Get acquainted with Russian phonetics The purpose of

Get acquainted with Russian phonetics! The purpose of this program is to familiarize foreign students with the Russian alphabet and the sounds they represent before students begin to learn the rules of reading and writing.

Russian fonetics for beginners Alphabet, letters, sounds

Introduction Dear friends! Welcome to the world of Russian! This presentation will acquaint you with the Russian alphabet, its letters, and sounds. Look, listen and read the commentaries! To listen click on this icon → Good luck!

Russian language in the world Russian is the official language of the Russian Federation and one of 6 working languages of the United Nations. Near 500 million people in the world speak Russian - 350 million of them live outside of Russia, and more than 140 million are Russian citizens.

The creation of the Russian Alphabet The Slavic Alphabet, or Cyrillic script, was created in the IX century by the enlightened Greek monks Cyril and Methodius. Actually, the Cyrillic alphabet is used to write eight languages, including Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian and others Slavic languages.

Day of Slavic Writing and Culture This date is celebrated on 24 th of May in Russia and all other the Slavic countries. On this holiday, we celebrate the first teachers of Slavic people: Saints Cyril and Methodius, the creators of Russian Alphabet.

The founders of Slavic Writing, Saints Cyril and Methodius

Monument to Saints Cyril and Methodius in the Russian city of Volgograd

Alphabet The modern Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. Note! In Russian textbooks, you will find two kinds of printing styles – standard and italic, which differ from one other. The differences between these two printing styles are particularly noticeable in the following lower case letters: 4 th (г/г), 5 th (д/д), 10 th (и/и), 11 th (й/й), 17 th (п/п), and 20 th (т/т).

Letters and sounds А, Б, В, Г Letters 1. А а Аа sounds names of letters [а] а 2. Б б [б] 3. В в Вв [в] 4. Г г Гг [г] бэ вэ гэ

Д, Е, Ё, Ж 5. Д д Дд [д] дэ 6. Е е Ее [йэ] е 7. Ё ё Ёё [йо] Ж ж [ж] ё 8. Ж ж жэ

З, И, Й, К 9. З з [з] 10. И и [и] 11. Й й [й] 12. К к [к] зэ и и краткое (йот) ка

Л, М, Н, О 13. Л л [л] эль 14. М м [м] эм 15. Н н [н] эн 16. О о [о] о

П, Р, С, Т 17. П п Пп [п] пэ 18. Р р [р] эр 19. С с [c] эс 20. Т т [т] тэ

У, Ф, Х, Ц 21. У у [у] у 22. Ф ф [ф] эф 23. Х х [х] ха 24. Ц ц [ц] цэ

Ч, Ш, Щ 25. Ч ч [ч’] че 26. Ш ш [ш] ша 27. Щ щ [ш’ш’] ща

ъ, ы, ь 28. ъ ъ ---- твёрдый знак 29. ы [ы] ы 30. ь ь ---- мягкий знак

Э, Ю, Я 31. Э э Ээ [э] э 32. Ю ю Юю [йу] ю [йа] я 33. Я я

Commentary 1) Transcriptions are written in brackets […]. 2) An apostrophe (’) marks softness in a consonant. 3) A letter is a unit of writing, a sound is a unit of speech.

NB! 1) The letters ъ, ы, ь (28, 29, 30) don’t have upper case equivalents, because no Russian words begin with these letters. 2) The letter Ё ё (7) often looks like Е е (6)!

The classification of the letters of the Russian alphabet and the sounds designated by them Vowels 10 letters denote vowels: А (1), Е (6), Ё (7), И (10), О (16), У (21), Ы (29), Э (31), Ю (32), Я (33)

Consonants 21 letters denote consonants: Б(2), В (3), Г (4), Д (5), Ж (8), З (9), Й (11), К (12) , Л (13), М (14), Н (15), П (17) , Р (18), С (19) , Т (20) , Ф (22), Х (23), Ц (24), Ч (25), Ш (26), Щ (27)

Signs ь – soft sign (28) ъ – hard sign (30)

Classification of vowels These 6 letters А [а], О [о], У [у], Ы [ы], Э [э], И [и] each represent a single one vowel sound ; These 4 letters Е [йэ/’э], Ё [йо/’о], Ю [йу/’у], Я[йа/’а] denote either one vowel sound or two (й+ vowel), depending on their position in a word.

Classification of consonants These 12 letters represent voiced and voiceless consonant pairs : Б (2) – П (17) В (3) – Ф (22) Г (4) – К (12) Д (5) – Т (20) Ж (8) – Ш (26) З (9) – С (19) Note! The voiced consonants (Б, В, Г, Д, Ж, З) represent sounds produced using voice and noise, while the voiceless consonants (П, Ф, К, Т, Ш, С) are produced using noise only.

Unpaired consonants 5 letters denote voiced unpaired consonants: Й (11), Л (13), М (14), Н (15), Р (18) 4 letters denote voiceless unpaired consonants: Х (23), Ц (24), Ч (25), Щ (27) NB! The voiced consonants denote sounds, produced by voice and noise, while the voiceless consonants are produced by noise only.

Soft sign (ь) and hard sign (ъ) The signs ь and ъ perform either phonetic or orthographic functions. (Watch the 2 nd module: «System of letters and sounds» )

Watch this animation and listen to this children's song about the Russian alphabet! Learn it by heart! (Left-click on your mouse!)

List of references 1. Кедрова Г. Е. и др. Интернет-учебник по русской фонетике. URL: http: //www. philol. msu. ru/rus/galya 1/index 1. htm 2. Кирилл и Мефодий. URL: http: //www. krugosvet. ru/node/35197 3. Кириллица. URL: http: //ru. wikipedia. org/wiki/Кириллица 4. Шустикова Т. В. Вводный фонетикограмматический курс русского языка для лиц, говорящих по-английски. URL: http: //www. linguarus. com/ru/materials/lessons/of

Text and presentation by I. Shigina Sound recording by E. Panferova Translation consultant: Karen Chilstrom (USA)