Lesson 6: RUSSIAN PRONUNCIATION basics ❗️ Exercise: HARD vs SOFT Consonants | Russian Comprehensive

Learn How to Read in Russian (Beginner Russian Pronunciation Practice)
Do you have troubles with reading in Russian?
This exercise will help you a lot and will take only 10 minutes of your time. I encourage you to practice it on your own whenever you have some free time.
👆 First, follow the video and repeat the syllables after me. After you're done, go back, mute the sound, and try to read the syllables on your own.
In Russian, consonants can be plain ("Hard") and palatalized ("Soft"). This concept doesn't really exist in other popular languages, such as English or Spanish. And the best way to adopt it, is to listen and repeat different types of syllables several times.

Russian Pronunciation Series:

Speed up the video or Slow it down under the ⚙️ Video Settings icon (Playback speed)
Here, you'll Learn Russian with ease and no time wasted 👍
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Today you’ll learn how to read simple Russian syllables. If you’re still not sure about how well you’re pronouncing some of the letters, it’s absolutely not a deal breaker, there’s no need to get stuck on the alphabet! With this exercise, you’ll actually learn Russian letters and sounds even better.

In this video, I’m reading Russian syllables in pairs, with hard and soft consonants, and you can repeat after me. If you are not sure, what hard and soft consonants mean, and why it’s better to learn Russian vowels in pairs, I strongly recommend you watch my two previous videos (links below).

Soft Дь, Ть, Ль, Рь are probably the hardest consonants for a foreigner to pronounce, but again, you’ll learn them! Sooner or a little later, when you start reading texts, so there’s no need to spend too much time trying to perfect them, or even more, getting upset if you can’t make them sound right just yet. You’ll get there, you just need some time for that. And practice!

When reading the syllables, remember that Russian vowels sound pretty defined, so don’t forget to open your mouth a little wider than you may be used to in your native language.

If it’s hard for you to pronounce these syllables now, just keep trying, and I promise, you will get to the point where it seems easy, sooner than you think!

0:00 - Intro
1:02 - Reading Exercise
7:06 - Ж, Ш, Ц - the consonants that are always hard
7:53 - Ч, Щ - the consonants that are always soft
8:33 - Syllables with several consonants in a row

You also want to practice reading syllables with several consonants in a row, like these:
вра - пра - дра - кра - нра - стра - здра

👆 If you can barely hear the difference between hard and soft consonants in Russian, don’t be too hard on yourself, keep in mind that it’s a new idea for a foreigner, and one has to get used to it. Through time and practice, you’ll get the idea better, just keep trying!
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👉 NEXT: Learn the 3 Basic Rules for Reading in Russian through a small dialogue (Russian Pronunciation)

👉 PREVIOUS: Russian Consonants (Hard vs Soft):

👉 How do you pronounce the Russian Ы?

👉 Russian Letters Ж, З, Х, Ц, Ч, Ш, Щ:

👉 Learn How to WRITE in Russian:

👉 🗣Start SPEAKING Russian!
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Special Thanks to my Russian Students

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[RussianComprehensive]

1:02 - Reading Exercise
7:06 - Ж, Ш, Ц - the consonants that are always hard
7:53 - Ч, Щ - the consonants that are always soft
8:33 - Syllables with several consonants in a row
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Transcript to the video:

[MazeofL]

I've been watching this video every single day as part of a new habit and I can't put into words how effective this exercise is if you do it regularly! If you find yourself having a hard time reading Russian words, I assure you, if you do this exercise every day, you'll get the hang of it in no time!
Videos like this that evoke real progress! Thank you so much for your time and dedication to boil down the concepts and tips that really do the difference! Keep up the amazing job you are doing.

[PeterSodhi]

This channel needs a Patreon, Paypal or join button so we can pay for this amazing content... It is the best content out there and the production quality is out of this world.

[pravoslavn]

Thank you ! For a decade I have not understood words having a hard or soft consontant as the final letter. Your lecture made it clear. THANK YOU ! Why could other teachers not have explained it as clearly as you...?

[abhishekbhattacharya]

amazing teacher i like russian language to learn better than others

[hinchlnt]

I am a perpetual beginner when it comes to speaking accurately and listening successfully. Maybe your videos will help me with this. Thank you, Olga.

[asudie_]

Боже, видео такое качественное, девушка говорит без акцента и информация полезная. Идеально, спасибо большое!!!

[MrAlexMayore]

Im enjoying this you make this complicated language easy and smooth. Im an a Kenyan from a tribe that belongs to the Bantu clan speaker's we have no historical exposure to slavanik language but come rain or sunshine. I must learn Russian

[katlane]

You are so awesome Olga! Thank you so much for your knowledge and support! :)

[sreedharperupally]

She is Superb Teacher.
I watched many of her lessons.
God Bless You 🙏

[tacolai]

Olya! I am addicted to keep learning from you! What the great experience I’ve ever have! Please keep teaching to your audiences❤❤❤!

[DevOpsNerd]

This particular video has been extremely helpful in understanding hard vs soft consonants! I come back to it often. You really understand how important it is for beginners to see the instructors mouth clearly while learning the phonetics and the value of repetition. Thanks very much.

[bangamy]

Thank you so much for this video !! I'm struggling with syllables, it help me a alot !❤️❤️

[tacolai]

It is really hard to find this comprehensive Consonants and Vowels exercise on YouTube for practising! Thank you so much! ❤

[abdalrhmanyousef]

amazing... thanks a lot...you helped me to make this language easier...your videos are really useful....thanks again

[pravoslavn]

I would like to see you do a YouTube video concerning how to write RU in the pre-Revolutionary script, using all the characters which were purged by the Bolsheviks between 1918 and 1926. Also, I would like to see you do a video on how to speak RU without the vowel reductions which happened about two hundred years ago (e.g. the reduction of "O" to "Ah" in unstressed sullables.) It seems that Lower Volga RU preserves the older form of speech, and I want to emulate that. Please, more YouTubes ! ☺

[erikbjrnyolsen]

Thank you for a great set of videos! I recently started learning Russian (with the help of a few textbooks, Youtube and a few friends who are native speakers). My native language is Norwegian, and I also speak English fluently after having lived in the US for several years. The hardest letter for me to pronounce is Х. I tend to make it too «throaty» or hard like in Spanish or Arabic. I can´t seem to find the middle ground. Do you have any tips on how I can get it right? I have been listening again and again at 3:12, but I still can´t pronounce the letter or the syllables.

[danilvanlaethem]

The only thing I struggle with is the ы and и. Even with all the Consonants heard. I still can't hear the difference.

Edit: now I get it. Ы is pronounced as 'iei'-isch and и as 'ee' like in fleet?

[stanm]

I see now that ЛЬ and НЬ in Russian sound like Љ and Њ in Serbian.

[hotsmissed]

you actually have pronounced "Й" when you said "БЮ" and you know that's wrong, in your previous videos you had mentioned that whenever a consonant is followed by a vowel right next to it the "Й" sound disappears!