Dialogue:

Hi! How's it going?

Spelling/Sounds: The Russian alphabet - Part I
Group I: Letters that look and sound (roughly)
the same as English
Group II: Letters that look like English but
represent a different sound
Group III: Letters that look different than English

The following dialogue is basically the same as Dialogue A in Lesson 1, with three new words in lines 1, 2 and 3. Be sure to
listen to the recording very carefully.

Dialogue
! ?

Vera
:

! e?

Great! How about you?

e.

Not bad.

[Neplkho].
4

Misha
:

Hi, Misha! Hows it going?

[Prekrasno!. A u teby?]

Vera
:

, ! e?
[Zdrstvuy, Msha! Kak del?]

Misha
:

Hi! Hows it going?

, e . .

Sorry, Im in a hurry (= I have no time).

Later

[Izvin, mne nkogda. Pok.]

5

Vera

, , . ( walks away) !
[Nu, ldno, do svidniya. (Msha walks away) Nakhl!]

Well, OK, see you later. (Msha walks

away) Jerk!

Vocabulary

[zdrstvuy] (first [v] is silent)

hi (not quite as informal as [privt])

[prekrsno]

great; superb(ly)

[neplkho]

not bad

2-1

2-

2.

Spelling / Sounds

The Russian lphabet - Part I

All of the following descriptions of Russian pronunciation are approximations. First and foremost, listen
carefully to your instructors in class, and, perhaps more importantly, the speakers on the recordings, and do your
best to imitate them.

2..1 Group 1: Letters that look and sound (roughly) the same as English

Listen and repeat:

RUSSIAN LETTER APPROXIMATE SOUND

a as in father

/e

e as in bed
ye as in yes
(Well explain later how to predict which to use)

k as in skin

m as in mom

o as in born

t as in stop (with the tongue against the upper teeth)

Now some real words (dont worry about the meanings, though a few are cognates):

(act), (there), (who), e (by whom), (by that), (male cat), (checkmate), (tome)

TWO IMPORTANT NOTES:

1. Unstressed vowels: When / and / are not stressed, their pronunciation gets reduced
to the sound roughly the same as the last sound in sofa. Unstressed / gets reduced to the
ee in keep, but slightly shorter. More details on vowel reduction in Lesson 9.
2. Word-Initial E/: At the beginning of the word (and a few other places) / is pronounced
[ye] as in yet. Much more on this later.

Listen and repeat (keeping in mind the above two notes):

(mom), (coma), ([of a] male cat), (I eat), e ([in a] volume), e ([about] electric
current), e ([about] mother), (tomato), (theme) (comet)

2-2

Spelling / Sounds

Lesson 2

2..2 Group 2: Letters that look like English but represent a different sound

Listen and repeat:

RUSSIAN LETTER APPROXIMATE SOUND

v as in victory

n as in no (tongue against the upper teeth)

r as in run (but trilled)

s as in set (also: as in ice)

u as in lunatic

no exact English equivalent (roughly ch as is Bach or Scottish Loch)

Listen and repeat:

/
(here is), (century), (cotton padding), ([to] you), (eyelid), (veto),
(ate the apple)
/
(no), (Anna - as in Anna Karenina), (window), (vein or Vienna), (she/it),
(ton), (the state), (the Neva river in St. Petersburg)
/
(river), (the city), (Vera, which means faith), (except), (mouth),
(novel; romance), (rocket), (thief)
/
(secret), (juice), (nose), (Moscow), (Senate), (north),
(as in Karl), (forty), (Soviet; advisory council)
/
(vinegar), (duck), (coward), (arm), (hurrah), (here), (flour),
(torture), (course)
/
(choir), (ear), (tail), (dry), (Texas), (monk), (moss),
(hut), (horse collar) (horseradish - also used as a euphemism, similar to fudge! in
English)

Do Oral Exercise 1 in the Homework (page 2-6) now!

2-3

2-

Spelling / Sounds

2..3 Group 3: Letters that look different than English (Part 1 today; the rest tomorrow)

Listen and repeat:

RUSSIAN LETTER APPROXIMATE SOUND

b as in bed

g as in gun
v as in victory (only in the combinations - / -, which is a
grammatical ending. We saw this in .)

d as in day (with the tongue against upper teeth)

1) o as in born
2) yo as in your
(Well explain later how to predict which to use.)

zh as in Zhivago (also: s as in pleasure)

z as in zoo

i as in machine

y as in toy

l as in leave

p as in spin

Listen and repeat:

/
(brother, not brat, though depending on your brother...), (bomb), (tobacco), (Bach),
(marriage; junk), (banana), (bar place to drink), (dog), (the state)
/
(sin), (thunder), (gene), (lip), (rude), (leg/foot), (the composer),
(the country), (the state), (stew)
Pronounced as [v] in the combinations - / - at the end of a word:
(him/his), ([of] that), ([of] loud), ([of] concrete-adj.), (him)
/
(house; building), (fashion; style), (Eves partner), (drama), (the country),
(the city), (bottom), (tree), (doctor), (water), (two),

2-4

Spelling / Sounds

Lesson 2

/ (this letter is always stressed in the word)

(carried), ([to] aunt), ([of] sisters), (wiped off), (is lying), , (Goethe),
(carpet), (oats), (electrician), (screwdriver)
Examples with a preceding [y] sound:
(my), (your), (ones own), (her)
/
(wife), (beetle), (Geneva), ([of] wives), (heat), (horror), (already),
(victim), ([subway] token), (genre), (toad), (important)
/
(zebra), (goat), (the state) (zone), (law), (curtain), (Cossack),
(Hudson), (star), (umbrella)
/
(the country), (the country), (the state), (vampire), (the animal),
(version), (whiskey), (the country), (thread), (not a crook)
/
(iodine), (York), (Yokohama), (yoga), (my), (May), (cowboy),
(Russian), (40th US president), (Kuwait), (the city)
/
(lemon), (42nd US president), (Vladimir, not John), (Uncle Joe),
(Christmas tree), (summer), (magazine), (soldier), (Sweet Home),
(the state)
/
(Peter), (corpse), (the artist), (Plato), (the writer, author of
), (point), (psycho), (truth; the newspaper), (the country), (Easter)

RUSSIAN~STAR WARS CONNECTION?

Some people with way too much time on their hands have noticed some secret connections
between Russian and several Star Wars characters:

The robot C3PO is derived from (

), the Russian spelling of USSR though this doesnt explain the O at the
end.

Chewbacca is a variant of , the Russian word for dog.

Jabba (the Hutt) is a variant of , the Russian word for toad.

And, of course, theres the whole evil empire theme. Sorry, no Russian~Jar Jar connection,
that we know of.
Do Oral Exercise 2 in the Homework now!
2-5

Lesson 2 Homework

Exercise 1

___________________________________

Circle the word you hear:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Exercise 2

Circle the word you hear:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

2-6

2-

Exercise 3

Write the English equivalents to the following Russian words. (Hint many are
proper nouns):

1.

_____________________________

2. e

_____________________________

3.

_____________________________

4.

_____________________________

5.

_____________________________

6.

_____________________________

7. e

_____________________________

8. _____________________________

9.

_____________________________

10. A

_____________________________

11.

_____________________________

12.

_____________________________

13.

_____________________________

14. _____________________________

15.

_____________________________

16.

_____________________________

17.

_____________________________

18.

_____________________________

20.

_____________________________

19. _____________________________

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