Lesson 1.1. Letters "A","O", "У", "Э" and "И".

Russian is not as difficult as many people speak about it. On the contrary, he is very interesting and rich.
I offer you a series of lessons on learning Russian from beggining.
Today we will get acquainted with the vowels  "A","O", "У", "Э" and "И".
In the first, watch the video carefully.

Now let's do the reading exercise:

о - о - а          а - о - у          ао       ау      аэ      аи
а - э - а          а - э - и          оа       оу      оэ      ои
у - о - у          у - о - а          уа       уо      уэ      уи
и - э - и          и - э - а          эа       эо      эу      эи
э - у - и          э - о - а          иа       ио      иу      иэ

And at the end  let's study written cyrillic.

That's not difficult. Take the striped notebook and start filling in the lines according to the pattern.

Get fun and stay with me! See you in the next lesson! Bye Bye!

How pronounce letter “Ц”

1) Say the letter “т” (sound “t”), after letter “c” (sound “s”)

Т+С=ТС

(t+s=ts)

2) Now try say it together  faster as you can

3) Now say it like short strike.

*) When you are pronouncing “T” your tongue moves little bit back.

     When you are pronouncing “Ц” you tongue moves forward.

     So now try keep your tongue forward when pronounce “ts” together.

Examples:

Царь   (king)

Церковь   (church)

Цветок    (flower)

Russian vowels

So, how you know, there are 10 vowels in Russian language:

А, Е, Ё, И, О, У, Ы, Э, Ю, Я

Consonant before а, о, у, ы, э we pronounce hardly (ма, мо, му, мы, мэ)

Consonant before е, ё, и, ю, я we pronounce softly (ме, мё, ми, мю, ме)

Each vowel is pronounced clearly, but the same letter does not always have the same sound. This is especially true of the letter О,  which sometimes has the sound of oh or ah. The letter e sometimes has the sound of eh or y.

The accent mark (') shows the syllable that is stressed. The stressed vowel is pronounced longer and louder.

Each word has only one stressed syllable.

Stress in the Russian language follows no rule. Any syllable can be stressed.

another vowels are pronounced in the same way with letter "A".

Hard and Soft Consonants

Russian Consonants can also be soft or hard, when followed by the letters е, ё, и, ю, я or ь;
Exceptions: the consonants ж, ш, ц. They are always hard.

Examples: вера (faith), конверт (envelope), кровь (blood), письмо (letter).

Voiced and Voiceless Consonants

When two consonants are pronounced together, both must be either voiced or voiceless. In Russian the second letter of consonants’ pair always indicates the first letter. If the second letter is voiced, so the first is pronounced as voiced.
Еxamples (“ПРИМЕРЫ”):
1) Всё read as [фсё], [fsyo]. Why? Because the second letter “C” is voiceless, so the first letter “В” is pronounced voicelessly.
2) Юбка read as [юпка], [yupka]. The second letter of consonants’ pair is voiceless and the letter “б” is pronounced voicelessly.
3) Подпись read as [потпись], [potpis’].

The voiced letters (are shown in picture 1) “Б”,“В”,“Г”,“Д”,“Ж”,“З” are pronounced as voiceless at the end of the word.
For example, обед read as [обет], [abet] because the voiced letter “д” is at the end of a word.

REMEMBER!
The preposition “В” (in) is very often pronounced f. “В школе” is pronounced [фшколе], [f shkole].

About difficult Russian letters

When we pronounce letters "Ж", "Ч", "Ш", "Щ", their sounds aren’t in Greek language. Therefore it difficult pronounces correctly and clear.
But you have to remember in writing Russian we always use "ЖИ", "ШИ" (never "ЖЫ", "ШЫ"), "ЧА", "ЩA" (never "ЧЯ", "ЩЯ"), "ЧУ", "ЩУ" (never "ЧЮ", "ЩЮ"). In speaking say "ЖЫ", "ШЫ", "ЧЯ", "ЩЯ", "ЧЮ", "ЩЮ" (any way you can’t say it another).

Russian Alphabet

The Russian alphabet is based on the Cyrillic alphabet. There are 33 letters.
It can be divided into three different groups.

Listen the Russian alphabet:


«Ъ» hard sign makes the preceding letter hard
«Ь» soft sign makes the preceding letter soft

Consonants: б, в, г, д, ж, з, к, л, м, н, п, р, с, т, ф, х, ц, ч, ш, щ
Vowels: а, е, ё, и, о, у, ы, э, ю, я
Neither: й, ъ, ь