with Ы and И.
Listen and repeat: Лы&#8230;.Ли



Next
the letter &#8216;P&#8217; (П) : Пы&#8230;Пи



Let&#8217;s
try some listening practice with these. You can echo the speaker if
you&#8217;d like, but really I just want to see if you can spot the
difference. So in each of the following words, say &#8220;the first
one&#8221; if you hear that troublesome Ы
vowel&#8230;and say &#8220;the second one&#8221; if you hear the И
vowel. Ready?



дырка&#8230;.1st
one



мир&#8230;.2nd
one



быть
… 1st one



вилка&#8230;.2nd
one



Вниз&#8230;2nd
one



Мы&#8230;.1st
one



Ви&#8230;.2nd
one



Вы&#8230;.there
it is, the first one. Remember, Вы is the
formal version of &#8220;you&#8221; in Russian.



How&#8217;d you do on that? If you get the chance, I&#8217;d love to hear from you, so feel free to send me an email at: mark (at) russianmadeeasy ((dot)) com

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 6

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Welcome
to episode 5 of Learn Russian
Pronunciation. A lot of pronunciation courses, at some point, teach
you tongue twisters. Although there&#8217;s some value in trying to
pronounce them, they&#8217;re usually not very useful phrases. Right? I
mean, how often do you find yourself saying, Rubber baby buggy
bumpers. Or: She sells seashells by the seashore.



So,
instead of a tongue twister, let&#8217;s try to master the longest word in
conversational Russian. This is an actual word, used all the
time&#8230;especially in the domain of Russian tourism. Listen:



достопримечательности



For
the record that word has twenty-one letters. Here are just the first
two syllables:



до-сто
 (&#8220;duh-stuh&#8221;)



We&#8217;re
going to learn it in four small chunks like that. And to make it sink
in, I&#8217;m going to mix in review from previous episodes. Because that&#8217;s
how memory works. You need delays between re-testing of new material.
Before getting to that review, though&#8230;What were those first two
syllables?



Started
with a &#8216;D&#8217;&#8230;..до-сто



Good.
And here are the next two:



при-ме
 (&#8220;pre-myeh&#8221;)



So
putting the first two parts together we have: до-сто&#8211;при-ме



And
to get it fast, we can use the Consonant-vowel separation technique
from the previous episode.



Right?
We flatten all the vowels: duh-stuh-pruh-muh



Hit
pause. Try to get that fast. Now let&#8217;s alternate. Just the
consonants, and then we&#8217;ll being in the vowels.



duh-stuh-pruh-muh



duh-stuh-pre-myeh



Excellent.
Okay, now here&#8217;s our review. So&#8230;Imagine you&#8217;ve just woken
up. How should you greet your roommate? 




Доброе
утро.



You&#8217;re
just had lunch with a friend and are parting ways. What&#8217;s the Russian
equivalent for &#8220;See you later?&#8221; 




До
встречи. 




Literally&#8230;what?
Until the meeting.



And
getting back to today&#8217;s new word&#8230;What did we learn of it so far? It
started with a &#8220;duh&#8221; sound.



досто-приме



More
review. Quick, what&#8217;s the Russian word for toy? 




Игрушка



And
again, today&#8217;s new word? The first half of it, anyway. 




досто-приме



Alright.
Now here&#8217;s the next part: ча-тель (&#8220;chah-til&#8221;)



And
the final two syllables are: но-сти



So
the second half was: чатель&#8211;ности



Let&#8217;s
again focus on the consonants by flattening the vowels:
chuh-tuh-nust-uh



Hit
pause and try that on your own.



Notice
just for fluency purposes I&#8217;m dropping the &#8220;L&#8221; from
чатель&#8230;.



So
anyway, let&#8217;s get that going&#8230;.chuh-tuh-nust-uh&#8230;then let&#8217;s bring
in the vowels&#8230;чательности



And
what was the first half again? 




достоприме&#8230;&#8230;.



And
the second half: 




….чательности



So,
altogether now: достопримечательности



Phew!
Now, what in heck does that word mean? Well, in New York City, the
Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Central
Park&#8230;those are just some of that city&#8217;s достопримечательности.



Can
you tell me what the достопримечательности are
in London? You have Buckingham palace, the Tower of London, Big Ben,
the parliament building. 




So,
how would you translate the word достопримечательности?
It&#8217;s &#8220;the main tourist sites&#8221;



Quick
sidetrack here. The word meaning &#8220;center&#8221; as in, the city
center, the downtown area of a city&#8230;that word in Russian is a
cognate. But it starts with a &#8220;ts&#8221; sound like at the end of
the word &#8220;hits.&#8221; Listen?



центр



And
to say &#8220;in the center&#8221; it&#8217;s this: в
центре



There&#8217;s
a little &#8220;yeh&#8221; sound at the end.



So,
with that in mind, imagine I&#8217;ve told the desk clerk in my hotel that
I intend to see all the sights today. Сегодня
я собираюсь увидеть все достопримечательности.





She
might tell me&#8230;



Все
достопримечательности находятся в
центре.



Can
you translate what she said? Listen again:



All
the main tourist sites are located in the center.



Let&#8217;s
do some more translating. 




мальчик.



boy



игрушка



toy



доброе
утро



Good
morning



добрый
день



Good
day



Where
is the cashier located?



Где
находится касса?



Меня
зовут Полина.



Me
they call Polina&#8230;in normal English: My name is Polina.



Tell
her: Very pleasant&#8230;as in, It&#8217;s very pleasant to meet you. 




Очень
приятно



You
need to go but you&#8217;ll see her later. What do you say? 




До
встречи



And
finally, in Moscow: Lenin&#8217;s tomb, Red Square, St. Basil&#8217;s
church&#8230;.these are some of the&#8230;



what&#8217;s
the word? 




достопримечательности



Alright, I&#8217;ll see you in the next episode. And in the meantime, if you want to focus on your conversational Russian skills, be sure to get my <a href="https://russianmadeeasy.com/">Russian Made Easy podcast</a>.

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 5

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Today
we&#8217;ll learn a cool technique for developing your fluency. All we
really do is—in whatever word or phrase we&#8217;re focusing on—we
change all the vowels to the same sound.



For
ex: You&#8217;ve probably encountered the phrase: Меня
зовут



Like:
Меня зовут Марк. 




Literally:
 Me they call Mark&#8230;which is how Russians introduce themselves. So,
to develop our fluency with that phrase, let&#8217;s change all the vowels
to an &#8216;uh&#8217; sound. Like this: muh&#8230;nuh&#8230;zuh&#8230;vuh And try to say it
faster and faster.



Now
let&#8217;s look at just the vowels. They are, in essence: ih-ah-uh-oo



So
we have: muh&#8230;nuh&#8230;zuh&#8230;vuh &#8230;and now we add in the
vowels&#8230;ме-ня-зо-вут



Let&#8217;s
try that technique with this word: находится.





So
here are just the consonants, with a generic &#8220;ah&#8221; sound:
на—ха—да—ца.



And
here are the vowels, in essence: а-о-и-а



Putting
them together&#8230;



Now,
you might be thinking: Wait! Isn&#8217;t it too early for me to be worrying
about fluency and speed?



No.
Believe it or not, you want to strive for fluency right from the
start. Mind you, fluency does not mean &#8220;speaking without an
accent&#8221;, it means speaking without pause. 
It&#8230;s&#8230;no-t&#8230;com-for-tuh-ble to list&#8230;to lis-ten
to-some-one—speak-in-G&#8230;like&#8230;this. It&#8217;s not comfortable for
us to listen to very slow, careful speech. 




Now,
what was that word we were just practicing? It begins with an &#8216;N&#8217;
sound.



находится



What
does it mean? Imagine you&#8217;re traveling and you&#8217;re a bit lost. You&#8217;re
wheeling your suitcase behind you and you stop someone. &#8220;Excuse
me, can you tell me where the train station находится?&#8221;



Try
that again&#8230;this time ask about the post office. So you&#8217;re carrying
around a bunch of postcards that you&#8217;re dying to mail off. &#8220;Excuse
me, can you tell me where the post office находится?&#8221;



So
 находится translates as &#8220;is
located&#8221;. Can you tell me where the train station *is
located?*




Let&#8217;s try that
all in Russian. Listen as our speaker asks: Where&#8230;is
located&#8230;Starbucks?



Где
находится Старбакс?



You
try it. Ask: &#8220;Where&#8230;is located&#8230;.McDonalds?&#8221;



Где
находится Макдоналдс?



In
Russian, &#8220;касса&#8221;
 is the cashier—the place in a store where you pay. It can
be hard to find sometimes, so let&#8217;s ask: Where is the kassa?



Где
находится касса?



Alright.
Getting back to our consonant-vowel separation, let&#8217;s try a new one.
let&#8217;s make this our official new phrase of the day. So&#8230;The first
time I see someone in the morning, I&#8217;ll tell them: доброе
утро That&#8217;s two words. Listen again? доброе
утро 




Literally:
Good&#8230;morning.



Let&#8217;s
repeat just the consonants, using a generic &#8220;uh&#8221;
sound&#8230;duh-bruh—uh—truh.



And
now the actual vowels: oh—uh-yeh—oo—uh



I
like to switch back and forth. 




duh-bruh—uh—truh





..and
then I slip in the vowels: доброе утро



This
next greeting is very similar. Imagine it&#8217;s the middle of the day
and I see a friend for the first time, so I tell her: добрый
день 




She
smiles and waves back. добрый день



So
here are the consonants: duh—bruh—duh (There is an &#8220;N&#8221;
at the end, but I ignore that when I&#8217;m going for speed. So I keep it
at: duh—bruh—duh)



And
basically the vowels: oh—ee—ain 




So,
let&#8217;s review. You wake up and see your roommate in the kitchen,
pouring a bowl of cereal. How do you greet him?&#8230;доброе
утро



You
get to work at noon. Greet the secretary: добрый
день



Next,
ask someone on the street: Where is located the theater?



Где
находится театр?



That
might be a new word for you: театр (slow),
so let&#8217;s try it one more time. 




Where
is located the theater?



Где
находится театр?



That
might be a new word for you. Here&#8217;s the word &#8220;theater.&#8221;: 
театр



Let&#8217;s
try it one more time: Where is located the theater?



Где
находится театр?



And
going further back with our review: What&#8217;s the word for &#8220;boy&#8221;
in Russian?



мальчик



And
&#8220;toy&#8221;? 




Игрушка.



And
from the last episode&#8230;.As you part ways with someone, what might
you say? 




До
встречи



Let&#8217;s
do one more example of consonant-vowel separation. So, going back to
the first phrase that we tried it on&#8230;do you remember that? Say, My
name is Sophia.



Меня
зовут София.



Well,
after someone has introduced themself to you, the appropriate
response in Russian is:



очень
приятно



Again,
you&#8217;ve probably encountered that before. It means literally: Very
pleasant.



So,
let&#8217;s focus on the consonants by flattening the vowels to an &#8220;uh&#8221;
sound.



uh-chuh-pruh-yut



Notice
how I&#8217;m actually skipping two sounds&#8230;the &#8216;N&#8217; at the end of очень



and
the other N at the end of приятно



Because,
to me, this is the essence of the phrase: uh-chuh-pruh-yut



(Hit
pause. Try that on your own.)



Now
let&#8217;s go back and forth. Just the consonants&#8230;uh-chuh-pruh-yut



Now
the vowels&#8230;очень прият(но)



Again,
to finish, we need that &#8220;nuh&#8221; sound at the end.



So
let&#8217;s try the exchange again. Say: My name is George.



Меня
зовут Джордж.



And
they respond: Very pleasant. очень приятно



Ok,
let&#8217;s end by listening to a clip from a song. Can you spot today&#8217;s
official new phrase?



(song:
доброе
утро / artist
unknown)



Alright,
see you in the next episode.

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 4

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Welcome
to episode 3 of Learn Russian Pronunciation. If you&#8217;re new to this
course I recommend going back to episode #1 because the lessons are
cumulative and they assume you&#8217;ve mastered everything in the
previous episodes. Anyway, today we&#8217;ll be working with consonant
clusters. That&#8217;s when you have three or more consonants in a row,
with no vowel to break them up. English has them. Take the consonants
S-P-L&#8230;Like the word Splash. That&#8217;s a cluster. Or this&#8230;I
read this in a recipe. Add five twelfths of a
pound. How many consonants are at the end of that word, twelfths?
You have an L, an F, a Th, and an S. That&#8217;s four in a row&#8230;.which is
why it&#8217;s so hard to pronounce. Twelfths.



Russian,
bless its heart, has even more consonant clusters than English. And
because the rolled R is so often in these clusters, they can be tough
to pronounce correctly. For ex:



вдруг



You
have a V sound, a D, and a rolled R. Try it again&#8230;вдруг



Don&#8217;t
worry about the meaning. Let&#8217;s just get the sounds down. Here&#8217;s
another one&#8230;



вправо



It
has a cluster of F-P-R. Here&#8217;s the native speaker:



Next&#8230;скрипка



That
has an S-K-R cluster&#8230;like the English word &#8220;scrape&#8221;.
Listen again&#8230;



This
(violin playing) is a скрипка by the
way. Let&#8217;s use that connection between &#8220;scrape&#8221; and
&#8220;скрипка&#8221; as a way to
remember the word. Repeat this sentence:



I
gave up the violin because all I did was
make scraping sounds. 




So,
that sentence gives us violin&#8230;and&#8230;scraping&#8230;which
leads us to the Russian word скрипка 




Let&#8217;s
try those three &#8216;R&#8217; clusters again: вдруг&#8230;вправо&#8230;скрипка



Of
course, not all clusters contain an R. Try these&#8230;



кстати



That
starts with a K, an S, and a T. 




взлёт



That
had a V, a Z and an L.



Next:



сквозняк



An
S, a K, and a V.



Let&#8217;s
try those three again: кстати&#8230;взлёт&#8230;сквозняк



(violin
fades in) What&#8217;s this instrument again? скрипка
 




Good!



For
our official new word of this episode, let&#8217;s try this one: встреча



That&#8217;s
a cluster of four consonants in a row. An F, an S, a T, and an R. 




вс&#8230;тре&#8230;ча



Hit
pause and practice that one a few times on your own. Alright, lets
see if you can you figure out the meaning.



So,
I&#8217;m sitting with a friend in Starbucks and when I offer to buy a
second round of drinks, he looks at his watch and shakes his head.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve got an important встреча with
a client. I&#8217;d better go.&#8221;



Or
this: At work, I tell our secretary I need to speak with the boss,
but she points to his office door. &#8220;He&#8217;s in a встреча
right now. But if you take a seat&#8230;&#8221;



How
would you translate that word? A встреча 
is a meeting. And it&#8217;s part of a very common phrase
used when parting company with someone. In English, instead of
&#8216;saying goodbye&#8217; we might say, &#8220;See you later.&#8221; It implies
that we&#8217;ll meet up again, right? In Russian, they say literally: 




Until
the meeting. Listen:



До
встречи



Notice
how the &#8216;a&#8217; at the end of встреча has
changed to an &#8220;ee&#8221; sound. Listen again&#8230;



There
are a whole bunch of songs that have that phrase in their lyrics. I
like this one the best&#8230;



(song):
Монокини &#8211; До встречи на звезде



Here&#8217;s
another four-letter cluster. Listen and repeat&#8230;



взгляд



That
has a V, a Z, a G and an L&#8230;.взгляд



Here&#8217;s
another one&#8230;всплеск 




F,
S, P and L&#8230;всплеск 




Let&#8217;s
take a moment and do some cumulative review. My wife and I have
twins. Sophia is our little girl. And William is our &#8230;мальчик.



Speaking
of William, his favorite ____ is a remote control car. 




игрушка.



Do
you remember the word for violin? It&#8217;s not out official new word—I
won&#8217;t hold you to it—but I&#8217;m curious if that mnemonic device
worked. I gave up the violin because
all I did was make scraping sounds. 
 violin&#8230;scraping&#8230;leads us to&#8230;. скрипка
 




And
what&#8217;s the Russian version of &#8220;See ya later&#8221;? Literally:
Until the meeting&#8230;



до
встречи



Those of you who&#8217;ve been studying Russian for a while might wonder why I&#8217;ve ignored the most common consonant cluster in Russian: здравствуйте It starts with a Z-D-R cluster&#8230;zdra&#8230;But I&#8217;m putting that one aside because we work with it in detail in <a href="https://russianmadeeasy.com/russian-made-easy-whats-your-name-in-russian/">Episode 4 of my Russian Made Easy podcast</a>. Basically, I don&#8217;t want to repeat myself. 



This
was by no means an exhaustive list of consonant clusters, but we did
cover the most common and most challenging ones. Next time, we&#8217;ll
learn a fun technique called consonant-vowel separation, which will
really help with your fluency. And since I&#8217;m gonna see you again in
the next episode, how should I end this one? Until the meeting!



До
встречи!

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 3

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Welcome
to episode 2 of Learn Russian Pronunciation. Today we&#8217;ll tackle one
of the biggest sticking points for students of Russian: The rolled R.
We&#8217;ll start by repeating the following four words after the native
speaker.



рок



рэп



бар



марс



You
probably noticed that those were all cognates. That is, they sound
very much like their English counterparts. The first two were types
of music. Rock and rap. Listen again&#8230;



The
next two were locations. A bar, and the planet Mars. 




To
get a feel for the rolled R, try saying the word &#8220;udder.&#8221;
Did you feel your tongue bounce off the roof of your mouth? That&#8217;s
what a rolled R feels like. So, for practice, for that first one you
could say: udder-ok. Now you can do the same with the word
бар&#8230;Try: bah—udder&#8230;бар



Let&#8217;s
try some Russian names that have an R in them:



Тарас



Лора



Грег



Марк



And
some place names. Can you guess these?



Россия



Украина



Берлин



Рим



Рим
 is how Russians say Rome, but
I&#8217;m not sure, really, why they changed that vowel.



Let&#8217;s
take it up a notch. Here&#8217;s the Russian word for hamburger.
Listen&#8230;



гамбургер



It&#8217;s
one of those words&#8230;once I got it down, it&#8217;s all I ordered. I&#8217;d pop
into a vegan cafe, everyone&#8217;s drinking wheat grass&#8230;&#8221;Эй,
девушка! Гамбургер, пожалуйста.&#8221;



Now
here&#8217;s another tough one. The Russian word for reporter.
Listen:



репортёр
 




That&#8217;s
a tough one. There are three R&#8217;s there. ре&#8230;пор&#8230;тёр 




Anyway,
for our official new word of the day, let&#8217;s try this one: игрушка



That,
to me, is so Russian!



Again,
instead of me simply telling you what the word means, let&#8217;s see if
you can figure out the meaning from context.



When
I was a boy, my Han Solo action figure was my favorite игрушка.



My
son William&#8217;s remote control car is his favorite игрушка.
It&#8217;s all he plays with.



Tell
me, as a kid, what was your favorite игрушка?



This
is how your brain prefers to learn new words&#8230;by figuring out the
meaning on its own, from context. Think about it. You know what an
игрушка is, and I never actually
told you. Here&#8230;Let&#8217;s try this. I&#8217;ll name objects and you call out
whether it&#8217;s an игрушка or not.
Ready?



a
yo-yo – игрушка



watermelon
 – not an игрушка



Lego
blocks – игрушка



a
suitcase – not an игрушка



a
Barbie doll – игрушка



A
Hot Wheels car – игрушка.



Alright&#8230;Speaking
of new words, do you recall the word we officially learned in the
first episode?



Fill
in the blank: My wife and I have three year old twins. Sophia is our
little girl, and William is our&#8230;.мальчик.



And
what&#8217;s the Russian word for &#8216;toy&#8217;? 




Игрушка



Getting
back to our main topic, our rolled R, listen and repeat as our
speakers pronounce the names of famous people, all of whom have at
least one R in their name. Can you figure out who each person is?



Крис
Пратт



Франк
Синатра



Ариана
Гранде



Брад
Пит



Роджер
Федерер



Chris
Pratt, Frank Sinatra, Ariana Grande, Brad Pitt, (phew, that one was
tough): Roger Federer. 




How
about these brands? Repeat, and try to guess what they are:



Прада



Мерседес



Рибок



Памперс



Хаммер



Prada,
Mercedes, Reebok, Pampers, Hummer



And
if you get those vowels correctly, if you can avoid the temptation of
saying (American accent) Pampers, and make it (Russian)
Памперс&#8230;you&#8217;ll go a long way to
reducing your accent in Russian.



Okay,
one more list. Repeat these items and try to guess what they are&#8230;



телевизор



гитара



компьютер



радио



трактор



television,
guitar, computer, radio, tractor



Last
quiz before we go. Substitute the two Russian words that we&#8217;ve
learned in these episodes, into the following sentence:



When
I was a ____ my favorite ____ was Lego.



When
I was a мальчик my favorite 
игрушка was Lego.



Remember, if you&#8217;re looking to learn conversational Russian, and put your rapidly improving pronunciation chops to good use, then go check out my <a href="https://russianmadeeasy.com/">Russian Made Easy podcast</a>. I think you&#8217;ll really like it. And in the meantime, I&#8217;ll see you in the next episode where we tackle Russian&#8217;s dreaded consonant clusters! See you there.

Learn Russian Pronunciation Podcast Ep. 2

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Hi,
my name is Mark. Welcome to the podcast, Learn Russian Pronunciation.
If you have any doubts about your ability to pronounce Russian
clearly and easily, then you&#8217;ve come to the right place. In these
podcasts, by carefully breaking down the speech of my native speaking
assistants, I&#8217;m going to reduce your accent and greatly improve your
Russian pronunciation. Those tricky consonants clusters, the rolled
Russian R, voicing and devoicing, soft consonants and those strange
Russian vowels&#8230;.we&#8217;ll get you over all those hurdles and more.
We&#8217;ll even get you developing your fluency, because that, too, is an
important part of good pronunciation.



We&#8217;ll
accomplish all this using modern language-learning techniques like
consonant vowel separation, minimal pairs, “whisper vowels”,
pattern recognition, and so on. All you have to do is follow along,
and be sure to repeat out loud when prompted. Are you ready to get
started? Try to repeat the following sound after the native
speaker&#8230;



дал



It&#8217;s
spelled with three letters..the Russian D, A and L. And to my ear, it
sounds very much like the English word &#8220;doll.&#8221; Listen
again&#8230;



дал



On
a side note: Whenever I use English as a comparison, I&#8217;m referring to
what I call American broadcaster English. So, I apologize to my U/K.
listeners, and to my friends down under in Australia and New Zealand.
Anyway, what was that sound again? – дал



Ok,
now listen to this version of it&#8230;



даль



Hmm.
What&#8217;s going on there? Listen side by side. The first version&#8230;the
second version&#8230;



дал&#8230;.даль



If
you have some experience with the Cyrillic alphabet, you might have
guessed that we&#8217;ve added a soft-sign after the L. Let&#8217;s try a
different combination. Here&#8217;s M-A-L



мал



and
now with a soft-sign after that L&#8230;



маль



Again:



мал&#8230;маль



How
are they getting that sound? Well, basically, as you pronounce that
L, the middle of your tongue comes up to the roof of your mouth. When
I do it, I kind of have to kind a half-smile. When I say the first
one, мал ..my mouth barely has to move.
But this one&#8230;маль&#8230;my tongue is
moving. And my mouth has to open and make room. If you&#8217;re still
having trouble, one way to kind of cheat is to say the word mile
(M-I-L-E)



But
cut the vowel very short, and again—put the middle of your tongue
against the roof of your mouth. &#8220;mile&#8221; (маль)



Here&#8230;Let
me play a clip from a Russian rap song. The singer&#8217;s name, in
English, is Albina but in the song they call her Альбинка.
And what&#8217;s cool is, the guy pronounces her name super slowly.
You can just hear his tongue slooowly going up as he glides into the
letter L. Check it out&#8230;



(song:
 Альбина Сафарова &#8211; История меня)



Let&#8217;s
try another combination, this time using an O. We&#8217;ll do a B sound (as
in &#8216;boy&#8217;), an O, and an L.



бол



And
now we&#8217;ll add that little soft-sign at the end, and listen?



боль



Let&#8217;s
try G-O-L&#8230;It is the word for goal, in Russian. Listen:



Гол



but
put a soft-sign at the end&#8230;Голь



If
we add an F sound at the very end, we get the Russian word for golf.





гольф



Let&#8217;s
do all four of those pairs that we worked on. Again, the first one
without the soft-sign, the second one, with.



дал&#8230;даль&#8230;..мал&#8230;маль&#8230;.бол&#8230;боль&#8230;гол&#8230;голь



Now,
in each episode of this podcast we&#8217;ll be learning one new word or
expression. So here&#8217;s the word that we&#8217;ll be learning today: мальчик



Do
you hear that &#8220;softened L&#8221; in there? So not малчик&#8230;it&#8217;s:
МАЛЬ-чик



I
have to bring my tongue up to the roof of my mouth. So, what does
that word mean? Well, instead of me just telling you the meaning,
which is lazy teaching, let&#8217;s see if you can figure out the meaning
from context: My wife and I have fraternal twins. Sophia is our
little girl. And William is our мальчик.



Their
babushka—their Russian grandmother—went with the standard color
bias when the twins were born. &#8220;Give the pink blanket to the
little girl,&#8221; she said, &#8220;and the blue blanket to the&#8230;
мальчик.&#8221;



So
 мальчик is the Russian word for a
boy.



Let&#8217;s
do a little listening practice. So, we&#8217;re going to hear words that
have the letter L in them, and I want you to tell me if there&#8217;s also
that &#8216;soft-sign&#8217; there. You ready?



угол	&#8211;
Nope



Надаль
 &#8211; Heard it



стол	&#8211;
Nope



зал	&#8211;
Nope



миндаль
 &#8211; Heard it



жаль
 &#8211; Heard it



Quick
quiz: What was our new word for today? I&#8217;ll give you a hint: Sophia
is our little girl, and William is our&#8230;мальчик.



Remember, this podcast is focused strictly on improving your pronunciation of Russian words. Each episode will be pretty short, so we can concentrate on one particular issue at a time. But if you&#8217;re looking for a podcast that will teach you to speak conversational Russian, please check out my free Russian Made Easy podcast. It&#8217;s on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/russian-made-easy/id1247229961?mt=8">I-tunes RussianMadeEasy app</a> and <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brainx.rme&hl=en_US">GooglePlay RussianMadeEasy app</a> or you can go straight to the website and get it there&#8230;. <a href="https://russianmadeeasy.com">RussianMadeEasy.com</a>



Meanwhile, for a transcript of today&#8217;s episode and to download an audio of just the exercises we did today, then head over to <a href="https://russianpronunciation.com">RussianPronunciation.com</a>



Before
we go&#8230;What&#8217;s the Russian word for &#8216;boy&#8217;? Beings with an
M&#8230;.мальчик



Great
job. See you in the next episode, where we&#8217;ll work on the rolled
Russian R.

Podurama

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