Уро́к 5
Read and watch the video below!
I. Russian consonants are either voiced or voiceless.
A voiced consonant is one in which you use your voice. Technically this means that the vocal folds are engaged (vibrating), such as the ‘b’ in the word ‘back’.
A voiceless consonant is one in which you don’t use your voice. That is, the vocal folds are NOT engaged when produced, such as the ‘p’ in the word ‘pack’.
It turns out that /b/ and /p/ are just about identical sounds. Seriously. The difference between them is this one (fairly important) feature – voice. Both sounds are made at the lips and both stop the flow of air through the mouth when made.
Try this. Place your hand on your throat and say ‘back’ and then say ‘pack’. You should notice a vibration in your throat, or the engaging of your vocal folds, when you start to say [b] but not when you start to say [p]. Once you say the vowel, voicing fully turns on, so I’m talking just about the initial sounds of these words.
II. Voiced/Voiceless pairs (of consonants) in Russian
| Voiced | Voiceless |
| б | п |
| д | т |
| г | к |
| в* | ф |
| ж | ш |
| з | с |
**Some consonants in Russian are not listed here because they don’t have a voiced ‘partner’ or because the are ‘sonorants’, like м, н, л, р.
III. Pronunciation Rules & Voicing
1. Final devoicing
Russian words experience something known as ‘final devoicing’. If a word ends in a voiced consonant (see above table), at the end of a word it becomes voiceless. So, a final ‘б’ will sound like ‘п’, a final ‘д’ like a ‘т’, a final ‘г’ like a ‘к’, and so on.
Listen to the following examples. Note the difference in pronunciation when a voiced consonant is the FINAL letter of the word versus when it is not.
| го́род | ‘city’ | |
| города́ | ‘cities’ | |
| флаг | ‘flag‘ | |
| фла́ги | ‘flags’ | |
| зуб | ‘tooth‘ | |
| зу́бы | ‘teeth’ |
2. Regressive voicing assimilation
One more. When these consonants (in the table above) are clustered together in a word, the voicing quality of the final consonant in the sequence determines those consonants before it. If a cluster ends in a voiced consonant, then the consonants preceding it will also be pronounced voiced (even though they may be written as voiced consonants).
Listen. Notice the spelling and listen to what happens:
| футбо́л | ‘soccer’ | |
| та́к же | ‘likewise’ |
Likewise, a sequence of consonants whose final letter is ‘voiceless’ requires that all consonants immediately preceding it must also be voiceless. For example:
| ло́дка | ‘boat’ | |
| авто́бус | ‘bus’ |
*NOTE: The letter {В, в} is somewhat exceptional to these rules. It can undergo voicing, as in ‘автобус’ above, but it cannot trigger voicing. For example, твой is pronounce as [tvoj], with no voicing assimilation triggered for /t/. Listen:
| твой | ‘your’ |
