Way to Russia Talk Lounge

cook

Here's a question that has been bugging me terribly for the better part of a year now- how does an English-speaker's (particularly an American English speaker's) accent sound in the Russian language? Pretty subjective question, yeah, but what got me really thinking about it were my attempts to speak with as many Russians as normal day-to-day life allowed when I was there...responses ranged from complementary, to indifferent, to confused, to requests that I just speak English (funny thing is, they then claimed to not even understand my English...I halfway suspect that they were dicking around with me). Most people seemed quite nice though. Basically what I want to know is how clear are the accent's vowels and consonants, is it loud, is it monotone, nasal, wimpy, etc.?

vitalsigns · Lounge Wizard Joined: 25 Dec 2004 Posts: 2784

Retiring...

Intourist · Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 2:24 pm Post subject:

I guess it depends on how good your phonetics are, but most Americans sound very 'hard' not being able to get soft vowels down. The inability to not roll your 'r' is another distinctive aspect of the American accent, and together with our signicantly smaller number of fricatives (compared to Russian's large amount like z, zh, kh, ts, s, f, etc) m akes it sound very, I dunno, light, I guess.

Anya · Lounge Lizard Joined: 19 Feb 2004 Posts: 157

An American friend (from NY) was told by a few of her Russian tutors that somehow Americans as compared to other English speakers, seem to have the worst pronouncation...
(Too hard and flat pronouncation I guess...)

Camrade · Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 5:36 pm Post subject:

2cook

Just watch american movies about russian mafia Smile

so russians in those movies speak with strong american accent

init6 · Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 9:17 pm Post subject:

I think a lack of a pronounced accent in American English contributes to that. If I manage to get the stress right (and it usually takes me three or four times in the presence of my Russian teacher Razz

), I've been complimented on my accent. But I had to consciously practice quite a lot to be able to roll my R's, which I can do now, but as well as I'd like to be able to.

There's obviously no substitute for immersion, so I'm hoping to come back next year speaking pretty decent Russian. A challenge, but a worthy one! Smile

MrSpice · Lounge Wizard Joined: 14 Jul 2003 Posts: 3436

One thing that any russian would notice right away is how difficult for Americans to pronounce russian names. Actually, in the US they never make an attempt to pronounce russian names the way they are supposed to be pronounced. When they say the name "Vladimir", they always put emphasis on "a" instead of "i"

When they said the name Mikhail, they always pronounce it as "Mihael" instead russsian way of saying it: "Meekhaeel"

You should talk to a native russian speak to understand the difference. It's difficult to explain in writing.

init6 · Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 12:10 am Post subject:

I've started getting some weird looks because I try to always pronounce the names properly now. Like for Ivan, I don't say "Eye-ven" anymore, I say "Ee-von," and so forth. Plenty of times friends have asked me who I'm talking about and as much as I talk about Russian issues they're starting to get used to it.

No matter where I am, or culture I'm trying to learn about, I always try to pronounce names properly and it seems like a lot of people just don't want to make the effort. Confused

vitalsigns · Lounge Wizard Joined: 25 Dec 2004 Posts: 2784

Retiring...

cook · Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 4:30 am Post subject:

Wow, thanks for all of the responses.

Rick · Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 11:20 am Post subject:

Anya · Lounge Lizard Joined: 19 Feb 2004 Posts: 157

Well and it doesn't help that the general rule is when transliterating from Russian to English, you follow spelling. When transliterating from English to Russian, you follow pronouncation...

init6 · Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 4:53 pm Post subject:

Well, with Russian being a truly phonetic language, is there any other possible way to do it? That, to me, is one of the best things about the language. If you can read Cyrillic, you can pronounce every word (after a few tries, and assuming proper stress).

Rick · Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 5:12 pm Post subject:

init6: there are some exceptions to that.. but hey follow recognizable patterns as well. like the situations in which you write 'его' and ponounce 'ево', or some words like 'солнце' (sun)

Talula · Frequent Guest Joined: 01 Aug 2005 Posts: 55

I am learning to speak Russian via CD. I will eventually take a class because I talk to the Russian speaking gentleman in my class and just by him showing me where the proper stress in the words are helps a whole lot. I know I will never get rid of my American accent completely but I always, always, always try to speak the names of the people I am meeting correctly. I have them repeat it until I say it exactly right. I always hated it when Russians would come to live here and the Americans would give them a different name because they couldn't speak the name correctly.
I always ask the Russian gentleman if I have an accent and he says yes, but I can understand you just fine. As long as you are able to communicate, isn't that the real goal?
I think he is affraid to speak english sometimes because he is affraid to say things wrong but I keep trying to tell him that he has to practice saying them out loud in order to get them right.