Struggling with the Cyrillic Characters. The Seppuku Vowel and The Cheshire Cat. Part 3.

Struggling with the Cyrillic Characters. The Seppuku Vowel and The Cheshire Cat. Vowels.

Part 3.

Dear readers and followers,

Our struggle with the Russian vowels is coming to an end. We have the last two enemies to defeat. And I must say that on of these two is an absolute nightmare for non-native speakers.

You, probably, have noticed that our paradigm of vowels is lacking the essential sound /i/. So why haven't I mentioned it until now in the Part 1 or Part 2? Why an individual post?

Well, there is nothing special about the sound /i/ in Russian. It is pretty similar to its equivalent in most of the European languages. And the letter which indicates it looks like a mirror reflection of the capital letter N.

И и

It is a soft-indicating vowel, which means that the preceding consonant is soft. But what if the preceding consonant needs to be hard? In that case we will need another sound which does not exist in English and has no analogue in most of European languages and it is the hard /i/ or

Ы ы

It looks like b and l or b and I. But this is one letter, not two letters. And it is a hard-indicating vowel. It never occurs at the beginning of a word or after another vowel.

Now you must be really curious what the difference between и and ы is, and how to master the pronunciation of this painstaking sound.

There are quite some ways of learning to pronounce the sound ы offered by Russian as a Second Language teachers and speech therapists. From visualization of stabbing yourself in the guts with a dagger when committing seppuku to pressing your tongue with a toothbrush and lifting heavy tables.

I have picked up 6 most well-crafted and illustrative youtube videos so that you could select the way that suits you best. Or you could try all of them to get a better effect :-)

1. The first video is really short and it provides an excellent illustration of a tongue position when one pronounces this 'punch-in-the-stomach' sound. This is Yulia Kovalenko's channel and you can find many more great pronunciation videos there.

2. This is the seppuku video, I have already mentioned. It is awesome! But, please, no violence! No hard punches in the stomach, no harakiri! I still need you alive to learn the Russian consonants! How can I let you die without knowing them? :-)

3. In this episode of Weekly Russian Language Lessons for Beginners, a beautiful and charming teacher Natalia is teaching how to pronounce 'ы' comparing it to 'и' and 'у'. You will also practice the two crucial Russian pronouns мы (we), ты (you, informal / singular) and Вы/вы (formal / plural).

Russian hard consonants are much harder than the English ones so it will be impossible to pronounce 'и' after them. The sound 'ы' originates deep in the throat so you must feel tightening of your muscles there. Don't be afraid to exaggerate at the beginning.

4. This Russian from Scratch episode provides a good illustration of the lip and tongue position, you can also practice some syllables and short words.

5. The Real Russian Club provides two excellent techniques. First, you will be saying a long ooh and then spreading your lips in a wide smile, trying not to change your tongue position, and then you will need a toothbrush to help you feel the difference between the classic /i/ and the hard /i/.

6. Finally, learnrussian.org video recommends practising a Cheshire cat smile or a “harsh smile” and then pulling your mouth corners down; putting your finger between your teeth while pronouncing the classic /i/ and... lifting a heavy table.

So the sound 'ы' was the last and the greatest challenge when it comes to mastering the Russian vowels. Once you have dealt with this issue, you are a king or a queen of Russian vowels!

Now the first part of our journey is completed! Congratulations! In the next posts I will tell you what the difference between the Russian and the English consonants is, and how to pronounce the hard and soft Russian consonants. And we are about to actually start reading just in no time!

Thanks for supporting me!

Was this post of any help? I will appreciate if you drop me a line in the comments :-)