Introduction to the Russian language 7
there are some additional points that you must take note of if you wish
to perfect your pronunciation. They are described below. If you have the
recordings, make sure you listen for these points.
Stress and vowel reduction (Audio 1.5)
Stress marks are used throughout this book to show you which syllable
to emphasise in your pronunciation of each word. This phenomenon of
stress is not peculiar to Russian. English words also have a stressed
syllable. For example, ‘el’ is pronounced differently in ‘èligible’, where it is
stressed, and ‘trável’, where it is not stressed. In Russian, the emphasis
on the stressed syllable is even greater than in English. The unstressed
syllables, in consequence, suffer greater reduction.
Reduction of vowels
Vowels in stressed syllables are pronounced with their full value, nor-
mally exactly as they are written. Vowels in unstressed syllables are
articulated less strongly, and this changes the pronunciation of some
vowels quite considerably.
Unstressed ‘o’
An unstressed ‘o’ is reduced to either:
(a) a weak ‘a’ sound if the ‘o’ is at the beginning of the word or
in the syllable immediately before the stress, e.g. объéкт
‘object’, мото�p ‘motor’, троллéйбус ‘trolleybus’
or
(b) an even weaker ‘e’ (as in father) in all other unstressed sylla-
bles, e.g. а�том ‘atom’, ю�мop ‘humour’, э�хo ‘echo’, па�спорт
‘passport’.
Unstressed ‘e’ and ‘я’
When they are not stressed, ‘e’ and ‘я’ are usually pronounced more like a
weak ‘и’, e.g. о�пepa ‘opera’, рecтора�н ‘restaurant’, язы�к ‘language’.
At the end of a word they often sound more like the ‘e’ in father, e.g.
до�бpоe ‘good’, фами�лия ‘surname’.
Other vowels are not so greatly affected when they are in unstres sed
syllables, generally being pronounced like a weak version of themselves.