Pronounce Hard and Soft Russian Consonants

Here you go guys! Now you know how to pronounce each and every single one of the consonants in both soft and hard variations. Please let me know if you still have some questions with it.

[senorsiro]

NGL, the concept of these being sounds that are “clearly” different enough to separate words still makes my English mind turn to gravy, but I think I’m starting to kinda get the difference.

[__-aa]

0:00 - Introduction
1:43 - Б
2:24 - В
2:55 - Г
3:48 - Д
4:41 - Ж
4:51 - З
5:37 - К
5:49 - Л
6:31 - М
6:51 - Н
7:04 - П
7:12 - Р
7:29 - С
7:41 - Т
7:57 - Ф
8:19 - Х
8:40 - Ц, Ч, Ш, Щ
8:48 - Outro

[evets]

G'day Fedor. This is wildly offtopic but I wanted to say it. My daughter has decided that learning Russian might be a cool experience. So I suggested that she look at your videos. My comment to her. "With my 35 + years of teaching experience, I see this bloke (you) as almost without peer."
You are still humble even with your successes and you have an inate ability to make the complex simple. I appreciate your work.

[pravoslavn]

The absolutely best explanation I have ever heard of the difference between Hard and Soft Consonants. Thank you.

I would never have made sense of the Hard Consonant/Soft Consonant distinction had I not read Old Church Slavonic Grammar by Prof. Horace G. Lunt, 2001. From that book I learned that in Old Russian (and perhaps also in Proto-Slavic) all words were "full" words, " i.e. all words followed the pattern of Vowel+Consonant+Vowel, or Consonant+Vowel+Consonant. Softness and the "soft sign, " are simply indications of the place where a Vowel once stood in a "full" word, but has been dropped, or at least truncated.

Professor Lunt has a wonderful paper on this subject, which was published by the Macedonian Linguistics Institute. The article is titled, Progressive Palatalization in Early Common Slavic. (I can send it to you if you like.)

BTW, Professor Lunt taught at Harvard for 40 years, and was the greatest Slavicist in America. When he retired he went to live with his children in Baltimore, which is just a few miles away from me. Had I known he was there, I would have knocked on his door and said, "Let's talk Slavic linguistics ! "

[kybeozactus]

Pay attention to it:
Ж, Ц, Ш - are always hard consonants,
Й, Ч, Щ - are always soft ones.

[christinesuing-sugiyama]

You have such rosy cheeks! Thanks for this video!

[TheMeg]

This is incredible. I only wish you were very definitive about which sound is which. Definitely the best resource I have found regarding this topic so far. Thank you !

[rzgrimes]

I sounds like the "uh" vs "eh" sounds

[AndreaSchroer]

This was very helpful - especially to have all the consonants in one place, with the soft and hard sounds side by side, with no "example words" confusing the issue. Thank you so much!

[stokitko]

As a Russian native speaker I would like to say that it's fine if you cant pronounce words with the soft sign. In 99% everybody will understand you.
Even more, when Russian speakers try to imitate a foreigner who speak in Russian they just say the same words but without a soft sign.
What is also important to know is that babies are often says words that sounds like with a soft sign. So when you are trying to imitate "babies talk" you randomly add it to words and it sounds more childish.
When I hear Indians or Pakistani for me it sounds like almost all consonants are with a soft sign, so for them the soft sign shouldn't be a big problem.

[samc]

Fedor, can you make a video about differentiating the differences between soft and hard consonants specifically when they are at the ends of words. For me, when soft consonants are at the ends of words they sound too close to their hard counterparts making it super difficult for me to learn. Thank You. I guess this will be useful for other subscribers too.

[jennifernagrant]

Lady learner here and I appreciate you! Thank you for the comprehensive video

[manriquezf_]

I started to learn russian recently and this is so helpful, thank you so much!

[JayeshLimaye]

A supporting graphic of the cross section of the mouth from the side would have been immensely useful. Thanks for this explanatory video:)

[anupmasharma]

Спасибо большое! Очень хороший урок. Это трудная тема для иностранных но вы очень хорошо объяснили. Ещё раз спасибо большое 🙏

[humbertosiller]

The best explanation I've found so far on hardness and softness! thanks!!

[patrickdunn]

OMG, I finally got this, you made it so clear! Thank you very much!

[valerie]

Thank you for this video, it was excellent! I know it was probably tedious for you, but it was a great teaching video! I am sure it will help a lot with pronunciation. Hope you do more videos with pronunciation. Also, would love any pointers in a video on pronouncing of ты, мы for native English speaker...seems impossible!

[himeshsinghshishodiya]

Big Bro you are truly one of the best Russian teachers out there. Amazing charm and teaching. Спасибо.

[anastasiazenkina]

Какая у тебя классная футболка, со смыслом))))