Learn Russian Pronunciation

Welcome to episode 2 of Learn Russian Pronunciation. Today we'll tackle one of the biggest sticking points for students of Russian: The rolled R. We'll start by repeating the following four words after the native speaker.

Welcome to episode 3 of Learn Russian Pronunciation. If you're new to this course I recommend going back to episode #1 because the lessons are cumulative and they assume you've mastered everything in the previous episodes. Anyway, today we'll be working with consonant clusters. That's when you have three

Today we'll learn a cool technique for developing your fluency. All we really do is—in whatever word or phrase we're focusing on—we change all the vowels to the same sound. For ex: You've probably encountered the phrase: Меня зовут

Welcome to episode 5 of Learn Russian Pronunciation. A lot of pronunciation courses, at some point, teach you tongue twisters. Although there's some value in trying to pronounce them, they're usually not very useful phrases. Right? I mean

Alright, this is episode 6. Today we're going to hone in on the most troublesome vowel for non-Russians. Listen and repeat: Ы. On paper, it looks like a lower-case English b, next to a capital I. But again, it's a single letter in the Cyrillic alphabet. Listen again..Ы

Welcome to episode 7 of Learn Russian Pronunciation. Today we're going to learn a sneaky little trick, a pronunciation hack, I guess they'd call it, to help with a very common Russian word. I call it a whisper vowel. So here's the word we'll be focusing on today: нравится

Welcome to episode 8. Today we're going to work with this letter: Х ...which, on paper, looks like an X. It's similar to that sound we make when we don't like some food. эххх (yuch). When importing words from other languages, Russian sometimes use Х in place of a "ch" sound.

Welcome to episode 9. Today we're going to examine a phenomenon known as voiced and devoiced consonants. Here's what I'd like you to do. Assuming you're not driving at the moment, put your fingers on your throat and say the word "cats."

Alright, this is episode 10 of Learn Russian Pronunciation. Today is the midterm, where I'll test you on pretty much everything we've learned so far. So let's do it...

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...

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:

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?

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

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

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

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

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:

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.

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?