How to Pronounce Russian Soft Sign Easy | The Best Russian Pronunciation Tip

[@JamesKmosko]

This may just save my life.

[@brightwinter9334]

Ль reminds me of the Portuguese lh sound.

[@tonimikael]

As a matter of fact I already begin to think like that before I watched this video. Thank you very much, now I'm grateful and happy. ❤

[@svenbras6735]

I was planning to go to study Russian for a whole academic year at the University of Izhevsk, but for the well-known reasons this won't work. So I am looking to improve my Russian on the net, and your channel is a great help (although it may be a little more advanced). It's a shame you don't get more subscribers.

[@amarhussain9874]

I cleared my doubt only from you , 💞 thxx a lot brilliant teacher 🇵🇰 🇷🇺

[@friar-wad]

Very useful, this explanation made the soft sign much more intuitive for me. I have heard the other explanation involving the position of the tongue, it didn't really click. Hearing the subtle "ih" was much more helpful.

[@philippinekettlebelltraini64]

Очень полезно для меня! Спасибо!

[@lightningstriking7]

Gorgeous teacher!!!!!!!!

[@SpankyHam]

"Не тронь мой трон!" - сказала Дейнерис Таргариен Джону Сноу.😃 "Don't even touch my throne!" said Daenerys Targaryen to Jon Snow.

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Тронь - трон 😅 замечательный пример 😁👍

[@zhenma8053]

very useful explanation!

[@TheNeutron82]

I am frequently annoyed with training on this, but I think this is the first time someone actually brought me somewhere close to the right pronunciation of the ь. Спасибо! 😊😊

[@hackyourrussian4091]

I am happy to know that you found it useful 🤗🤗🤗

[@kobeclan8558]

lovely course for the history of soft sound,~~ It is helpful, Thank you

[@brncrvr]

Thank you! I could never hear the difference on my own and I always had difficulty remembering to include the soft sign when writing/spelling words. Now everything makes sense.

[@ernilliojesuschan6573]

This is the first vid of yours that ive seen and the effort that went into it is quite admirable. Not only did you break this down according to timestamps but you also included detailed tips in the description. Very nice!

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Thank you so much for your kind words 🤗😊

[@igorscaglione2207]

Perfect didactic, helps a lot see the difference between have or don't have the soft sing after a consonant

[@georgewmdole3237]

Great tip. I got right away. I'm in Moscow as a top TOEFL, SAT, SSAT teacher but my constantly changing schedule each week due to client needs prohibits me from taking a standard Russian class at a fixed day and time. I will review this and other videos of yours and contribute to your work by credit card. Many thanks.

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Thank you so much, George! I am happy to know that you liked this tip 😉 Wish you luck in learning Russian! Удачи! You can also download a free guide with essential Russian words and expressions - hack-your-russian.ck.page/7606106e14

[@user-bp6dq9yw2f]

Тише! Души на крыше медленно дышат перед прыжком. Слышу все твои мысли, То, что нам близко. Всё кувырком... Как проще сказать, не растерять, не разорвать? Мы здесь на века, Словно река, Словно слова молитвы. Всё, кроме любви... Вся наша жизнь так далеко. Я, я - не один, но без тебя просто никто. Пепел легок и светел, Я не заметил, Как время прошло. Чары силу теряют и превращают жемчуг в стекло. Как пусто в душе без миражей, без волшебства! Мы здесь лишь на миг... Пусть он звучит, словно слова молитвы... Всё, кроме любви... Вся наша жизнь так далеко. Я, я - не один, но без тебя просто никто.

[@user-bp6dq9yw2f]

English translation Align paragraphs Prayer Versions: #1#2#3 Quiet! The soul is on roof, slowly breathing before jumping. I hear all of your thoughts, Everything that's close to us Is upside down... What is the best way to say, without losing, tearin? We will be here for centuries, Like a river, Like the words of a prayer. Everything except love All of our lives has been so far I, I'm not alone, but without you I'm just no one. Ashes are light and bright. I didn't notice, How time has passed. Spells are losing strength and turning into pearls and glass. The soul is so empty without mirages and magic! We are only here for a moment... Let it sound, like the words of a prayer... Everything except love All of our lives has been so far I, I'm not alone, but without you I'm just no one.

[@LadyAnahita]

THANK YOU

[@Dregs_21]

I was struggling with this for a long time, thankyouverymuch subscribed!!!

[@twcarl1]

That's a very good way to describe it. In many cases you do have to put your tongue right behind your front teeth to produce this sound, so it all leads back the other methods. Молодец!!

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Спасибо 🤗

[@user-bp6dq9yw2f]

Let's now look at some words that contain soft sign. So we have two words [Meл] - without a soft sign .= a piece of chalk{noun} [Myel] And [Meль] -with a soft sign = shallow{adjective} [Mel'] In order to pronounce a word with a soft sign you need to add this light sound [i]. First probably you will not be able to really add this sound straight away to Word. So you should start practicing with particular letters with particular consonants . Another pair of words: Cтaл=He became [Stal] VS Cтaль= Steel [Stal'] Can you hear again this soft can you hear this really light sound [e]? Ceмя= a seed Semya VS Ceмья= a family Sim'ya Can you hear this really light sound [e] after me ? Of course it will not be really easy in the beginning because you will actually need to add this [e ]sound, and you will need to hear it yourself in order to pronounce this word correctly . But it will take some practice in order to really understand how to pronounce it quickly . But the most important is to actually fix this feeling when you pronounce this consonants together with a sound [ih/e] and so on. And you know what I actually have a very perfect tool to help you train pronouncing this sound in words and this tool is songs. There are some really good Russian songs where you can hear this sound in words . Like , for example,the next song : Молитва{prayer}[Malit'va] Artist: Би-2[Bi-2] -How easy to say more simple not to lose, not to break? Как проще сказать, не растерять, не разорвать? Kak proshche skazat', ne rasteryat', ne razorvat'? Did you hear this sound in words where there was a soft sign ? You could clearly hear this[ eh] sound in this song because it was really slow . Of course you cannot hear this sound when we speak really quickly. Like for example : Сказать , сказать[Skazat] But here is a point; you first need to learn how to pronounce this sound when you have a soft sign in really slow speech. So you pronounce them slowly and then you will be able to pronounce them quicker. So you just need to train yourself .

[@MrEdward43]

That is a great tip, thank you

[@hackyourrussian4091]

You are welcome 🤗

[@sarahscriven6332]

At last, thank you

[@oatmeal7818]

Your tip work in Portuguese too. To pronunce N in NH similar to нь and L in LH similar to ль

[@p.millard557]

Great explanation

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Thank you 🤗

[@eladmin8522]

Спасибо большое! Я думаю это видео очень полезно для испанцев.

[@hackyourrussian4091]

🤗 Пожалуйста 😉

[@stephaniebm]

Wonderful lesson! Thank you!

[@LuNaisub]

Thank you soooo much for this! I have struggled for so long with the ь sound, this really helped!

[@hackyourrussian4091]

🤗 I am happy to know that 😉

[@johngorentz6409]

That may help! And I especially like lessons and techniques that take into account how a language got to be the way it is.

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Thank you for your comment, John 😊 I am happy to know that you liked it 😉

[@lifedeluxe4all]

This was really helpful, thanks.

[@kylehines3185]

Thanks for the tips!

[@FCAFlyer]

Awesome!

[@Juan-Hdez]

Very useful. Spasibo! ❤️🌹

[@user-bp6dq9yw2f]

The soft sign (Ь, ь, italics Ь, ь) also known as the front yer or front jer, is a letter of the Cyrillic script. In Old Church Slavonic, it represented a short (or "reduced") front vowel. As with its companion, the back yer ⟨ъ⟩, the vowel phoneme that it designated was later partly dropped and partly merged with other vowels. In the modern Slavic Cyrillic writing systems (all East Slavic languages and Bulgarian and Church Slavic), it does not represent an individual sound but indicates palatalization of the preceding consonant. Uses and meanings Palatalization sign Main article: Palatalization (phonetics) The soft sign is normally written after a consonant and indicates its softening (palatalization). Less commonly, the soft sign just has a grammatically determined usage with no phonetic meaning (like Russian: туш 'fanfare' and тушь 'India ink', both pronounced [tuʂ] but different in grammatical gender and declension). In East Slavic languages and some other Slavic languages (such as Bulgarian), there are some consonants that do not have phonetically different palatalized forms but corresponding letters still admit the affixing soft sign. The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet has had no soft sign as a distinct letter since the mid-19th century: palatalization is represented by special consonant letters instead of the sign (some of these letters, such as ⟨Њ⟩ or ⟨Љ⟩, were designed as ligatures with the grapheme of the soft sign). The modern Macedonian alphabet, based on the Serbian Cyrillic variant, has had no soft sign since its creation, in 1944. Before a vowel in East Slavic languages Between a consonant and a vowel, the soft sign bears also a function of "iotation sign": in Russian, vowels after the soft sign are iotated (compare Russian льют [lʲjut] '(they) pour/cast' and лют [lʲut] '(he is) fierce'). The feature, quite consistent with Russian orthography, promulgated a confusion between palatalization and iotation, especially because ⟨ь⟩ usually precedes so-called soft vowels. Combinations ⟨ья⟩ (ya), ⟨ье⟩ (ye), ⟨ьё⟩ (yo) and ⟨ью⟩ (yu) give iotated vowels, like corresponding vowel letters in isolation (and word-initially), and unlike its use immediately after a consonant letter in which palatalization can occur but not iotation. In those cases, ⟨ь⟩ may be considered as a sign indicating that a vowel after it is pronounced separately from the previous consonant, but that is the case neither for ⟨ьи⟩ (yi) nor for ⟨ьо⟩ (yo), because these vowels are not iotated in isolation. The latter case, though, is rarely used in Russian (only in loanwords such as ⟨бульон⟩) and can be seen as a replacement of phonetically identical ⟨ьё⟩, which gets rid of an "inconvenient" letter ⟨ё⟩. In Ukrainian and Bulgarian, the spelling ⟨ьо⟩ indicates palatalization, not iotation. ⟨ъ⟩, an "unpalatalization sign", also denotes iotation, as in the case of ⟨ъя⟩, ⟨ъе⟩, ⟨ъё⟩ and ⟨ъю⟩ in Russian. Similarly, the soft sign may denote iotation in Belarusian and Ukrainian, but it is not used so extensively as in Russian. Ukrainian uses a quite different repertoire of vowel letters from those of Russian and Belarusian, and iotation is usually expressed by an apostrophe in Ukrainian. Still the soft sign is used in Ukrainian if the sound followed by an iotated vowel is palatized. Source: Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_sign

[@ms.williams9366]

Your teaching style is absolutely amazing! Keep up the good work!!!!!

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Thank you soooo much! 🤗

[@christopherhoak971]

спасибо!

[@PScaman]

Very impressive!

[@Twelvehourpowernap]

Спасибо 😀

[@ramone2720]

Excellent lesson and thank you for the detailed explanation. I found this video very helpful 👍

[@limecyangd]

very helpful and thank you very much! but the only problem for me is the Л with the soft sign and i can't know whats the difference ngl

[@medozaki8371]

More pronunciation lesson Thank you

[@hackyourrussian4091]

🤗 I am happy to know that you liked it 😊

[@fazelifazelullah6106]

Спасибо🙏

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Пожалуйста 🤗

[@Balazak]

The way I always tackled it was to imagine that there was just the slightest beginning sound of a Russian 'е' or 'я' sound right after the consonant. This would automatically make my consonant softer. It got me very close, but I felt it was still not 100% correct. I'll practice this way from now on. Also, nice info that this letter once had a sound. I never heard about this before.

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Great, you had a very good idea of what a Russian sign sounds like in words. Thank you for sharing 🤗 You will sound even more accurate with this little trick 😉

[@Balazak]

@@hackyourrussian4091 😎👍

[@TheNeftalica]

Спасибо большое 🙃

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Пожалуйста 🤗

[@surenderkumarohlayan6900]

Good 👍

[@Pthomme]

In my mind it's similar to a silent 'e' at the end of English words. Is this a good analogy?

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Well, if you mean a silent 'e' in words like 'type' then no. There are no really equivalent sounds in English, except for words like 'few' and 'pew' where one has to pronounce consonants 'f' and 'p' soft. But it can be misleading as you cannot really fix this sound this way since every consonant is different 😉

[@lesn0v]

Наверное, для тех кто учит русский будет полезно

[@ovsena_kasa]

Lucky for me, i am from Serbia so i already know how to say some of these soft letters Љ soft Л(you can see that this letter is combination of Л and soft sign) Њ soft Н Ћ soft Т Ђ soft Д Because i know to say these sound i can also say soft м, soft б, п... but not perfectly

[@descent2oblivion]

Очень хорошое видео, Мила! Мне супер понравилось! :)))) Guys, I really reccomend her course, I have been studying it for about 10 days, and it is very clear explained, super fun and really engaging! :)))

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Огромное спасибо, Эммануэль 🤗 я рада, что тебе нравится мой курс 😃🎉

[@descent2oblivion]

Конечно! ⁦☺️⁩ Я уже 15% на он 🤗

[@hackyourrussian4091]

😃 Круто! Молодец 👍

[@machm8615]

Greetings from India!!! Your videos are amazing and informative.

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Hello 👋 I am happy you like them 🤗

[@dougfillmore]

Мне кажется, что мягкий знак влияет не только на произношение предыдущего согласного, но и на произношение преыдущего гласного. Например, мне гласные в словах "стал" и "сталь" звучат немножко по-другому.

[@SpankyHam]

с Ь гласная буква чуть мягче должна быть.Это как бы "готовит почву" (готовить почву - идиома близкая к setting the stage) для мягкого звучания согласной буквы.

[@dougfillmore]

Это объяснение имеет смысл. Рот заранее готовится к смягчению следующего согласного. Спасибо за новую идиому!

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Согласна, здесь также влияет длина слова. Хоть мы и добавляем только один мягкий знак в конце, но слово произносится дольше. А в слове 'стал' ударение падает резко на букву 'а'. Разницу в таких деталях лучше изучать уже на более продвинутом уровне, когда все базовые звуки хорошо отработаны 😉

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Точно подмечено 😉👍

[@anim3nurs3]

Wait, so is the breathing at the end of soft consonant the " i " sound or no ?

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Sorry, I didn't really get the question. This is a tip to pronounce the Russian soft sign (it's not a consonant). And a very slight sound 'i' makes consonants with a soft sign sound correctly.

[@anim3nurs3]

@@hackyourrussian4091 Oh, I see, the thing that I wanted to say was that after trying to pronounce the soft sign, I would hear breathing audible from me. I am still a little confused about the " i " sound and it being heard at the end, tysm for answering my question ! 😊

[@zulkiflijamil4033]

T + [ih] M + [ih] Your channel and lesson are both excellent and very useful for me. Thank you very much. 🥇🏆👍

[@hackyourrussian4091]

I am happy to hear that Zulkifli 🤗 спасибо 😊

[@zulkiflijamil4033]

@@hackyourrussian4091 Здравствуйте. Today I listen to this video for second time.

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Wow, I am happy to know that 😃

[@waltzlC]

Спасибо большое🙏 Это интересная история... И это интересный совет ... Видео как всегда отличное👏😊

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Большое спасибо, Лоренцо 🤗 Ты очень добр 😊

[@catboy721]

Two questions/comments: When you introduced the two example consonants, you named them with the sound. Don't most Russian speakers identify these by their letter names? (so, teh and emm, rather than 'ti' and 'mmuh'). Also, I wonder how helpful song examples are because singers always extend syllables or exaggerate pronunciations for phrasing. Probably better to just loo at word patterns, right?

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Hello! In my video, I am speaking about the pronunciation and not about the alphabet, that is why I don't focus on the names of letters but on sounds. The only time when you need to know the letter names in Russian is when you need to spell your name (or in abbreviations) 😉. As for examples from songs, I said in this video that, of course, we don't pronounce words like in songs, but some songs are great to learn how to pronounce words slowly and hear every sound. In fast spoken speech you cannot hear all these sounds and that's why it's difficult for many people to understand how to pronounce them. In my experience, people progress a lot when they practice their pronunciation with songs.

[@catboy721]

@@hackyourrussian4091 Отлично. Спасибо. I knew there were reasons behind your thinking.

[@gru841]

What А and У means? And when to use it, i always confused with it meaning...

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Hello! I will need a little bit more information on your question. Do you mean letters? Or do you mean a preposition У (equivalent to 'at' in English) vs a conjunction 'А' (equivalent to an English 'while' 'but' when we make a contrast)?

[@gru841]

@@hackyourrussian4091 preposition, i know A=A, У=U, but what i confusing on is its Meaning on a sentences, i only know that sometimes У mean "Have" in some sentence but just wondering does it havr any other meaning than "Have",example" У меня=I have" but A? no idea, i once ask a Russian what A mean and when to use,he answer, A make the sentences more Strong or kind of, i dont remember very well of his answer

[@hackyourrussian4091]

OK, I see now 😁 I just thought you meant that you confuse the difference between them, because they have nothing in common. So, a preposition 'У' is used in two cases: 1) showing a possession 'у меня', 'у Маши', 'у медведя'; 2) meaning 'near' - ex: у дома (near home), у машины (near the car). In this case it is a synonym of 'около', 'возле'. 'А' can be a conjunction and an Interjection. As a conjunction, it is used to show a contrast. Ex: У меня есть кот, а у него собака (I have a cat and/but he has a dog). Or Меня зовут Мила. А тебя? (this is also a contrast). As an interjection it is mostly used to show that you understand/realize something. Ex: - Где ты был? (where were you?) - Я бегал (I've been running) - Ааа, ясно (OK, I see). Hope it helps 🤗

[@gru841]

@@hackyourrussian4091 Bolshoye Spasibo! I doesnt very understand on the A cuz its kinda complicated but now i Understand the У thanks to u👍

[@user-bp6dq9yw2f]

Do you find it difficult to pronounce a Russian soft sign? Tired of useless traditional pronunciation tips? Then watch this video and learn the best tip to pronounce Russian soft sign easy! Hello it's Mila from “Hack your Russian” and today i'm going to share with you the best tip on how to pronounce russian soft sign “Meki's nak” and I wonder why this tip is not shown in every Russian textbook because it can make your life so much easier. By the way this video is a part of my new course “Hack your Russian pronunciation “ that can help you not only to speak russian with a proper pronunciation and to sound more natural, but also to improve your Russian comprehension so that you will be able to understand fast spoken speech. Russian textbooks and the majority of Russian language teachers are using traditional ways of teaching Russian pronunciation, which are good in theory but not in practice . That is why I decided to create this course where I share with you some unconventional but extremely effective techniques to help you sound like a native . So before actually giving you this tip on how to pronounce russian soft sign I want to tell you a brief history of this sign in Russian language . If you don't want to hear the whole story you can skip directly to this tip, but I really believe that it's important to understand how the language works and why we actually have these soft [Ь] and hard [Ъ] signs in Russian language. Believe it or not but in the past this soft sign [Ь] actually was a letter and it was a vowel called “eрь”-ye and it had a sound which can be really unbelievable for people nowadays, because as we know russian soft sign doesn't have a sound . So until the 12th century this soft sign had a sound and it was a sound [i ],very short [i]. After time this sound was transformed into [Э=e] also very short [e]. However Russian language was evolving and after time it completely lost its Sound. And nowadays we know that it doesn't have a sound and it is called soft sign or “Maki snack “. So we know that it makes a previous letter sound soft. Well it's natural for Russian natives to pronounce this soft sign in words. It is really difficult to explain to a foreigner, that there is a soft sign that doesn't have any sound at all, but they anyway have to pronounce it in words. I know that there are different ways and techniques in order to teach people to pronounce this soft sign in words like, for example to listen and repeat which is really insane, because if you don't know if you have never used this soft sign in your language you cannot really learn to pronounce it like this . There are also some ways to actually show how you need to put your tongue and to position your mouth in order to pronounce this soft sign, which is also not working because actually you cannot really learn this universal way of pronouncing a soft sign with each consonant , because every consonant is pronounced differently. So you cannot just find a universal way to put your tongue in a way to pronounce this soft sign like for example with a consonant [T]. We will pronounce it [Tь = T'}. And I have my tongue touching my alveolar ridge . While for example when I need to pronounce [M] together with a soft sign [ь] it will be [me]. So in this case I have my lips working and my tongue is not touching anywhere . There are also some better ways to explain how to pronounce this soft sign after vowels, after consonants, after some other particular consonants which is really great but so complicated. And I have already seen so many foreigners being confused after learning all these rules and I wonder why it's not really that much easier to explain how to pronounce this soft sign with this little trick that I'm going to show you right now . So the key to pronouncing a Russian soft sign is the sound [ih]. So actually this is the short [e] that I told you was pronounced in the past. As you can see russian soft sign actually has a sound, but don't get me wrong; of course it doesn't have a sound by its own . But when you pronounce words with this soft sign [ь] you can add this soft, and weary light sound and you will see that it works just perfect . Let me show you. Let's take for example a consonant [T] If we want to pronounce it together with a soft sign [ь] you just need to add this really short and light sound [e] , so you will have : [T]+ih= TьTe Let's take another consonant [M]. We add this light sound [hi] and we have[ me] M+[ih]=Mьme

[@YaShoom]

*m(j)aex(j)k(j)ij znak

[@amarsalem5671]

Cynep, cynep, cynep! 🤗

[@erickzetina193]

Spanish speakers... add a "y" sound after the consonant to make it soft... de nada ;D

[@YaShoom]

No, you need to pronounce it at the same time, and not after (if there is no combination “ь/ъ+е/ё/ю/я/и”, for example, “объезд” sounds like “бь+йэ”, and “белый” like “бь+э”).

[@user-bp6dq9yw2f]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/gWK4iIaDrduko5o Би-2 - Молитва (OST «Метро») - KZbin

[@cherchezlavache5183]

👍🙋‍♀️🥂

[@mohamedtharwatov]

ой -красивая учительница- можно свами учить русский язык?

[@ivansidorov6464]

Думаю это вполне наглядное объяснение для тех кто язык учит)

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Спасибо 🤗

[@adomagomedov2463]

Привет из России Hello ,l am Russian

[@SalahNeuer]

мне кажется что ты не 🤨

[@juzukhan9314]

Molodets! Sound is little bit slow.

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Спасибо 🤗 yeah, sorry for inconvenience. I noticed it too late (((

[@mattrivera8587]

Я купил Англо-Русская Параллельная Библия . Почему "Англо" и не Английский? "Русская" и не "Русский"? I so hope I formed that question correctly... 😬🤷‍♂️

[@SpankyHam]

Привет. Библия - femenine gender noun. Поэтому ОНА - англо-русская. female form of ajective Англо-русская - ну такая форма прилагательного используется для "двуязыковых" слов например - русско-японский словарь Russian-Japanese dictionary -Ий/-ЫЙ endings for adjectives describing the male nouns испано-американская война the Spanish-American war -АЯ/-ЯЯ endings for adjectives describing femenine nouns франко-канадское население the French-canadian population -ОЕ/-ЕЕ endings for adjectives describing neuter nouns

[@hackyourrussian4091]

Всё верно 👍 спасибо за ответ, а то я иногда не успеваю отвечать 😃

[@hackyourrussian4091]

The answer of Spanky Ham is correct. I will just translate it in English for you 😉 библия is a noun of a feminine gender (I don't know whether you have already learned that we have 3 genders of nouns in Russian language 😁, and the endings of adjectives depend on it). We use this form 'англо' instead of английская because it is half English (so the first word that comes will have this form. It could be - русско-английский, французско-русский and so on). The correct sentence in Russian will be 'Я купил англо-русскую параллельную библию' (oh yeah, you also need to change endings depending on the case of a noun 😃 I hope it will not scare you as I know that you are a beginner) 😉

[@mattrivera8587]

@@hackyourrussian4091 😨😨😨😨😨 lol

[@jeffrachelburkhalter3783]

This was super helpful. Thank you.

[@BeverlyKDay]

Спасибо ☺️