Here comes the boring part: Reading Russian. It's the thing U'd better learn right from the beginning. Once U learn it and U won't have any problems with reading futher. It's not as difficult as it looks. Just try to understand and then practice a bit. Don't hurry.
[here comes the text
Denial got not so long ago. I changed it just a little bit. Girl, better use texts from this thread as I corrected some mistakes]
Let's start with vocals. If u look at russian alphabet (do u have one?), u'll see we have 10 of them. We don't have so many sounds tho... only 5 (6). Here comes the question: why the hell do we need the rest of the letters? I'll try to make things clearer:
U can divide these 10 letters into 5 pairs this way:
а - я (a - ya)
э - е (e - ye)
о - ё (o - yo)
у - ю (u - yu)
ы - и (... - i)
See what I mean? In first 4 pairs letters sound pretty similar. The difference is only in this 'j' (I'll be marking this sound this way futher, if u don't mind. It sounds like 'y' in the english word 'you' for example. In russian letter 'й' is responsible for this sound. Don't mix it with 'и'. These are 2 different sounds. Like 'е' and 'ё' btw, don't try to find any logic. There's no! lol)
So, U'll be to read letters this way in 3 cases:
- if it's the first letter of the word
- if it goes right after another vocal
- if it goes after 'ъ' or 'ь'
In other words, every time this letter doesn't have the consonant before it.
[make a pause and try to get what I mean. Last sentence is the most important here]
When it does have one, this 'j' sound disappears and letters from each pair sound similar:
both 'а' and 'я' sound like 'a',
both 'э' and 'е' sound like 'e'
and so on...
What's the difference then, u ask? There is one:
2nd letter from each pair (я, е, ё, ю and и) changes the way consonant (the one before it) sounds. It makes the consonant sound soft, while 1st ones (а, э, о, у and ы) don't (all the consonants stay really firm in this case).
'ы' and 'и' sound a bit different from each other but this rule works in this pair as well. If u try to pronaunce 'i' leaving the consonant really firm, u'll get something like 'ы'. Hm... or just try to pronaunce the word 'hit' (4 example) but put ur tongue a bit futher back than usually. U'll get 'ы'.
So we finally came to the consonants. Most of them sound exactly like in english. Just 'T' sounds either firmer or softer (never like english one). Here the letters u can have difficulties with:
ж - zh (like in english word deci
sion... may be just a bit firmer)
й - j (like in the '
yard')
х - h (like in '
help, but much firmer)
ц - ts (like in i
ts)
ч - ch (
China)
ш - sh (
sh shop)
щ - sh+ch or just try to pronaunce sh very soft
Remember:
'ж', 'ц' and 'ш' are ALWAYS firm
'ч' and 'щ' always stay soft
And u shouldn't give a fcuk what vocal follows it.
ALL other letters sound depending on the following vocal.
http://www.geocities.com/nrg2002ru/consonants.mp3
I used the pair of vocals 'э' - 'е', first leaves the consonant firm, second makes it soft, remember?
'ь' and 'ъ' are neither vocals nor consonants. They are not sounds at all - just signs. Fist one makes the consonant standing before it soft. Second - doesn't (this letter is rarely used). And they both are often used to separate the consonant from following vocal. Just an example:
де - d'e
дье - d'je
дъе - dje
http://www.geocities.com/nrg2002ru/theory.mp3 here I pronaunced some of the things I mentioned above.
And the last thing. Reading russian is easy, writing is hard as when u hear 'spasiba' for example (yeah, it sounds this way, I'm gonna explain why), u never know how u should write it. But u can easily learn how to read any word.
Just know:
'а' and 'и' are STRONG sounds
'о' and 'е' are WEAK ones
That means 'а' will sound as 'a' and 'и' will sound as 'i' ALWAYS.
'о' will sound as 'o' and 'е' will sound as 'e' ONLY when they are under the stress. Either way 'о' will sound as 'a' [or something between these two] and 'е' will sound as 'i' [or again something between]. Don't ask me why, I don't know.
lol! It's just so.
Lets go back to our example:
'спасибо' (spasibo) - the stress is over the letter 'и' (i). There's no such thing as secondary stress in russian. That means 'а' and 'o' don't have any, right? As 'а' is a strong sound, it sounds exactly like it's written - 'a'. But 'о' is a weak one, so without stress it sounds as 'a'. That's why u get 'spasiba'.
Got it? Tricky, I know...
The stress-sign should be marked at ur Phrasebook (they always do in such things). So, u shouldn't have any problem. Yeah, and if u meet letter 'ё' in the word, u can be 100% sure it's the one under the stress.
There are some difficulties with consonants that change their sound a bit and disappear from time to time... but I won't load ur head with this now. Even without knowing it, u'll be able to pronaunce russian words pretty well.
That's all. If u learn these few rules, u'll be able to read russian words properly.