• STRESS

STRESS Russian language has free and moving stress which is the most difficult to study.
You must learn the stress of each word otherwise you might be not understood or misunderstood.

So in this course I will mark the stress of each word by making the stressed Big letter, for example город[gOrad] (town), корова[karOva] (cow), молоко [malakO](milk),
трубопровод [troobapravOd](pipeline).

You see that in these words stress falls on different syllables. But please don't fall into despair, Russian stress is very simple compared to Lithuanian where the stress is free and moving and in addition there are 3 different types of stress marked with acute, grave or circumflex each of which changes the intonation of the word.

Even Russian people can hardly deal with the stress, there are a lot of common errors, for example a lot of people say:
звOнит instead of звонИт ((he) phones),
дОговор instead of договОр (agreement, contract),
тортЫ instead of тОрты (cakes) etc.

And for this reason there are pronunciation dictionaries in Russia usually intended not for transcribing the words but mainly for marking their stress;

all the forms of each word that can make people doubt are included in such dictionaries and there are very many of them, for example in the entry "дать" (to give) there are 34 forms of this verb.

There are words which have two accepted in the literary language ways of stressing, for example твОрог[ tvОragk] and творОг [tvarОgk] (curds) are both right.

You should note that changing the stress in some words leads to totally different meaning, e.g.

зАмок[zАmak] (castle) and замОк [zamОk](lock), дорОгой [darОga-y] (Instrumental case of дорОга - road) and дорогОй[daragОy] (expensive, dear),

уже[OOzhye] (narrower) and уже [oozhYE](already), пОтом[pОtam] (Instrumental case of пот - sweat) and потом [patОm](then, afterwards).

As already mentioned above, Russian has moving stress, but however some words have stable and some words have moving stress,

for example words
собАка[sabАka] (dog),
лимОн [leemОn](lemon),
пожАр [pazhАr](fire)

have stable stress since all their forms and words derived from them have their stress on the second vowel of the root (а, о, а respectively)
and
words рукА [rookА](hand, arm),
горА [garА](mountain)
have moving stress, since their plural forms
рУки[rООkee] (hands, arms)
and
гОры[gОray] (mountains)
have their stress on the root and not on the ending.

The place of stress in a word can change during historical evolution of the language,
for example word
мУзыка [mООzayka](music)
was in 19th century pronounced as
музЫка[moozayka].

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SOFT AND HARD SINGS

These two Russian letters differ from the rest letters of the Russian alphabet.
Ь (soft sign) and
Ъ (hard sign) are neither consonants nor vowels. They both denote no sound and are never pronounced in modern Russian.
Ь (soft sign) makes the preceding consonant soft. It is used in the root or at the end of a word: e.g

Дочь - dOch’ - Daughter
Дверь - dvYEr’ - Door
Отель - atEl’ - Hotel

Soft sign is used quite often in the Russian language and being at the end of the word, it may distinguish the meaning of words: e.g.

вес[vYEs](weight) - весь[vYEs’](whole)
брат[brAt](brother) - брAть[brAt’](to take)
был[bAYl](was) - быль[bAYl’](true story)
говорит[gavarEEt](speaks) - говорить[gavarEEt’'](to speak)


Ъ (hard sign) is a separation sign and denotes a very short pause or the absence of a sound.
It's used in modern Russian spelling only between the prefix and the root of words and before vowels ё

Used in modern Russian spelling only between the prefix and the root of words and before vowels ё, е, я: e.g.

подъезд -pad [d-hard]YEzd - a porch
подъехать -pad[d-hard]YEhat’[t’-soft]- drive up
объём - ab[b-hard]YOm - volume
объявление - ab[b-hard]yavlYEneeye - an announcement

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to be continue.....