Tongue twisters and yery (Lesson #3)

After every lesson I am getting more and more motivated. Progress is visible. During the last lesson on Monday we have focused on three rules in Russian language, which are connected to pronunciation. First we covered the Akanie and Ikanie rules. I didn’t completely understand this rule until today, when I’m writing this blog. Akanie basically means that letter “O” can be pronounced as “A” if the accent is not on the particular letter “O.” Same goes for Ikanie. The rule states that unaccented ‘e’, ‘ё’, and ‘я’ are pronounced the same as ‘и’.

Second rule is about Devoicing at the end of the words. It is about sound change where a voiced consonant becomes voiceless due to the influence of its phonological environment. For example, English suffix -s is pronounced [s] when it follows a voiceless phoneme (cats), and [z] when it follows a voiced phoneme (dogs).

In Russian this happens with these characters:

Third rule is about Adjusting the Voicing of Consonant Clusters. Basically, if the final consonant is voiced, all will be voiced, if the final consonant is voiceless, all will be voiceless.

But not everything goes as smooth as I would hope. I have found my kryptonite.

It’s the letter “yery.” There exists a not so simple rule how to pronounce it. The Russian yery (ы) is a sound which is made by raising your tongue to a position in your mouth exactly between the positions of the sound of ‘i’ in bit and that of ‘ou’ in should. Practice it by first pronouncing the English sounds, one after another, until you are conscious of where your tongue is when you pronounce them. Your tongue should be rather high in your mouth in either case, but when you pronounce the ‘i’ in bit your tongue should be in the front of your mouth while it is in the back when you pronounce the ‘ou’ of should. When you become aware of these positions, force your tongue to a position exactly at the midpoint between these two positions and, without rounding your lips, make the sound.

Pronouncing  ы is like learning a tongue twister. When I master it, I will be really happy:

Three switched witches watch three Swatch watch switches. Which switched witch watch which Swatch watch switch?

On the Finnish teaching side we made a big step forward. Yuliya has written her first exam. She passed it with flying colors. That was just a warm up. Second part of the lesson was about possessive suffixes.

Although the rule is pretty straight forward there is some “science” behind it. We have quickly checked the 11 word groups and rules associated with them.

Last part of the lesson was speaking comprehension. I brought a one minute sound clip and asked Yuliya to write down what she hears. This exercise helped Yuliya to identify her strengths and weaknesses and will help me to plan future lessons more carefully.

Sincerely yours (С уважением),
Sebastjan (Себастьян)