Speaking and reading Russian - a challenge

Well,

I began this post with some specific intent, but I've forgotten that, so I'll just meander for a bit about the Russian alphabet and phonemes (I love Phonetics), until I might just remember the initial intent of the post.

And BTW, this is not meant to be educational, although it might prove to be. I will try to keep it as light and amusing as possible.

The Russian alphabet is a subset of the Cyrillic 'code page' ... hmm, I am losing some people now, I know. A 'code page' is a grid of 256 characters, 16 by 16. Each box in the page (think of a double-sized checkerboard (or chessboard, if I'm writing for a more sophisticated audience), contains a letter - which corresponds to a 'sound' (phoneme).

Now, the Russian alphabet uses only 36 of the boxes in the Cyrillic code page. The other unused ones correspond to letters or sounds in languages like Armenian and Turkish, Ukrainian, etc. So let's not discuss these other sounds right now - although they are worthy of discussion elsewhere.

Most of the letters of the Russian alphabet 'sound' out in a way an American speaker can handle, but not always! There are at least two letters that defy pronunciation by an English speaker, and unfortunately they are ubiquitous in Russian. So, I will address that is a few paragraphs.

36 letters ... 24 consonants, 10 vowels (yep, 10) and two letters that HAVE NO SOUND AT ALL. I asked a native Russian a question ... when you were a little tyke in elementary school, did your classroom have the letters of the alphabet all around the room, with cute pictures of objests than began with the letter ... like 'A' with an apple, 'Z' with a zebra? The answer was YES. Then, I asked, what about the 'znacks' - the letters with no sound. The answer was 'there was no picture under them, just white space'. Perfect.

Now, Russians love to clump consonants together. There is actually a word in Russian which has 5 consonants in a row at the beginning of it. Russians have no problemo pronouncing it, although I go into fits and screams trying.

On the other hand, there are certain common sounds in English which a native Russian who has not studied English early on - and BTW, most Russians study English from the second grade on - cannot pronounce, try as they will. 'TH' has no sound in Russian; 'W' has no sound', etc. So a native will speak 'Uma Thurman' as 'Uma Turman' - the 'TH becomes a 'T' - and 'W' becomes, at best, a 'uhh-a'. Luckily, there are no Russians with names like 'Wayne' or 'Wendy'.

On the other hand, there are sounds and letters in the Russian alphabet which a native English speaker doesn't have a chance in Hell of pronouncing correctly.

The Russian letter 'ы', which is a SINGLE letter, not a little 'b' with a capital 'I' next to it, appears everywhere in Russian, and to some degree gives Russian it's distinct 'sound'. But forget about pronouncing it correctly. Think of forming your lips and mouth to say the letter 'O', as in 'Oh my'. But then, holding that formation of the mouth, say 'E', as in 'EEK'. Now, let the sound drop into your throat - don't palatalize it (don't use your tongue). That would be close.

As for the two znacks - they have no sound, but they modify the sounds of the letters surrounding them, significantly. So thay have to be understood and reckoned with.

Russians, as a final note in this edition of the blog phonetics/language division, have no sound for a 'soft' 'G'. Or a sound for 'J', which is pretty much equivalent - not exactly phonetically, but close enough. So, that stuff you put on your hair after a nice shampoo is called 'Gel', with a hard 'G', as in 'Going'. And the closest a Russian can come to 'Jennifer' is 'Dzhennifer', where the 'zh' is a transliteration of the amazing letter of the Russian alphabet ж - sounded as the combination 'su' in the English word 'pleasure'.

'Transliteration' is another topic to be discussed in the sequel. And it will fascinate you.

So, in Russian now ...

пока пока до видания

That said - 'see ya ... goodbye' transliterated as 'poka poka do svedanya'

Rich ... рич ... and that is my name in Russian - Ричард Роиано

And I realize that the 'N' looks like an 'H' and the 'R' looks like a 'P'. Get over it. Okay. Here is the most common word a visitor to Moscow (Moskva, in transliterated Russian) sees on store fronts - figure it out for yourself - Рестаран - give up ...

Restaurant, OK.

Rich, again