There are certain vowels which can sound in two ways depending on the position in the word. These include Ее, Ёё, Юю, Яя.
1. If the letters come at the beginning of the word or after a vowel/ ъ hard sign/ ь soft sign, they will be pronounced with й sound (йэ, йё, йю, йа) like in yesterday, York, you, yup. For example, ем {yem} ‘I eat’, ёж {yozh} ‘a hedgehog’, юг {yug} ‘South’, яблоко {yablako} ‘an apple’.
2. However, if these letters come after a consonant, they won’t have й sound. They will simply be pronounced like [э, о, у, а] and at the same time they’ll soften the preceding consonant. For example, конверт {kanv’ert}* ‘an envelope’, мёд {m’od} ‘honey’, мюсли {m’usli} ‘muesli’, мясо {m’asa} ‘meat’.
*’ is a sign of a softened consonant
Now let’s talk about the mysterious Russian signs.
The soft sign ь palatalizes (softens) the preceding consonant. Sometimes the word meaning can be changed just by softening the consonant. For example, топ ‘best, топь ‘swamp’.
As for the hard sign ъ, it separates the first part of the word (which ends in the consonant) from the second part (which starts from the Ее, Ёё, Юю, Яя letters) and gives you a millisecond of the pause in the middle of the word. For example, объявление {ob.yavleniye} ‘announcement’, инъекция {in.yektsiya} ‘injection’.
Watch the video to make sure how these letters are pronounced and to check your reading 😊
After we have finished with the rest of the Russian Alphabet, It’s time to move to the Gender. In Russian there are 3 of them: Masculine, Feminine, Neuter. Every Noun has a constant gender, luckily, most of them have certain features.
The Nouns belonging to Masculine gender end in consonant, - й or ь. For example, банан ‘a banana’, парк ‘park’, май ‘May’, тень ‘a shadow’.
The Feminine nouns end in - a, -я, -ая. For instance, мама ‘mom’, cемя ‘ a seed’.
The Neuter nouns end in - о, -е, -ое. For example, молоко ‘milk’, яблоко ‘an apple’, море ‘sea’.
