Full Episode Audio Exercises Only Audio Download Full Episode (right click save-as) Download Exercises Welcome to episode 20 – the final exam. You should feel proud for having made it this far. It’s a small course, but still…you put in the time and effort. After this exam you should treat yourself to something..I recommend Russian blini. Ever try them? Блины are basically crepes—very thin pancakes, usually filled with some jelly or sweet cheese inside. They’re a Russian delicacy. In fact, try to say… I want to cook (or, more literally, ‘prepare’) blini ..read more

Full Episode Audio Exercises Only Audio Download Full Episode (right click save-as) Download Exercises Welcome to episode 19 – our last new material before the final. Hopefully you’ve noticed that, as this course progressed, I tried to get you working on things that you’re likely to say. Again, this is why I veered away from mindless pronunciation drills and tongue twisters. With that goal of practicality firmly in mind, today we’ll be learning two new verbs. Like in English, Russian verbs have an infinitive form, and then something called conjugations. Take the English verb “to be”—tha ..read more

Full Episode Audio Exercises Only Audio Download Full Episode (right click save-as) Download Exercises Alright, this is episode 18 of Learn Russian Pronunciation. Today we’re going to expand on what we did in the last episode by including people’s names into the mix. Let’s start with the name Igor. Listen to it in Russian: Игорь There’s a soft-sign at the end. For comparison, here’s how it would sound without that. Игор But again, properly, it’s: Игорь. Try to say: Igor was in the theater. Игорь был в театре. Now listen as the speaker says: Igor lives in Brooklyn ..read more

Full Episode Audio Exercises Only Audio Download Full Episode (right click save-as) Download Exercises Welcome to episode 17. Today we’ll deal with a very common pronunciation problem: The names of places. Like I mentioned back in Episode 2, the first time I heard someone say ‘Рим’ I had no idea what they were talking about. I figured out it was a city, but the vowel was so different I didn’t get it until she added, Колизей, Ватикан…Понимаешь? “Oh! She’s talking about Rome.” Place names are always tough to pronounce because we so much want to say them the way we do in English. So le ..read more

Full Episode Audio Exercises Only Audio Download Full Episode (right click save-as) Download Exercises Today I’d like to return to the topic of voiced and devoiced consonants, looking at other letters this time, and more importantly, examining how it works within consonant pairs and clusters. We recall that in an unfamiliar word, it’s often very hard to guess the last letter. Take the Russian word: дуб Is that word spelled Д-У-П ? – which is how it sounds – or Д-У-and a devoiced ‘Б’? Hearing the word in isolation like that, there’s no way to know. The issue here isn’t so much of d ..read more

Full Episode Audio Exercises Only Audio Download Full Episode (right click save-as) Download Exercises Welcome to episode 15. Today we’ll be learning the chorus of a song called Май. The chorus is only three lines long, so let’s start with the first half of the first line. А за окном май That’s four words: A…за…окном…май …which translates literally as: Beyond the window, it’s May. In simpler language: It’s May outside. Say the line again: А за окном май In Episode 13 we briefly learned the word for “life”…Do you recall it? It starts with a “zh” sound. жизнь And a ..read more

Full Episode Audio Exercises Only Audio Download Full Episode (right click save-as) Download Exercises Welcome to episode 14. Today we’ll be covering our last ‘tricky letter’. The short E. Й This one isn’t so hard to pronounce as it is to read. For the most part, the best way to think of it is like the ‘y’ in boy…but very short and sharp. Listen and repeat as our speakers say yogurt, yoga, and York…as in New York. йогурт, йога, Йорк, Нью-Йорк And now some words where the ‘й’ it the final letter. Listen? Май…чай Let’s make those our official words of this lesson, so let’s t ..read more

Full Episode Audio Exercises Only Audio Download Full Episode (right click save-as) Download Exercises Welcome to episode 13. Today we’ll be working with the letter Ж. In English I’d sound it out with the letters ‘ZH’. Let’s start by learning some common Russian words that have that sound, putting them—as always—in context. Ready? Imagine you’re in a doctor’s office and on the coffee table you see: VOGUE, Popular Mechanics, Cosmopolitan…Each of those is a журнал. Next word: With its seven foot neck, the tallest animal on Earth is the жираф. In these next ones, listen to how Ж beco ..read more

Full Episode Audio Exercises Only Audio Download Full Episode (right click save-as) Download Exercises Welcome to episode 12. Today we’ll be working with the letter Ц. That’s a “ts” sound…As in that’s …and Let’s…So, we’ll start by learning some common Russian words that have that sound. Let’s hear them in context: The Russian equivalent of a king or supreme monarch is called a….царь The downtown area of a city is called the….центр In Papa John’s I got a slice of pepperoni….: пицца Try those again: The Russian equivalent of a king is a….. The downtown area is calle ..read more

Full Episode Audio Exercises Only Audio Download Full Episode (right click save-as) Download Exercises Welcome to episode 11. Today I’ll be answering three of the most common questions I get about Russian pronunciation. The first question is about the Russian letter O. Here’s a typical email… Hi Mark, I’m confused about the letter O. Sometimes it sounds like ‘oh’ and sometimes it’s like an ‘ah’ sound. How can I know which it’ll be? Good question. You’ve probably noticed that—no matter how long a Russian word is—it only has one stressed syllable. Even the longest one of all ..read more