Unit 3. Reading

3.1

Practice reading Russian letters and combinations of letters out loud:

Click the syllable to listen, then click again and say it with me. 

жо

же

ча

чу

ща

ак-ах

ок-ох

Memorize the following spelling rule.

!

After ж and ш the letter е is spelled but the sound [э] is pronounced.

After ч and щ the letter е is spelled.

Жанна, Маша, Наташа, журнал, душ, наш, что [што]

чашка, врач, борщ, плащ, овощи

груша, карандаш, ручка, сахар, ухо, хор

чек, чех, шеф, щепка

Practice reading some Russian sentences. Click each sentence to listen, then say it .

3.4

Vowel Reduction

The vowels  о  and а  in Russian reduce to short [ а ] when not stressed. These changes are only reflected in the pronunciation of the word. The phonetic transcriptions, shown in Cyrillic between square brackets, are intended to remind you about vowel reduction and other aspects of Russian pronunciation which are not obvious from the spelling.

For example: карандаш [карандаш], хорошо [харашо]

Practice   Practice   Practice   Practice   Practice   Practice   Practice   Practice   Practice

Practice pronunciation unstressed а [ а ] in the following words:

Наташа, карандаш, сахар, мама, папа, чашка, ручка

Practice pronunciation unstressed о [ а ] in the following words:

хорошо, ухо, голова, молоко, космос

Identifying consonants  Жж, Шш, Чч, Щщ, Гг, Кк, Хх  in syllables