Below you will find Russian pronunciation rules for vowels and consonants. The Russian alphabet uses the Cyrillic script. Compare the differences in the pronunciation of the following consonants… Some letters of the Russian alphabet look like and sound similar to … Exceptions are consonants that are always hard /t͡s/, /ʂ/, and /ʐ/; and consonants that are always soft /t͡ɕ/, /ɕɕ/, /ʑʑ/, and /j/.There is a marked tendency of Russian hard consonants to be velarized, though this … Some of them form pairs too. The consonants Й ( Y ), Ч ( Ch ), and Щ ( Shch ) are always soft. There are a few cases when Russian consonants are pronounced not as they are written: Russian voiced consonants are pronounced as their voiceless counterparts when they appear at the very end of the word. Soft consonants The main purpose of this lesson is to demonstrate the phonetic difference between hard and soft consonant sounds in the Russian language. Learning the difference between soft and hard consonants is vital in mastering pronunciation in Russian grammar. Soft consonants Pronunciation--> Phonetics course--> Lesson 3. Russian Consonants. There are 21 consonants in the Russian alphabet. Relaxing with consonants Most consonants can be hard or soft (palatalized). Pronunciation of consonants with 1 audio pronunciation, 15 translations, 5 sentences and more for consonants. Russian is an Eastern Slavonic language closely related to Ukrainian and Belorussian with about 277 million speakers in … Let's go over to the Russian consonants. Phonetic details: Almost all consonants come in hard/soft pairs. Soft vowels (я, ё, ю, и, е) and the soft sign (ь) soften preceding consonants. If you want to sound like a real Russian, you need to keep the basics in the following sections in mind. The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters: 10 vowels (а, е, ё, и, о, у, ы, э, ю, я), 21 consonants and 2 signs (hard and soft) that are not pronounced. Pronunciation of the Russian consonants. The consonants Ж ( Zh ), Ш ( Sh ), and Ц ( Ts ) are always hard. To be able to read in Russian, you need to know these nuances. On the other hand, there is an exception with the letter й which is called a semivowel. Russian Alphabet. Examples: Say it, don’t spray it! The softness is marked by the letters that follow the consonant. Enunciating consonants correctly. Self study guide About us New Russian Textbook Russian Alphabet There are 33 letters in the Russian Alphabet: 10 vowels, 21 consonants, and 2 signs (ь, ъ). Like Russian vowels, Russian consonants follow certain patterns and rules of pronunciation. Russian language has 21 consonants which are classified in Soft and hard. Some letters in the Russian language change the way they sound depending on their position in words and the surrounding letters. 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