Anglophone Pronunciation of Foreign Languages - Russian

Russian

• Some speakers have difficulty with the trilled in Russian, especially the palatalized since neither are sounds of English.
  • Non-rhotic speakers, even after learning the rolled-r, are prone to omit /r/ in such Russian words as удар ('blow') and горка ('hillock').
• Depending on the speaker's dialect, they may have difficulty with "dark l" (that is, velarized /l/, which in Russian contrasts with a palatalized /lʲ/) in positions other than in the syllable coda.
• Difficulty with Russian vowels:
  • Most English speakers have no (although it is an allophone in some dialects) and speakers generally have difficulty producing the sound. They may instead produce .
  • Speakers may replace /e/ with the diphthong in day. e.g. instead of /ˈdʲelə/ дело ('affair').
  • Speakers are likely to diphthongize /u/, making сижу /sʲɪˈʐu/ ('I sit') sound more like . Some speakers may also universally front it to .
  • Speakers may also diphthongize /i/ in a similar fashion, especially in open syllables.
  • Speakers may have difficulty with Russian /o/, pronouncing it as either or the diphthong in boat.
  • It is likely that speakers will make the second element of Russian diphthongs insufficiently close, making them resemble English diphthongs (e.g., instead of ) or pronounce it too long.
  • Speakers may pronounce /a/ as in closed syllables так ('so') and in open syllables два ('two').
• Speakers may also have difficulty with the Russian vowel reduction system as well as other allophonic vowels.
  • Tendency to reverse the distribution of and . English speakers tend to pronounce in the pretonic position, right where is required in Russian, while they pronounce in pre-pretonic positions, where occurs. Thus, speakers may say голова ('head') as instead of and сторона ('side') as instead of .
• There are no cues to indicate correct stress in Russian. Speakers must memorize where primary and secondary stress resides in each word and are likely to make mistakes.
• Speakers tend to fail to geminate double consonants.