What is phonetic transcription. What are the rules of phonetic transcription for students studying Russian in depth?

A special recording of speech, used to record in writing all the features of sound, begins to be studied already in high school. The first thing a student learns about transcription notation is square brackets. If the text is placed in [...], then this is definitely a phonetic transcription.

In addition, you need to know that the word itself comes from the Latin (transcription - rewriting), denoting a special letter that records spoken speech. Russian phonetic transcription, naturally, will be based on the Russian alphabet, from which the letters “ё”, “e”, “y”, “yu”, “sch”, “ya” have been removed, the letters “ъ” and “ь” have been instructed to denote special vowels are unstressed, and when there were not enough Russian letters as a result of these actions, they called on the Latin “j” (iot) and the Greek “Y” (gamma).

Why is phonetic transcription needed?

1. It is necessary to hear native speech and know the norms of literary pronunciation.

2. When studying foreign languages, where spelling almost always differs from pronunciation.

3. To record a language that does not have a written language, dialect speech, or hieroglyphs.

Living sound processes are rarely reflected in orthographic writing, but phonetic writing differs sharply from it. The strictest tradition reigns among letters. And the phonetic transcription of the text fully conveys the entire flow of speech with all the changes in the sound system of the language.

Letter and sound

The Russian writing system was built so perfectly that it took into account all the phonetic features of the Slavic language. In the ninth century, Constantine the philosopher, and in monasticism - Cyril, our Saint and Equal to the Apostles, compiled the Slavic alphabet, which was named in honor of the creator - Cyrillic.

The phonetic transcription of the Russian language is not as simple as that of the Bulgarian brothers, for example. This is because in our country a letter often conveys two sounds, or vice versa: one sound is obtained when reading two letters. The entries are sometimes so funny that with the development of the Internet, young people, being mischievous, came up with a way to communicate in chats in “Albany language”, where, for example, the word “hedgehog” consisted of four letters, among which there was not a single correct one. Guessing the word in these letters is not so easy, because “yosh” doesn’t fit in your head. It's almost a transcription. There are not enough square brackets, and also the knowledge that the letter “th” in transcription is most often designated “j”, and a soft sign cannot be present here, because there is nothing to soften. The correct phonetic transcription of the word is [yosh].

Soft consonants

In a letter, after consonants intended to become soft, you need to write not the letters “a”, “u”, “o”, “e”, but softening ones - “ya”, “yu”, “e”, “e”. In endings, a soft sign is added to the consonant (in the pre-revolutionary alphabet it was called “er”). Phonetic transcription requires an apostrophe to indicate the softness of the consonant sound. There is one exception - “th”, that is [j], it is quite good without an apostrophe. The rest are designated as follows: [m"].

Spelling rules, that is, spelling, quite often do not convey exactly the sound that is pronounced in a word. Transcription signs are required to record pronunciation as accurately as possible. For example, we write the word “side” and pronounce it: [bʌkav`oy].

Accents

Have you noticed that the letter “v” has some strange apostophe attached to it? And this is not an apostrophe at all, but an accent. Unstressed vowels are not indicated in writing. Try saying the word "pencil". Isn't it true that all vowels written the same way sound different? Unstressed vowels are shorter and slightly weaker than the same vowel under stress. Phonetic transcription must emphasize this difference: [karʌnd`ash].

There is also a reduction here: do you hear the almost complete disappearance of the first vowel? The sounds we pronounce briefly are most often indicated by the same signs as percussion, but without stress, but “swallowed” sounds, that is, those that have undergone fundamental changes in pronunciation, have special signs: the ancient “er” [b] and “er” [b] . They do not indicate any sounds, but during transcription, as in this case, they have a very important function.

Only special publications (dictionaries, textbooks for foreigners, literature for young children) leave an accent mark in words, but the transcription must mark it where the word has more than one syllable.

Stress in the Russian language is very flexible, it moves freely through the syllables of a word, and is not bound by constancy: gorod- goroda, okno- okna. It is so dynamically strong that a stressed syllable becomes much stronger than an unstressed one. This weakening is called reduction. There are its first and second degrees, depending on the position of the vowel: the first - on the first pre-stressed position, the second - on more than the first pre-stressed, as well as post-stressed position.

Long consonants

Some consonant sounds are only long and soft. These are “sh” - the sound [sh":] and “zh” - the sound [zh":]. If the spelling dictates two identical consonants - "cash", for example, then the phonetic transcription will differ significantly from this construction, since the pronunciation requires one, but long sound: [k`as:a].

However, the notations in textbooks vary. You can also find [kassa]. Sometimes they write one letter “s”, but underline it on top.

Phonetic word

What is a word? In writing and transcription they are not the same thing at all. In writing, we distinguish parts of speech into auxiliary or independent ones, and write everything separately. Prepositions, for example. Phonetic transcription of Russian words suggests a different attitude. This is a sequence of syllables in a single whole; a phonetic word has a single organizing center, a single stress.

This means that all prepositions, conjunctions, particles that are pronounced together with their main words are written in the same way. Of course, all changes that occur with the sounds that make up the word are also recorded. For example, “with him” - , “beyond the river” - [z'r"ik`oi], even more interesting: "asked b" - [sprʌs"`il'p].

The details with which phonetic transcription is recorded depend on the characteristics of sound, where both individual and situational (emotional, for example) speech productions are included. Here the phonetic transcription of the pronunciation as such dictates.

Now back to the basics

The Russian alphabet consists of thirty-three letters, the so-called graphemes, which we divide into vowels and consonants. The sound form of each grapheme is a phoneme, which has variants, that is, allophones.

Consonant sounds are divided into voiceless and voiced. It's pretty simple. A stream of air vibrates the vocal cords and thus causes a sound - a tone, which is then modified by natural barriers in the oral and nasal cavities, converting the tone into noise. Based on the nature of this noise, it is easy to divide consonants into voiced (in which the tone has not completely “died”) and voiceless, in which there is nothing left except noise.

It is necessary to divide them into soft and hard. There are thirty-three letters in the alphabet, and thirty-six phonemes of only consonants. Of these, fifteen are paired (hard-soft), three consonants are always hard (“sh”, “zh”, “ts”) and three are always soft (“ch”, “sch”, “y”).

When a stream of air exits, the vocal apparatus does not put any obstacles in the way of vowel sounds, leaving them with the purest tone. This means that we have six vowel phonemes: “a”, “u”, “e”, “i”, “o”, “s”. Allophones are also present here and depend on the stress in the word.

Rules for phonetic transcription for schoolchildren

1. Transcription is always placed in square brackets.

2. Capital letters and punctuation marks are not used. Pauses, most often coinciding with punctuation marks, are marked with a double line - a long, significant pause, or a single line - a short pause.

3. Words consisting of two or more syllables must be stressed.

4. Two words united by one stress are written together: to the garden - [fsat].

5. Soft consonants must have an apostrophe: sat - .

6. Among consonant letters, phonetic transcription never uses “шь” and “й”.

7. Long consonant sounds are indicated either by a superscript or a colon: bath - [van:a]. The letter "ш" is not used, but its phoneme is [sh"] or [sh":].

8. The sounds shch, th, ch are only soft, however, an apostrophe for “ch” and “th” is not required, although it sometimes occurs. “Zh”, “sh”, “ts” are always only hard. Exceptions for French words: parachute, jury, julienne, Jules (Verne) and so on, in which the letter "zh" is written [zh"].

Vowel sounds

Stressed vowels have six symbols: [i], [s], [u], [e], [o], [a]. For example, feast - [p'ir], ardor - [ardor], ray - [ray], forest - [l'es], house - [house], garden - [garden].

For the letters “e”, “e”, “yu”, “ya” one sound is not enough, so “e” is [ye], “e” is [yo], “ya” is [ya], “yu” is [yy]. If after the letter “and” the spelling dictates a soft sign, then the phonetic transcription will also write doubly: sparrows - [vurʌb`yi]. Just remember that the letter “th” is replaced by the Latin “j”.

When starting to learn a foreign language, a person is faced with the need to pronounce new words correctly. Unlike Slavic languages, in which most words are read according to certain rules, in English there are quite a few exceptions to the rules for reading words. Phonetic transcription of words will help you pronounce and read words correctly. And although it often seems that this is a complex concept, it is actually very simple once you understand this issue.

The concept of phonetic transcription

Phonetic transcription is a way of graphically recording the sounds of oral speech. The transcription is incredibly accurate and is based on correct pronunciation. To achieve this, each transcription character has a corresponding graphic symbol, and each symbol, in turn, is associated with a clearly defined sound.

With the help of transcription, it is possible to record in writing not only the pronunciation of sounds and words, but also sentences and texts.

Basic rules of transcription

1) First of all, the transcription is always recorded in special square brackets: .

2) If the transcribed word has two or more syllables, stress must be placed.
3) If two words are read together, this is recorded in phonetic transcription using the league icon: [in_house].
4) Capital letters are not written in the transcription.
5) If a sentence or text is transcribed, punctuation marks are not added. Instead, they are replaced with slanted vertical lines / (if the pause is short, like a comma), // (for a longer pause), like a period or semicolon.
6) The softness of a consonant is indicated in transcription using an apostrophe placed to the right of the letter.
7) A non-syllable sound is shown with an arc underneath it.
8) The length of a sound is indicated using a colon [a:], sometimes using a horizontal line above the letter.
9) To write words, there is a specially developed international phonetic alphabet, which is based on Latin letters, as well as some icons taken from the Greek alphabet.

10) Slavic languages ​​in Cyrillic can also be written in Cyrillic letters (this applies to East Slavic languages).

Transcription in Russian

Despite its apparent simplicity, Russian transcription has a lot of nuances, without knowledge of which it will be difficult to correctly write down the transcribed word. Transcription in Russian is subject to general transcription rules, but there are additional features.

1) Consonant sounds are written using all consonant Cyrillic letters of the alphabet, with the exception of й and ь.
2) Ъ and ь do not indicate sounds, so they are not written down in transcription.
3) The sounds [th] and [h] are always soft, so in transcription they are not indicated by a softness symbol.
4) The sounds [w], [zh], [ts] are always hard, although in rare cases the letter z can give a soft sound [zh". If they are followed by the letter e, it is written in transcription as [e]: "ts [e]thread.”
5) The letter u, in transcription it is the sound [sh:"] or [sh"].
6) If vowels are stressed, they are pronounced clearly and written using six symbols: [a], [u], [o], [i], [e], [s].
7) Diphthongs yu, ya e, ё designate two sounds and are written in transcription respectively [yu], [ya], [ye], [yo], provided that they are either at the beginning of the word or after a vowel, ь or ъ , in other cases - after consonants - they designate one sound [u], [a], [e], [o], with the designation of the previous consonant soft.
8) The letter and after the separating ь becomes a diphthong and its transcription is [йы] - mura [в "ы".
9) J in the transcription of some words is written as [j], for example “cha[j]ka”.
10) The letters o and a, at the very beginning of a word or in the first syllable without stress in transcription, sound like [a], but the sign [^] is used to write them.
11) After soft consonants in syllables without stress, the letters e and i will be written in transcription as a peculiar sound [ie]: [r’ieb’ina] - “rowan”.
It is interesting that in most Russian dictionaries the transcription of words is not indicated, so you need to either learn how to do it yourself, or use the services of online resources that do it.

Transcription in English

If Russian transcription can be written either in Latin or Cyrillic, then English transcription is always written using the Latin IPA alphabet. It is also subject to rules and symbols common to all languages ​​for transcribing words. However, unlike Russian, the pronunciation of English words has a more historical tradition and is often not subject to rules. In such cases, transcription is the only way to pronounce the word correctly. Therefore, most English words in dictionaries are written with transcription. The table below shows the main symbols used in the transcription of English words.

Knowing what phonetic transcription is is very important, because this knowledge allows anyone not only to correctly read a word in a foreign language, but also to correctly pronounce words in their native language.

In order to record spoken speech as accurately as possible, they use a special recording system called phonetic transcription. Its basic principles: 1) each letter must denote a sound, there should be no letters that do not denote sounds; 2) each letter must represent one sound, not a combination of sounds; 3) each letter must always represent the same sound. Segments of phonetic transcription are written in square brackets.

To master the principles of phonetic transcription of Russian literary pronunciation, you need to know the following:

1. The phonetic transcription system uses all vowel letters of the Russian alphabet, except e, e, yu, i, which in Russian graphics denote the same sounds as ['e], ['o], ['u], ['a] after soft consonants, or combinations of sounds , , , .

note- letters e, e, yu, i represent two sounds in the following positions:

1) beginning of the word: spruce [ je l’], south [ ju To];

2) after ь and ъ: rise [пΛд’ jo m], clerk [d’ ja To];

3) after vowels: I sing [пΛ ju ], my [mΛ ja ].

In other cases the letters e, e, yu, i denote one sound and indicate the softness of the preceding consonant: five [p’at’], forest [l’es], nes [n’os], people [l’ud’i].

2. Badges y e, and e, Λ(lid), ъ And b used in transcription to denote reduced vowels: water [voda], water [vod'i e nou], water [vod'ich'k], lesovichok [l's'v'ich'ok], desires [zhy e lan'iu'] .

3. The phonetic transcription system uses all the consonant letters of the Russian alphabet, except shch, which in Russian graphics denotes a long soft sound [sh’]: shield [sh’it], tentacles [sh’up’l’tsy].

4. In Russian phonetic transcription, u (and non-syllabic) is used to denote the letter th: maika[maikъ], voy[voi].

Transcribed icon j used before a stressed vowel: drink [p’ju], hedgehog, lighthouse [mΛjak]. In other cases, u is used: teapot [ch'aun'ik], mine [mou], green [z'i e l'onu'].

5. The following diacritics (superscript and subscript) are accepted in phonetic transcription:

1) [’] – means the softness of the corresponding sound: elk [los’], mint [m’at].

2) [zh] - indicates the length of the consonant sound: [zh] - compress, [z] - behind.

3) [a] – vowel, advanced forward and upward at the beginning of the sound: crumpled [m’ al], hatch [l’ uk], swept [pΛdm’ ol].

[a] – vowel, advanced forward and upward at the end of the sound: mother [m’a t’], elk [lo s’], ray [lu ch’ik], wash [we t’].

[a] – a vowel, advanced forward and upward at the beginning and end of the sound: crumple – [m’ a t’], Lyusya [l’ u s’y], Lenya [l’ o n’y].

Attention! Advancement forward and upward is associated with the adaptation of the sound of the stressed vowel of the front row to the adjacent soft consonant and is called accommodation. Applies only to vowels [o], [a], [y], [s].

4) The sign ^ above a vowel letter means closedness, tension of the corresponding front vowel [e], [i], located in the position between two soft consonants: laziness [l’en’], sin [s’in’].

Attention! Superscript signs of accommodation are indicated for vowels only in a strong (stressed) position. In the unstressed position, accommodation is neutralized by reduction.

5) The sign ^ under the letter of a sonorant consonant p, l, m, n indicates the deafening of this consonant: smo[tr], microco[cm].

6) Some words in speech are not stressed. They are adjacent to other words, forming one phonetic word with them, and are formalized in transcription with the sign “-”. An unstressed word standing in front of the stressed word to which it is adjacent is called proclitic: down the wind [pΛ-v’etru], don’t speak [n’y-g’vΛr’i], through me [ch’r’z-m’i e n’a]. An unstressed word that comes after the stressed word to which it is adjacent is called enclitic: hardly [vr’ad-l’i], look [smΛtr’i-k], downhill [under-gur], it wasn’t [n’e-byl].

Attention! The position, called the absolute beginning of a word, denotes the beginning of a phonetic word, for example: Father left home (This sentence has 4 words - a preposition, two nouns, a verb. From the point of view of phonetics, there are 3 phonetic words, since the preposition does not have an independent accents). [ Λ home Λ tΛshol Λ t’ets] – the absolute beginning of each word is highlighted.

7) When transcribing a coherent text, you should divide it into phrases and speech bars.

Phrase- this is a segment of speech, united by a special intonation and phrasal stress and concluded between two fairly long pauses. A phrase corresponds to a statement that is relatively complete in meaning, but it cannot be identified with a sentence. The phrase and the sentence may not coincide linearly. A phrase can be divided into phonetic syntagms, or speech beats, which are also characterized by special intonation and stress, but the pauses between speech beats are shorter than interphrase pauses.

Boundaries between phrases are indicated by two vertical bars // , and between bars - one line / .

HOW TO WRITE A TRANSCRIPTION

Put emphasis on the word. If a word has two or more stresses, mark the secondary ones. For example: po-mo-lo-dé t, À woẁ -to-trá ns-port. In the transcription itself, stress must be placed.

Determine the degree of reduction that is characteristic of the vowels in each unstressed syllable. Reduction of unstressed vowels is of I (not very strong) and II (very strong) degree.

I degree of reduction is observed in the following cases: 1) in the first pre-stressed syllable (the syllable preceding the main or secondary stress), 2) in any other pre-stressed syllable, if it is open (i.e. begins with a vowel sound).

The second degree of reduction is observed in all other cases - in particular, in all overstressed syllables.

For example: By II -mo II -lo I -deoh, well II -mò -That II -trá ns-port II .

Now you can write the transcription.

In the Russian tradition, transcription is written based on the Cyrillic alphabet.

Badges ъ And b are used only to denote reduced vowels of the second degree of reduction. Icon e never used in transcription.

Icons for consonants correspond to ordinary letters of the Russian alphabet; letter th not used: the corresponding sound is indicated using a Latin icon j. Its softness is usually not indicated (a midlingual palatal sound cannot help but be soft), but we will indicate softness (for uniformity): .

To indicate a sound usually conveyed by a letter sch, [ш̅’] is used as standard, but we will use the usual icon sch: [sch'].

It is important to remember: the designation of softness in transcription is mandatory, even for the always soft sounds [ch'] and [sh']. This is important because the sound [h] may appear positionally in Russian speech - for example, in the word laugh it off due to the assimilation of [t] and [w], the hard [h] is pronounced. In the flow of speech, sounds that are not recognized by a native speaker of the Russian language can be pronounced: [γ] - voiced version [x], [dz] - voiced version [ts], [d'zh'] - voiced version [ch'].

In general: all processes of assimilation, dissimilation, deafening of sounds at the end of a word, simplification of consonant groups and other phonetic processes should be reflected in transcription.

The length of the sound of a consonant sound is conveyed using the bar: [n̅].

There are 6 sounds under stress in the Russian language: [а́], [о́], [ы́], [е́], [и́], [у́]. In unstressed position, vowel phonemes in the Russian language are subject to quantitative (<ы>, <и>, <у>) and quality (<а>, <о>, <э>) reduction. To reflect this contrast, different symbols are used to represent reduced sounds, even if the actual sound is the same. For example, sounding the same in literary language forests And fox are written differently in transcription: [l’i e sa] and [l’isa]. This is done because in some dialects the corresponding unstressed vowels are pronounced differently. Rare cases of pronunciation of unstressed [o] in borrowed words ( palazzo) and service ( But) words are written in accordance with real pronunciation. You should also listen carefully to how prepositions and particles sound in the flow of speech: they can either be included in one phonetic word with the main word form, or appear separately.

In the Russian literary language, in the first degree of reduction there are 4 sounds: [a ъ], [и е]=[и], [ы е]=[ы] and [у], and in the second degree of reduction – 3: [ъ] =[ы̯], [ь]=[и̯] and [у᷃].

In an unstressed position, after soft consonants there can only be a front vowel or a rounded vowel ([i e ]=[i], [ь]=[и̯], [у] and [у᷃]), and after hard consonants - only a non-front vowel ( [a ъ], [ы е]=[ы], [ъ]=[ы̯], [у] and [у᷃]).

	Under stress after hard	Under stress after soft	I degree of reduction of semi-solid	I degree of reduction of p/soft	II degree of reduction of semi-solid		II degree of reduction of p/soft

Wife [zhy e na], tram [tra ъ mvaj’ch’ik].

Do you know why Russian is so difficult for foreigners to learn? Especially those whose languages ​​are not at all similar to Russian? One of the reasons is that our language cannot be said to mean that words can be written the way they are heard. We say “MALAKO”, but we remember that the word must be written with 3 letters O: “MILKO”.

This is the simplest and most obvious example. And, as a rule, no one thinks about what transcription (that is, a graphic recording of sounds) of the words that are most familiar to us looks like. To learn to understand what sounds words are made of, schools and even universities perform such a task as phonetic analysis of a word.

It is not easy for everyone, but we will help you understand and successfully cope with it in class and when preparing homework.

Phonetic analysis of the word- a task aimed at parsing a word into letters and sounds. Compare how many letters it has and how many sounds it has. And find out that the same letters in different positions can mean different sounds.

Vowels

There are 10 vowel letters in the Russian alphabet: “a”, “o”, “u”, “e”, “y”, “ya”, “e”, “yu”, “e”, “i”.

But there are only 6 vowel sounds: [a], [o], [u], [e], [s], [i]. The vowels “e”, “e”, “yu”, “ya” consist of two sounds: vowel + y. They are written like this: “e” = [y’+e], “e” = [y’+o], “yu” = [y’+y], “i” = [y’+a]. And they are called iotized.

Remember that in transcription “e”, “e”, “yu”, “ya” are not always decomposed into two sounds. But only in the following cases:

1. when words appear at the beginning: food [y’eda], ruff [y’orsh], skirt [y’upka], pit [y’ama];
2. when they come after other vowels: moi [moi'em], moe [mai'o], wash [moi'ut], warrior [vai'aka];
3. when they come after “ъ” and “ь”: pedestal [p’y’ed’estal], drinks [p’y’ot], drink [p’y’ut], nightingale [salav’y’a].

If “e”, “e”, “yu”, “ya” appear in a word after soft consonants, they can be confused with [a], [o], [y], [e]: ball [m'ach'] , honey [m'ot], muesli [m'usl'i], branch [v'etka]. They denote one sound in a position after consonants and under stress.

Not under stress “e”, “e”, “yu”, “ya” give the sound [i]: rows [r’ida], forest [l’isok]. In other cases, the letter “I” without stress can be pronounced as [e]: quagmire [tr’es’ina].

Another interesting thing about the relationship between “ь” and vowels: if after a soft sign in a word there is a letter “i”, it is pronounced as two sounds: streams [ruch’y’i].

But after the consonants “zh”, “sh” and “ts” the letter “i” gives the sound [s]: reeds [reeds].

The vowels “a”, “o”, “u”, “e”, “s” indicate the hardness of consonant sounds. The vowels “e”, “e”, “yu”, “ya”, “i” indicate the softness of consonant sounds.

By the way, in many words with the vowel “е” the emphasis always falls on it. But this rule does not work for borrowed words (amoebiasis) and complex words (such as trinuclear).

Consonants

There are 21 consonants in the Russian language. And these letters form as many as 36 sounds! How is this possible? Let's figure it out.

Thus, among the consonants there are 6 pairs according to the voicing of deafness:

1. [b] - [p]: [b]a[b]ushka – [p]a[p]a;
2. [v] - [f]: [v] water - [f] plywood;
3. [g] - [k]: [g]voice – [cow];
4. [d] - [t]: [d’] woodpecker - [t]ucha;
5. [f] - [w]: [f’]life – [sh]uba;
6. [z] - [s]: [z’]ima – o[s’]en.

This is interesting because paired sounds are represented by different letters. Such pairs do not exist in all languages. And in some, for example, Korean, paired unvoiced and voiced sounds are indicated by the same letter. Those. the same letter is read as a voiced or unvoiced sound depending on its position in the word.

There are also 15 pairs of hardness and softness:

1. [b] - [b’]: [b]a[b]glass – [b’]tree;
2. [v] - [v’]: [v]ata – [v’]fork;
3. [g] - [g’]: [g]amak – [g’]idrant;
4. [d] - [d’]: [d]ozh[d’];
5. [z] - [z’]: [z] gold – [z’] yawn;
6. [k] - [k’]: [k]ust – [k’]bist;
7. [l] - [l’]: [l]swallow – [l’]istik;
8. [m] - [m’]: [m]a[m]a – [m’]iska;
9. [n] - [n’]: [n]os – [n’]yuh;
10. [p] - [p’]: [p]archa – [p’]i [p’]etka;
11. [r] - [r’]: [r]lynx – [r’]is;
12. [s] - [s’]: [s] dog – [s’] herring;
13. [t] - [t’]: [t]apok – [t’]shadow;
14. [f] - [f’]: [f] camera - [f’] fencing;
15. [x] - [x’]: [x] hockey – [x’] ek.

As you can see, the softness of the sounds is ensured by the letter “b” and the soft consonants that come after the consonants.

There are unpaired consonant sounds in the Russian language that are never voiceless:

• [y’] – [y’]od;
• [l] – [l]ama;
• [l’] – [l’]eika;
• [m] – [m]carrot;
• [m’] – [m’] muesli;
• [n] – [n]osoceros;
• [n’]– [n’] bat;
• [r] – [r]daisy;
• [r’] – [r’] child.

To make it easier to remember all the voiced sounds, you can use the following phrase: “We didn’t forget each other”.

And also unpaired sounds, which, in turn, are never voiced. Try reading the words from the examples out loud and see for yourself:

• [x] – [x]orek;
• [x'] - [x']surgeon;
• [ts] – [ts]apple;
• [h’] – [h’] person;
• [sch’] – [sch’] bristles.

Two phrases will help you remember which sounds remain deaf in any situation: “Styopka, would you like some soup?” - “Fi!” And “Fokka, do you want to eat some soup?”.

If you carefully read the examples given above, you probably already noticed that some consonants in the Russian language are never soft:

• [g] - [g]bug and even [g]acorn;
• [sh] - [sh]uba and [sh]ilo are read equally firmly;
• [ts] - [ts] scratch and [ts]irk - the same thing, the sound is pronounced firmly.

Remember that in some borrowed words and names “zh” is still soft [zh’]: jury [zh’]juri, Julien [zh’]julien.

Similarly, in the Russian language there are consonants that are never pronounced firmly:

• [th’] – [th’] ogurt;
• [h’] – [h’]chirp and [h’]asy – the sound is equally soft;
• [sch'] - [sch']cheek and [sch']fingers - similar: no matter what vowel comes after this consonant, it is still pronounced softly.

Sometimes in some textbooks the softness of these sounds is not indicated by an apostrophe during transcription - since everyone already knows that these sounds are not hard in the Russian language. It is also often customary to denote “sch” as [w’:].

Remember also that the consonants “zh”, “sh”, “ch”, “sch” are called hissing.

Phonetic analysis plan

1. First you need to spell the word correctly in terms of spelling.
2. Then divide the word into syllables (remember that there are as many syllables in a word as there are vowels in it), designate the stressed syllable.
3. The next point is the phonetic transcription of the word. You don’t have to transcribe the word right away - first try saying it out loud. If necessary, speak several times until you can say with certainty which sounds need to be recorded.
4. Describe all vowel sounds in order: identify stressed and unstressed sounds.
5. Describe all consonant sounds in order: identify paired and unpaired sounds by voicedness/dullness and hardness/softness.
6. Count and write down how many letters and sounds there are in the word.
7. Note those cases in which the number of sounds does not correspond to the number of letters and explain them.

In written phonetic analysis, sounds are written from top to bottom in a column, each sound is enclosed in square brackets -. At the end, you should draw a line and write down the number of letters and sounds in the word.

Special transcription characters

Now about how to correctly designate sounds during transcription:

• [ " ] – this is how the stressed vowel in the main stressed syllable is designated (O"sen);
• [`] – this is how a secondary (minor) substressed vowel sound is designated: usually such a substressed syllable is located at the beginning of a word, found in compound words and words with the prefixes anti-, inter-, near-, counter-, super-, super-, ex -, vice- and others (`aboutE'many);
• [’] – a sign of softening a consonant sound;
• [Λ] – transcription sign for “o” and “a” in the following cases: position at the beginning of a word, the first pre-stressed syllable in the position after a hard consonant (arka [Λrka], king [krol’]);
• – a more “advanced” transcription sign for recording iotated sounds; you can also use [th’].
• [and e] – something in between [i] and [e], used to denote the vowels “a”, “e”, “e” in the first pre-stressed syllable in the position after a soft consonant (blend [bl'i e sleep]) ;
• [ы е] – something between [ы] and [е] or [ы] and [а], used to denote the vowels “e”, “e” in the first pre-stressed syllable in the position after a hard consonant (whisper [shi e ptat '];
• [ъ] – transcription sign for the vowels “o”, “a”, “e” in positions after a hard consonant in a pre-stressed and post-stressed syllable (milk [milk]);
• [b] – transcription sign for the vowels “o”, “a”, “ya”, “e” in the position after a soft consonant in an unstressed syllable (mitten [var'shka]);
• [–] – a sign indicating the absence of sound in the place of “ъ” and “ь”;
• [ ‾ ]/[ : ] – transcription signs (you can use one or the other of your choice - it will not be a mistake) to indicate the length of consonants (to be afraid [bΛй'ац:ъ]).

As you can see, everything is very difficult with the transcription of letters into sounds. In the school curriculum, as a rule, these complicated and more accurate transcription signs are not used or are used little. Only with in-depth study of the Russian language. Therefore, it is allowed to use the sounds [a], [o], [u], [e], [s], [i] and [th’] in phonetic analysis instead of “and with the overtone e” and other complex designations.

Transcription rules

Do not forget also about the following rules for transcribing consonants:

• voicing of voiceless consonants in position before voiced ones (bending [zg’ibat’], mowing [kΛz’ba]);
• deafening of voiced consonants in the position at the end of a word (ark [kΛfch’ek]);
• deafening of a voiced consonant in a position in front of a voiceless one, for example, a voiced “g”, which can turn into voiceless sounds [k] and [x] (nails [nokt’i], light [l’ohk’iy’]);
• softening of the consonants “n”, “s”, “z”, “t”, “d” in the position before soft consonants (kantik [kan’t’ik]);
• softening of “s” and “z” in the prefixes s-, iz-, raz- in the position before “b” (remove [iz’y’at’]);
• unreadable consonants “t”, “d”, “v”, “l” in combinations of several consonant letters in a row: in this case, the combination “stn” is pronounced as [sn], and “zdn” - as [zn] (district [uy 'ezny']);
• combinations of letters “sch”, “zch”, “zsch” are read as [sch’] (accounts [sch’oty]);
• combinations “chn”, “cht” are pronounced [sh] (what [shto], of course [kΛn’eshn]);
• infinitive suffixes -tsya/-tsya are transcribed [ts] (bite [kusats:b]);
• the endings of -ogo/-him are pronounced through the sound [v] (yours [tvy’evo]);
• in words with double consonants, two transcription options are possible: 1) double consonants are located after the stressed syllable and form a double sound (kassa [kas:b]); 2) double consonants are located before the stressed syllable and give a regular consonant sound (million[m’il’ion]).

Now let's look at the phonetic transcription of words using examples. For recording we will use a simplified system of transcription of consonant sounds.

Examples of phonetic transcription of words

1. departure
2. ot-e"zd (2 syllables, stress falls on the 2nd syllable)
3. [aty'e "st]
4. o - [a] – vowel, unstressed
   t- [t] – consonant, voiceless (paired), hard (paired)
   ъ – [–]
   e - [th’] - consonant, voiced (unpaired), soft (unpaired) and [e] - vowel, stressed
   z - [s] – consonant, voiceless (paired), hard (paired)
   d - [t] – consonant, voiceless (paired), hard (paired)
5. 6 letters, 6 sounds
6. The letter “e” after the separating “b” gives two sounds: [th"] and [e]; the letter “d” at the end of the word is deafened to the sound [t]; the letter “z” is deafened to the sound [c] in the position before the voiceless sound.

One more example:

1. grammar
2. gram-ma"-ti-ka (4 syllables, stress falls on the 2nd syllable)
3. [gram:at"ika]
4. g – [g] – consonant, voiced (paired), hard (solid)
   p – [p] – consonant, voiced (unpaired), hard (paired)
   mm – [m:] – double sound, consonant, voiced (unpaired), hard (paired)
   a – [a] – vowel, stressed
   t – [t’] – consonant, voiceless (paired), soft (paired)
   k – [k] – consonant, voiceless (paired), hard (paired)
   a – [a] – vowel, unstressed
5. 10 letters, 9 sounds
6. Double consonants “mm” give a double sound [m:]

And last:

1. became
2. sta-no-vi"-lis (4 syllables, stress falls on the 3rd syllable)
3. [stanav'i"l'is']
4. s – [s] – consonant, voiceless (paired), hard (paired)
   t – [t] – consonant, deaf (paired), hard (paired)
   a – [a] – vowel, unstressed
   n – [n] – consonant, voiced (unpaired), hard (paired)
   o – [a] – vowel, unstressed
   in – [v’] – consonant, voiced (paired), soft (paired)
   and – [and] – vowel, stressed
   l – [l’] – consonant, voiced (unpaired), soft (paired)
   and – [and] – vowel, unstressed
   s – [s’] – consonant, voiceless (paired), soft (paired)
   b – [–]
5. 11 letters, 10 sounds
6. The letter “o” in an unstressed position produces the sound [a]; the letter “b” does not denote a sound and serves to soften the consonant preceding it.

Instead of an afterword

Well, did this article help you understand the phonetic analysis of words? It is not so easy to correctly write down the sounds that make up a word - there are many pitfalls hidden along this path. But we tried to make the task easier for you and explain all the slippery aspects in as much detail as possible. Now such a task at school will not seem very difficult to you. Don't forget to teach your classmates and show them our helpful instructions.

Uses this article when preparing for lessons and passing the State Exam and Unified State Exam. And be sure to tell us in the comments what examples of phonetic analysis of words you are asked at school.

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