Читать книгу Russian For Dummies - Serafima Gettys - Страница 34

For the most part, one Russian letter corresponds to one sound. The letter K is always pronounced k, for example, and the letter M is always pronounced m. This pattern is different from English, in which a letter can be pronounced in different ways depending on the word it’s in. Consider the two different pronunciations for the letter c in the words cat and race.

Such drastic differences never happen in Russian, but to be quite honest, you may note occasions when a letter in Russian sounds slightly different depending on its position in a word. Take, for example, the Russian word жук (zhoohk) (beetle), in which the first letter, ж, is pronounced zh, like the s in pleasure. In the word гapaж (guh-rahsh) (garage), however, the ж is pronounced sh rather than zh. Why? Because when it appears at the end of a word, ж (zh) is pronounced as ш (sh). (For more information, flip to the later sections “Vowels misbehavin’: Understanding when vowels change sounds” and “Cat got your tongue?: Consonants losing their voice.”)