Lesson 5: RUSSIAN PRONUNCIATION: HARD vs SOFT Consonants | Palatalization | Russian Comprehensive

Learn How to Read Russian Consonants (Hard vs Soft, or Plain vs Palatalized)
Some of them are always hard or always soft. What does it mean?
Palatalization describes the process when the center of your tongue is raised and touching the roof of your mouth when you're pronouncing the so-called Russian Soft consonants.

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0:00 - Intro
0:20 - Explanation for Hard and Soft Consonants in Russian
3:04 - Russian Consonants that are always hard
3:47 - Russian Consonants that are always soft

Most Russian consonants can be hard or soft, depending on a word. I also gave some examples of hard and soft consonants. This idea doesn’t exist in English, or in most European languages. The closest example from another language would be the Spanish consonants N and Ñ. The Spanish N kind of resembles the hard Н in Russian, while Ñ resembles the Russian soft Нь. In this video, we'll try to apply this idea to other Russian consonants.

Whether a consonant is hard or soft, depends on what letter goes after it (you'll see examples in the video).

👆 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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[RussianComprehensive]

0:20 - Explanation for Hard and Soft Consonants in Russian
3:04 - Russian Consonants that are always hard
3:47 - Russian Consonants that are always soft

[juanmab]

3:57 - "You would always read them as cha sha chu shu, and never cha sha chu shu"

I'm so lost right now. Great video btw

[pualgmoskakd]

This is a goldmine. Thank you so much for this structured lessons (not just this video)

[marcelocortez]

This is exactly what I deduced by myself a few days ago: I heard the word день in a song I thought that -нь sounded almost exact to ñ (I speak spanish natively). This video confirmed my thought, thanks!

[stanm]

Serbian also has a single letter Њ that sounds like НЬ in Russian and Ñ in Spanish.

[pravoslavn]

EXCELLENT ! I have struggled with the palitalization of consonants for almost ten years, and every time I think I have it figured out, I realize I do NOT have it figured out ! Would you consider doing a video on how to write Russian using the pre-Revolution spellings, uspecially the Ѣ ? Greetings from the US. Боже Х аря Храни !

[musike]

Que gusto cuándo hacen símiles con el español.

[karlkueng]

very good explanation, pronunciation 👍👍 Thank you very much

[tongsllc]

"If you can't tell the difference between hard and soft, don't be too hard on yourself." Haha!

[olivieryeung]

Really good video explanation about the signs. thank you very much

[eleanorbrown]

A brilliant explanation, большое спасибо)

[Andrew-yllm]

I think the most confusing thing is the fact that they're called hard and soft consonants. Implying that the sound of the consonant changes when it actually doesn't, you just add a vowel sound to the consonant.

[OsmioIridio-ogcn]

So far the best video for understanding this topic. It gets right into the point. Thanks for this content. I really appreciate it 😁

[TomLaios]

In Greek there is something similar with Γ and Χ. Γάμος is hard, Γιατί is soft.

[periclesdasilva]

You have great teaching skills. Every good gift comes from the Father of lights who also gave us His Son. James 1:17, John 3:16

[namkhanhnguyen]

Hi. In Russian, are the softening effect of the soft vowels and the soft sign to the preceding consonant considered equivalent? For example, does the word 'Мя' sound the same as 'МЬа'? And if a consonant is double-softened, like 'МЬя', how would it sound?
I'm sorry that I can't find some real words to illustrate my questions more clearly.

[spencerdavis]

Confused by "the й disappears after a consonant."

Isn't мю still "myu" because the ю softens the consonant "m?" You still hear that й sound. Or am I missing something?

[clashcanada]

So the consonant is not softened by и?
All the other soft vowels changed П to pj and Б to bj but БИ was just pi

[martinLe]

I really can not catch the different between the soft and the hard letters

[Наталья-мцв]

There is a great blogger who can help you to learn more about the difference between russian and english sounds - PhoneticFanatic. He is a true master! He usually teaches English pronunciation to Russian speakers, but here he talks about soft and hard consonants:

And here he compares english and russian vowels:

All the videos on his channel are in russian, but they have subtitles