Chapter 1 » Lesson 2

Lesson 2

Alphabet – Part 3

Russian Vowels

So far, we have dealt with the letters common for both Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. Before getting to letters that are different from Latin, we’ll take a step aside and look exclusively at the vowels. We need to learn them sooner rather than later because no words in Russian can be formed without them.

А – Я О – Ё Э – Е У – Ю Ы – И
| | | | |
aw – ya oh – yo eh – yeh oo – yoo i – ee

 

The Two Division of Russian Vowels

Hard Vowels ⇒ А О Э У Ы
⇓ ⇓ ⇓ ⇓ ⇓
Soft Vowels ⇒ Я Ё Е Ю И

The upper and lower vowels form natural couplets: each of the lower vowels (except for the last “И”) begins with a ‘y-slide’ (“Й” in Russian) and is a kind of ‘diphthong reflection’ of its upper counterpart. If you sing or drawl a lower vowel (except “И”), you will end up singing its corresponding vowel above. This division of all vowels into couplets is very important for good pronunciation, spelling, and some grammar choices (as you will see later).  Any of the upper level vowels makes a preceding consonant sound hard; any of the lower level vowels makes it sound soft.

Listen Carefully (Columns read from left to right)

А – Я мáма мясо (meat)
О – Ё стол (juice) тётя (salmon)
Э – Е мэр (mayor) мéсто (place/seat)
Ы – И мы (we) мир (peace/world)
У – Ю рукá (hand/arm) рюкзáк (backpack)

Note:

  1. The vowel ё is always stressed and for that reason you will never see a stress mark above it.
  2. There are no words that begin with the vowel ы

 

Meaningful Vowels

Я – I a personal pronoun that is never capitalized in Russian unless it begins a sentence
И – and a conjunction
А – and/but a conjunction that usually expresses some degree of contrasting (can also be used at the beginning of a sentence to make an easier start)
О – about a preposition
У – at/by/etc. prepositions that you will study in later chapters

 

Reading Practice – p.21

Read and translate the sentences below. Try to figure out the meaning of new words.

  1. Э́то теа́тр, а там кинотеа́тр.
  2. Я тут, и сестра тут.
  3. Э́то университе́т.
  4. Э́то такси́, а э́то авто́бус.
  5. Э́то рюкза́к, а э́то су́мка.
  6. Э́то кварти́ра но́мер три.
  7. Кто это? – Это ма́ма и тётя.
  8. Э́то теа́тр? – Нет, э́то не теа́тр. Э́то рестора́н.
  9. Э́то метро́? – Нет, э́то не метро́, а теа́тр.

 

Survival Kit

Giving Thanks

Listen and transcribe the following words and phrases. They include sounds and letters that you haven’t studied yet, but try to repeat them after hearing them. Write the expressions by using any type of transcription that you know. Memorize them.

Спасибо – Thank you
 Пожалуйста – You are welcome
 Не за что – No problem