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Russian difficulty

  Tags: Difficulty | Russian
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40 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4
Chung
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 Message 33 of 40
10 April 2014 at 4:59pm | IP Logged 
ScottScheule wrote:
There's anything unclear or illogical about Russian vowel reduction and devoicing. It occurs, when it occurs, in easily specified environments.


I agree about the devoicing since it is governed by a certain set of rules (see here)

On the surface, I agree that vowel reduction occurs in an easily specified environment (i.e. basically it occurs in the unstressed syllable(s)).

What's left unsaid and the real problem when learning Russian is that there's no reliable way to know where the STRESSED syllable in an unfamiliar word given that stress placement is mobile.

Once someone has memorized or internalized the position of that stressed syllable in the form of a word (usually via exposure - no real point in trying to formulate a set of rules) then indeed vowel reduction is easier to figure out (although the reduction isn't always to schwa as described here)

e.g.
правда "truth" - bisyllabic noun where stress is on the first syllable regardless of how you inflect it,
окно "window" - bisyllabic noun where stress is on the final syllable for cases in singular, but on the first syllable for cases in plural

It's true that I would be understood by a native speaker if I'd pronounce хорошо as something like /horosho/ rather than standard /xərɐˈʂo/, but if I don't bother to learn to pronounce in ways that native speakers are used to, I'd either be corrected constantly (somewhat like Марк's comments about non-native pronunciation) or even worse ignored because native speakers would lose patience with putting up with that much non-standard pronunciation.
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ScottScheule
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 Message 34 of 40
10 April 2014 at 5:08pm | IP Logged 
I grant that, but then the real issue is the mobile stress, not the vowel reduction, and saying Russian vowel reduction is confusing is misleading.
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Stolan
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 Message 35 of 40
10 April 2014 at 5:11pm | IP Logged 
Why would natives be intolerant? Russian has been learned as a second language for a while.

Russian free stress is a dimension to its phonology that ought to be noted, I agree.

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ScottScheule
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 Message 36 of 40
10 April 2014 at 5:12pm | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
I'm glad you think so. But clear and logical spelling should go both ways. You can't really predict the spelling based on what you hear, without relying on etymology etc.


Ah, I see your point. You're correct: I was only thinking of the direction of spelling --> pronunciation, but as you say, going from pronunciation to spelling is more difficult, for both of the reasons you listed.
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Chung
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 Message 37 of 40
10 April 2014 at 5:29pm | IP Logged 
Stolan wrote:
Why would natives be intolerant? Russian has been learned as a second language for a while.

Russian free stress is a dimension to its phonology that ought to be noted, I agree.


Intolerant is probably too strong of a word (although I can't discount that some native speakers would think less of someone who speaks in a non-standard way or way that's noticeably "foreign" or "off" similar to how some native English speakers may poke fun at speakers of Indian English, Southeastern American English, Bostonian accents or Ebonics).

I can pull up studies for English, but I suspect that this phenomenon isn't unheard of in Russian or any other language for that matter.

- ATTITUDES TOWARDS ACCENTED SPEECH: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS OF AMERICAN English
- Why don't we believe non-native speakers? The influence of accent on credibility

It's possible that there are similar studies on the internet using the key words реакция, русский, второй язык (reaction, Russian, second language) although I can't fudge my way to find them or get the gist of any relevant studies without knowing enough Russian.
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IronFist
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 Message 38 of 40
10 April 2014 at 7:38pm | IP Logged 
Mods, please reboot this forum. Trying to make a new thread just posts it as a reply in the top thread.
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Марк
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 Message 39 of 40
10 April 2014 at 9:29pm | IP Logged 
Stolan wrote:
Why would natives be intolerant? Russian has been learned as a second language for a while.

Russian free stress is a dimension to its phonology that ought to be noted, I agree.

Since unstressed vowels are pronounced in a different way in Russia, it won't probably cause a negative reaction, the promlem with vowel reduction is that the learner must be prepared to it in order to understand native speakers.
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beano
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 Message 40 of 40
11 April 2014 at 12:32am | IP Logged 
I'm sure there will be millions of people across the former Soviet states and nearby countries who don't speak
perfect russian, but native speakers just have to accept this because few other communication options are
available.


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