Читать книгу Russian For Dummies - Serafima Gettys - Страница 38

Some Russian letters change their behavior depending on whether they’re in a stressed or an unstressed syllable. The vowels Aa, Oo, Ee, and Яя, for example, sound like ah, oh, yeh, and ya when they’re in a stressed syllable, but when they’re in an unstressed position, they sound like uh, ah, ee, and yeh, respectively.

Here are some examples of how one letter is pronounced differently in different positions:

 You write Кoлopaдo(Colorado) but say kah-lah-rah-dah. Notice that all the os in this word are pronounced ah rather than oh. None of them is pronounced oh, because all of them appear in unstressed syllables.

 You write xopoшo(good, well) but say khah-rah-shoh. Here, we have three os. Notice that the first and the second os are pronounced ah, whereas the last one, in the stressed syllable, is pronounced oh.

 You write нaпpaвo(to the right) but say nuh-prah-vah. Notice that the first a is pronounced uh because it’s not in the stressed syllable, the second a is pronounced ah because it’s in the stressed syllable, and the final o is pronounced ah because it’s not stressed.

 You write Пeтepбуpг(Petersburg) but say pee-teer-boohrk. Notice that the e is pronounced as ee in each case because it’s not stressed.