More on Soft and Hard Signs in Russian

[@jaimebenito620]

Brilliant presentation, perfect English (and I hope, perfect Russian) and extremely useful. Much more useful than any other resource I have come across so far. Thanks!

[@russiangrammar]

Jaime Benito de Valle Ruiz Спасибо!

[@coucoun127]

Brilliant explanations! I as a Russian couldn't do it better than these gyus from South Carolina (US state) Thanks a lot, gentlemen, for your excellent work.

[@wsudance85]

I have been looking for an explanation like this for years! спасибо

[@mozihouse]

Perfect English! Perfect explanation! Well done!

[@nemetskiylager]

Странно было бы, если бы у нейтива было бы плохое знание родного языка

[@gemzroxya]

Excellent grammatical explanations and perfect English! Thank-you so much. Best video on hard/soft signs I have seen for Russian.

[@stevedowning3892]

The y-glide... brilliant! Thanks - I have trawled so many videos on ь/ъ... now I think I'm getting somewhere ☺

[@SelectCopy]

Another great explanation, thanks.

[@andaleangel9510]

i love Russian ! and these videos made me to try speak Russian ,at the moment i speak russian ! thanks for the helpful !

[@Narciss99]

thanks for the amazing videos

[@widepootis]

Extremely useful!

[@anotaelmail]

FANTASTIC!

[@budweisergarcia8824]

this is the stepping stone for my russian.this is bad ass lol out of all the 6 languages im learning its russian thats theee most difficult im taking this shit sloooow lol

[@user-tc6gh2hs4m]

Budweiser Garcia Maybe you should learn English first, mate.

[@skoppppppppka]

An interesting fact is that the hard sign sometimes softerns a preceding consonant. For example, объект. You can pronounce hard or soft Б, both are correct and understandable. And he word адъютант. There are very few people who pronounce the hard Д in this word.

[@russiangrammar]

Thanks for an interesting comment. I do prefer to think of it not as the *letter* ъ softening a preceding sound, but as the sound /j/ (as English 'yes,' German 'ja') which can cause the preceding consonant to be soft: a softness assimilation (like здесь, with soft з). I've read that final consonants in prefixes like под-, об-, от- are more likely to stay hard before /j/ - I'm curious, are you more likely to pronounce hard д- in подъехать than in адъютант, where the д is not part of a prefix? This video for beginners necessarily simplifies things, but for those who want more, B.M. Groen's article "On the Phonological Feature of Palatalisation in Contemporary Standard Russian" (Studies in Slavic and General Linguistics Vol. 17, Studies in Russian Linguistics) has lots of details on various types of softness assimilation. It's from 1992, and does recognize that changes may be in progress. :)

[@skoppppppppka]

@@russiangrammar yes, I tend to pronounce hard д in подъезд. I think there is a 'gradient' between hard (velarised) and soft (palatalised) consonants. In объект I can't hear any difference when a speaker produces hard б or soft. We I say this word, б loses its velarisation and becomes more like English B (neutral). But sounds д and т get slight africation when they are soft (slight ts- and dz-sounds), so I hear a difference when a speaker pronounce адъютант with hard or soft д.

[@Червоточина]

@@russiangrammar адъютант - это действительно некоторое исключение. Все прочие сочетания д и ъ в приставках произносятся вполне твердо. А вот насчёт б, п и в это правда. Губно-губные и губно-зубные не хотят смягчаться перед йотом. Поэтому в словах типа пью, вьюга, бью, копье носители обычно их произносят скорее твердо.

[@PolitisInfo]

Great explanation !

[@sterlingnotsosilver]

You've earned a sub! :D

[@dnbfreestyleskater]

great explanations. thanks

[@markuslebt]

1:53 go straight to here.

[@privytkotik]

Спасибо большое, товарищ!! Хотя я начал изучать русский почти полтура года назад, я никогда не понял точно, почему иногда есть мягкий знак перед буквами е, е, или я. как c глаголами "бить, лить, и шить," например. Ваши ролики очень полезные для меня!

[@arlenalem]

Thanks for your videos, Do you have a video about the pronunciation of Ж?

[@russiangrammar]

I don't have a particular video about ж.. do you have specific questions about it? In general, it's much like 's' in English 'measure' or 'pleasure;' or like 'j' in French 'je.' Keep in mind that it's nearly always pronounced as a hard consonant, no matter what letter follows it.

[@arlenalem]

Thanks for your answer, basically i was wonder how to get the sound of ж. Now i found a way thanks again for your videos.

[@grkoste]

Is there a recommended order for us to watch these Russian Grammar videos? Does their creator offer any in-person classes to the general public?

[@russiangrammar]

These videos aren't a complete course on their own; I'd recommend watching them as they correspond to topics in whatever book you're using in your course. If you're not able to enroll in a course or just learning on your own, I often recommend Nicholas Brown's 'New Penguin Russian Course' - it's inexpensive and has brief, clear explanations. I don't currently teach in-person classes, though I'm about to release an online course for advanced beginners and intermediate students on verbs of motion - stay tuned!

[@haidyh6587]

Hello Новый коллега работает медленно is it a correct sentence or I should write новая коллега? Another one which one is correct Is it ( Это or эта )не очень хорошая музыка? Thank you ♥️

[@russiangrammar]

Новый коллега if it's a man, новая коллега if it's a woman. Коллега is an example of 'common gender,' which have endings like feminine nouns, but adjectives/modifier endings depend on the gender of the person. Others like this include сирота 'orphan,' пьяница 'drunkard,' убийца 'murderer,' левша 'left-handed person.' Это не очень хорошая музыка = This is not very good music; contrast that with эта хорошая музыка 'this good music' (not a complete sentence). See this video for more on that contrast: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l3rMY5KdeZybfLc :)

[@haidyh6587]

@@russiangrammar wow you are a wonderful teacher .. thank you so much I really appreciate your effort ☺️

[@exaltedslayerofwitches9396]

I don't get it, so both the hard and soft sign represent the y~ yet the hard sign can also be silent?

[@russiangrammar]

The hard sign is only used after prefixes that end in a consonant, so it's always found after a consonant and before a vowel. In that context we can say it's a 'y' sound, as in подъехать (compare the 'd - y - e' in English "odd yellow"). There are other ways of spelling that 'y' sound in other contexts; that may be why some say that ъ 'has no sound of its own.' I'm not aware of any times when it's really silent, though, at least in contemporary spelling (before 1918 ъ was much more common, and usually was silent).

[@exaltedslayerofwitches9396]

podyehat? from the way I'm understanding this, "ы" анд "ъ" are somewhat the same and "ь" is just for luxury Also, can you tell me in what situation would "Ё" and "Е" sound like the English "O" and "E" and when they would sound like English "YO" and "YE"?

[@russiangrammar]

ь is not just for luxury - please see kzbin.info/www/bejne/qKDIp6aEZt91opY at 2:10 for an explanation of its role and why it's important. ы is a vowel sound - don't be confused by its resemblance to the hard & soft signs in print. Ирина Мозёлова has a great video about how to pronounce it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l5LHd36whNtogtU The letters ё and е sound much like 'o' and 'e' directly after a (soft) consonant, as in лёд and Лена. They have the additional 'y' sound (as in 'yolk,' 'yell') at the beginning of a word, or after a vowel sound, as in ёлка, моё; or ехать, доехать.

[@lvvry1855]

I still don't get the soft sign adding the "y" and the hard sign also adding "y". What am I missing? Why both?

[@russiangrammar]

Rather than the soft or hard signs 'adding' something, think of it this way: some words have a sequence of soft consonant + 'y' (as in 'yard, yell,' or German 'ja'- [j] in the phonetic alphabet) + a vowel sound; we spell that with the consonant letter + soft sign + vowel letter (я е ё or ю). For example, бельё has a soft л, then [j] then [o]: [bilʲjo]. But some words have a *hard* consonant + [j] + vowel sound; we spell these with the consonant letter + *hard* sign + vowel letter (я е ё or ю). For example, подъём has a *hard* д, then [j], then a vowel sound: [padjom]. Take care, transcription can be confusing: the tiny ʲ after the l in [bilʲjo] is how we show a consonant is soft in transcription; the regular 'j' is the 'y' sound. 🙃

[@tacitmurky9675]

That's much better than other explanations, but still imprecise and incomplete. It'll be better to sum it as this: 1. Ь and Ъ have primary function as modifying preceding consonant (regressive phonetics): to soften it (Ь) or to protect from softening by a following soft-vowel-letter (Ъ). 2. Secondary function: implicitly iotate following vowel (progressively), even if it's И (so «*ьи» would be like «*'йи» with softening of *) or «о» (as in some French loans like «медальон»). 3. Tertiary function for Ь - grammatical markups: feminine gender for nouns, ending on ЖЧШЩ (masc. «ключ» vs fem. «ночь»); and aspects/moods for some verbs (infinitive «стричь»; singular imperative: «плачь!», cf. «плач» - a noun). -Ъ can be substituted with Й without changes in pronounce, that would cause explicit iotation. -Ъ is used in the boundary between any morpheme (i.e. prefix or root) and a root. Here's a root-root example: двухъярусный. •I suggest for students and teachers to use IPA in their lessons. That'll be better for studying phonetics. And don't forget to put stress marks and restore dots above Ё where they should be.

[@russiangrammar]

Tacit Murky, Thanks for the comment - in terms of linguistics you make valid points (though I'm not sure what you mean in #3 when you say "ъ can be substituted with й.." - can you give an example?). A minor quibble: I prefer to say that ь *shows* that the preceding consonant is soft (rather than 'softening' it). As for stress marks - yeah, I'm trying to be more consistent about that. I do disagree in terms of pedagogy. This video was initially created for beginners who are grappling with the Cyrillic alphabet; I'd usually assign it in the first few days of class, when most students aren't aware of grammatical gender (point 3), and sequences like those in point 2 won't occur until much later. The medium of instruction here (KZbin videos) also plays a role. Maybe other KZbinrs can hold an audience longer than I can, but my average view time is about 3 minutes, which forces me (in a good way) to keep a tight focus on one topic at a time. So if it's incomplete, that's by design. I have often taught a separate course on the linguistic structure of Russian (for those with at least 2 years of study) in which we do use IPA. Interestingly, most students find IPA at least as challenging as the Cyrillic characters were, so introducing both to absolute beginners would be counterproductive. In a linguistics course or advanced language course, though, I have used IPA - it's really useful for some more subtle nuances, like the influence of palatalization on vowel quality. Thanks for your interesting contribution! ))

[@tacitmurky9675]

«what you mean in #3 when you say "ъ can be substituted with й.." - can you give an example?» - there is no example in standard orthography, but it's a handy hint for non-native students to remember practical effects of Ъ. Virtually replacing it with Й (or hyphen) wouldn't change pronunciation. It really depends on who the students are, how good they are at native language, did they study any foreign language (even non-Slavic), are there any linguistic backgrounds, etc. So, for higher degrees I'd recommend to make in-depth study of native language first (IPA, grammatical terms, variability in dialects) and then jump to any foreign one, where most of those new things should be familiar already. Start with obligatory phonetics and don't step beyond, until most of it is captured (unlike most of Russian morphoponology, which is optional and/or dialectical, except for assimilative palatalization and (de)voicing). Students must know Cyrillic letters and correspondent sounds, most reading rules and some exceptions, so they should be able to read (and pronounce good enough for a native to understand) and (to a lesser extent) write/type Russian text even with 0 vocabulary. Otherwise your progress later will be inhibited by lots of silly mistakes. (Of course, this does not apply to ill-minded 3-month crash courses «Russian in 5 minutes for dummies».) «most students find IPA at least as challenging as the Cyrillic characters» - is it because you introduce (Latin/Greek-based) IPA and Cyrillic at the same time? Well, that's expected. A good training for a student will be to write native words with Russian letters and phonetics to achieve closest approximation = Э гуд трэ́йнин фор э стью́дент уилл би… Шуд би фан, ту :•) «I prefer to say that ь shows that the preceding consonant is soft (rather than 'softening' it)» - it's a difference in approaches. Strictly speaking, by linguistics terms you are right, because consonant sounds are hard or soft by themselves. But for didactic purposes it's easier to explain to students, that hard-by-default consonant letters (except ЙЧЩ) are softed by a following soft vowel letter. (It does sounds nonsense for a pro-linguist, because phonology is dealing with sounds, that govern letters, not reverse.) Be sure to use synthetic nature of Russian. It's not just endings that are obligatory to study (to form correct grammatical agreement), but other morphemes as well. You may start to fill vocabulary not only with words, but also with most popular prefixes (half of them can be propositions), suffixes and roots. At some point students should be able to repeat analysis of a classical phrase «Глокая куздра…», which was invented by linguists specifically to demonstrate synthetic features of Russian. WP can be helpful. Like here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_declension . Many useful stuff was added recently, including by me :-)

[@tacitmurky9675]

Oops, yesterday my reply appeared above your comment, not below…

[@mahaomm]

Between consonant and vowel it is the same distinct « y sound for both soft and hard sign…!!!

[@АлександрЛобутев-й9х]

А плакатик-то старый, до революционный. Сейчас слова с твёрдыми знаками на конце не используют. Сейчас правильно писать "Иван и дядя Сэм".

[@russiangrammar]

Правильно, об этом идёт речь в 4:44. ))