One Russian letter has a sound not similar to any English speech sound, though it is 

 quite similar to the friction sound made in the back of the mouth when one prepares to 

 expectorate. It is similar to ch in German ach. 



X X xan "khan" 



All of the letters and their sounds treated above are called consonants , with the exception 

 of the two vowels a and o_. Russian vowels are all similar in sound to English vowels 

 with one exception, namely, 



H H CUH "son" 



This Russian sound may be approximated by pronouncing the English sound oo (as in the 

 word soon) with unrounded lips. Other Russian vowels are: 



Four other Russian letters represent vowel sounds in combination with a preceding y- 

 sound. The y is clearly heard when the sound( combination) occurs in initial position in 

 a word; in oTher positions the y is reduced to a fleeting glide, roughly similar to the 

 y-glide in the word beauty, as contrasted with booty. Thus, 



Two letters, which have no independent sound value, complete this brief inspection of 

 Russian letters and their sounds. They are referred to as "signs" and indicate pronun- 

 ciation features of preceding letters. One, used infrequently, is called the "hard sign" 

 and occurs only in the interior of a word after a consonant and before a vowel, e.g. 



"h "b Ofi-beKT "object" 



The other is called the "soft sign" and occurs quite frequently. It has the effect of pala- 

 talizing or "softening" a preceding consonant. The only effective way for the layman to 

 appreciate the role of the soft sign in pronunciation is to listen to a native speaker(or 

 record) make the following contrasts: 



h h 6paT "brother" 6paTb "to take" 



SaKOH "law" HOHb "horse, steed" 



In a following section all of the above Russian letters are arranged in their proper order. 



Russian Accent 



The Russian language uses a stress or loudness accent, as does also English; e.g. 

 demonSTRAtion, moNOtony, LAUdatory. Also as in English, the Russian accent is free , 

 that is, it is not limited to a particular syllable but may occur on different syllables in 

 different words. Ordinarily, Russian texts do not indicate the place of stress, except in 

 cases of potential ambiguity, where an acute accent mark would be used, e.g. 



saMOK "lock" dojibinafl "big" 



SaMOK "castle" do^Jlbmafi "bigger" 



