Letters that indicate softness. Hard and soft consonants
Ability to distinguish between soft and hard consonants. Obviously, you don’t need to memorize them, but learn to hear them. And for this, the child needs to be told exactly how these sounds are made - this will greatly facilitate his understanding.
Always soft and always hard consonants
Not all consonants in our language are both hard and soft. First, you need your child to remember those of them that are only hard: Zh, Sh, Ts, and also always soft: Ch, Shch, Y. To do this, you can, for example, make a memorial plaque, where the hard ones will always be drawn above blue bricks, and always soft ones - over green pillows (the choice of color is based on how these sounds are designated in the lower grades).
If the child constantly sees this picture, which you put in his workbook or hang above him, then he will quickly remember these consonants.
How vowels “command” consonants
Then you explain to your child that other consonants can be either soft or hard. But the neighboring letters will help suggest this. If after our consonant there is another consonant, then ours is hard. For example: table. What comes after the C sound? So this is a hard consonant.
Vowel sounds “command” the consonant standing in front what it should be. If these are vowels: A, O, U, E, Y, then there are only hard consonants in front of them. And if it is: I, E, Yu, I, E, then it is soft. The softness of the previous consonant is also indicated by
Educational games
To make it easier for your child to remember this, try playing with him. Invite him to attach outside point your index finger to the palate and pronounce the syllables containing soft and hard consonants in turn. For example: TA - TYA, NA - NYA. Thanks to this, the child will be able to remember exactly how a consonant sound is produced. He will understand that when a soft consonant is formed, the tongue seems to move forward, and its back rises slightly towards the palate. But when hard consonants are pronounced, this does not happen.
Throw the ball to the child, naming a syllable with a hard consonant, and let him return the ball to you, having already pronounced it with a soft consonant. For example: LA - LA, LO - LE, LY - LI, etc.
At school, students are asked to distinguish hard and soft consonants using blue and green colors. Blue ones are hard and green ones are soft. Cut out a few squares of red, blue and green and have them make a word mosaic. The child will display vowels in red, hard consonants in blue, and soft consonants in blue. green. For this, take small words of one or two syllables: fish, elephant, branch, chalk etc.
Play the “chain of words” game. You pronounce a word ending with a syllable with a hard or soft consonant, and the child names the next word that begins with this syllable. Remembering to determine out loud which consonant, hard or soft, was in this syllable: winds - fish - bagels - cinema etc.
If you methodically explain to your child the difference between hard and soft consonants, this will help him navigate more easily in the future, when studying many of the features of the spelling of the Russian language. Good luck to you!
The speech of a person, especially a native speaker, must not only be correct, but also beautiful, emotional, and expressive. Voice, diction, and consistent spelling standards are important here.
The ability to pronounce sounds correctly consists of practical classes(voice training: volume, timbre, flexibility, diction, etc.) and knowledge of in what cases a particular pronunciation of sound is appropriate (orthoepic norms).
Before talking about the letters that represent soft consonant phonemes, you should remember the basic phonetic concepts and terms.
Phonetics: sounds and letters
Let's start with the fact that there are no soft consonants in Russian words. Since sound is what we hear and pronounce, it is elusive, it is an indivisible part of speech, which is obtained as a result of human articulation. A letter is only a graphic symbol denoting a particular sound. We see them and write them.
There is no complete correspondence between them. The number of letters and sounds in one word may not match. The Russian alphabet consists of thirty-three letters, and speech has forty-seven sounds.
Accurate in the word through letters - transcription. The letters in this case are written in square brackets. When analyzing phonetically, each sound must be written down as a separate letter, emphasized and indicated as soft, if necessary ["], for example, milk - [malako], mole - [mol"] - in in this case the letter l with an apostrophe indicates a soft sound [l"].
Phonetics: vowels and consonants
When a stream of air flies out of the throat without encountering obstacles on its way, it turns out (singing). There are six of them in the Russian language. They are shock and unstressed.
If the air leaving the larynx does not pass freely, then a consonant sound is obtained. They are formed from noise or noise and voice. There are thirty-seven consonant phonemes in our Russian language.
- sonorous (the voice is much stronger than the noise);
- noisy - voiced and unvoiced.
Also, according to pronunciation, there are soft consonants (the letters that represent them are written with an apostrophe) and hard sounds. They differ in pronunciation - when speaking a soft consonant, a person raises the middle back of the tongue high to the palate.
Graphics: letters
So, letters are the designations of sounds in writing. The science that studies them is graphics. The alphabet is graphic images sounds of the language, arranged in a certain order. The ten letters of the Russian alphabet are vowel letters that represent vowel sounds. It also includes twenty-one consonants and two letters that do not represent sounds at all. Each letter in the alphabet has its own unique name. The modern alphabet was created in 1918 and officially approved in 1942. Now these graphic signs are used in more than fifty different languages peace.
Letter-sound composition
In the Russian language, the composition of speech sounds and letters differs due to the specifics of the letter - the letters of soft consonant sounds and hard ones are identical - ate [y "el", el [y "el"]; and six vowels are indicated in writing by ten letters. This is how it turns out that there are fourteen more sounds in speech than letters in the alphabet.
Hard consonants
Consonant phonemes form pairs: voiced - voiceless, soft - hard. But there are those that will always sound firm - these are w, sh, ts. Even in the words parachute, brochure and cognates w will remain solid. In some foreign words, they are pronounced differently.
Soft consonants
There is also a trio of sounds that are always soft, consonant letters denoting them - h, sch, th. There are no exceptions to these rules in Russian.
Paired consonants
Consonants are mostly paired, that is, each hard sound corresponds to its softer pronunciation. The letters denoting soft ones will be identical. In the transcription, the sign ["] will be added to them.
How to determine where soft consonants will appear? Letters do not immediately form words; they first form syllables. The softness or hardness of the pronunciation of a consonant depends on which sound follows it in the syllable.
Syllables
A syllable is a sound or several sounds that are pronounced in one breath, with one push of air.
Vowels are syllable-forming sounds, consonants are adjacent to them - the syllable is obtained: mo-lo-ko, let-ta-yu-sha-ya fish. The number of syllables in a word is equal to the number of vowels in it.
Open syllables end with vowel sounds: picture - car- Tina, lawful - right-dimensional.
If a syllable ends with a consonant, it is a closed syllable: car-ti-na, legitimate - right-in measured.
Words are more often found in the middle open syllables, and the consonants adjacent to them are transferred to the next syllable: po-ddat, di-ktor. The sounds that can close a syllable within a word are voiced, unpaired, hard consonants and soft. Letters for writing them - y, r, l, m, n. For example: kitty - ki-sony-ka.
There are divisions of words into syllables and parts for transfer, as well as into morphemes. This is the syllabic, or syllabic, principle of graphics. It also applies to consonants.
Hard and soft consonants: letters (syllabic principle)
It manifests itself in relation to consonants in that it determines the unit of reading and writing:
- Like combining a consonant and the vowel that follows it.
- Combining a consonant and a soft sign.
- Grouping two consonants or a space at the end of a word.
So, in order to understand whether the sound defined in a word is soft or hard, you need to pay attention to what comes after it in the syllable.
If any consonant follows the one we are interested in, then the sound being identified is hard. For example: chatter - chatter, T- solid.
If the next one is a vowel, then you need to remember that before a, o, u, e, s stand For example: mother, fetters, vine.
And, e, yu, I, e- letters denoting a soft consonant sound. For example, a song is a song, p, n- soft, yet With- solid.
In order to speak well and correctly read soft consonants and sounds, you need to develop your understanding and discrimination of speech sounds. Fine developed ability clearly identifying what sounds are in a word, even if you are hearing it for the first time, will allow you to better remember and understand the speech of others. And the main thing is to speak more beautifully and correctly yourself.
The syllabic principle is convenient because it allows you to reduce the number of letters in the alphabet. After all, in order to designate soft and hard consonant phonemes, it would be necessary to invent, create, and users would have to learn fifteen new graphic elements. This is exactly what is contained in our speech. In practice, it turned out to be enough to determine the vowels indicating which letters have soft consonants.
Letters representing soft consonants
The softness of sound is indicated by ["] only when writing a transcription - sound analysis of a word.
When reading or writing, there are two ways to represent soft consonants.
- If a soft consonant ends a word or comes before another consonant, then it is designated “ь”. For example: blizzard, stolnik, etc. Important: when writing, the softness of a consonant is determined by “b” only if it appears in words with the same root both before a soft and before a hard consonant in different cases(flax - flax). Most often, when two soft consonants are next to each other, after the first “b” they are not used in writing.
- If a soft consonant is followed by a vowel, then it is determined by letters I, yu, i, yo, e. For example: drove, sat down, tulle, etc.
Even when applying the syllabic principle, problems arise with e before a consonant, they are so deep that they turn into orthoepy. Some scientists believe that a necessary condition euphony is a ban on writing e after hard consonants, because this grapheme defines soft consonants and interferes with the correct pronunciation of hard ones. There is a suggestion to replace e to single digit uh. Before the introduction, unified spelling of syllables e-e in 1956, paired spelling of such words (adequate - adequate) was actively and legally practiced. But unification did not solve the main problem. Replacing e with uh after hard consonants, obviously, will also not be an ideal solution; new words are appearing more and more often in the Russian language, and in which case to write one or another letter remains controversial.
Orthoepy
Let's return to where we started - our speech - it is determined by orthoepy. On the one hand, these are developed norms for correct pronunciation, and on the other, this is a science that studies, justifies and establishes these norms.
Orthoepy serves the Russian language, blurring the lines between adverbs to make it easier for people to understand each other. So that when communicating with each other, representatives of different regions think about what they are saying, and not about how this or that word sounded from the interlocutor.
The foundation of the Russian language and, therefore, pronunciation is the Moscow dialect. It was in the capital of Russia that science began to develop, including orthoepy, so the norms require us to speak - to pronounce sounds like Muscovites.
Orthoepy gives one the right way pronunciations, rejecting all others, but at the same time sometimes allowing options that are considered correct.
Despite clear, understandable and simple rules, orthoepy notes many features, nuances and exceptions in how letters are pronounced, denoting a soft consonant sound and a hard one...
Orthoepy: soft and hard consonants
Which letters have soft consonants? Ch, sch, th- Under no circumstances should you pronounce hard sounds instead of soft sounds. But this rule is violated, falling under the influence of the Belarusian language and even Russian dialects and reprimands. Remember how in this Slavic group the word sounds more, For example.
L- this is a paired consonant sound, respectively, standing immediately before the consonant or at the end of the word it should sound firm. Before oh, a, y, uh, s too (tent, corner, skier), but in some words that came to us more often from foreign languages, whose speakers live mainly in Europe, and which are proper names, l pronounced almost softly (La Scala, La Rochelle, La Fleur).
The last consonants in the prefix before the hard sign, even if followed by letters denoting a soft consonant sound, are pronounced firmly (entrance, announcement). But for consonants With And h this rule does not have full force. Sounds With And h in this case they can be pronounced in two ways (congress - [s"]ezd - [s]ezd).
The rules of orthoepy state that the final consonant in a word cannot be softened, even if it merges with the next word starting with e (in this, to the equator, with emu). If such a consonant is softened in speech, this indicates that the person communicates through a colloquial style.
"b" also belongs to the list of "soft consonants" and the sounds before it should be pronounced softly, even the sounds m, b, p, c, f in words such as seven, eight, ice hole, shipyard, etc. Pronounce soft sounds firmly in front of " b" is unacceptable. Only in the words eight hundred and seven hundred m may not have a soft, but a hard sound.
Which letters represent soft consonants, you need to remember clearly - e, yu, yo, i, and.
So, in many foreign words before e the consonant sound is not softened. This often happens with labial m, f, c, b, p. P- Chopin, coupe; b- Bernard Shaw; V- Solveig; f- auto-da-fe; m- reputation, consommé.
Much more often than these consonants, firmly before e dental consonants sound r, n, z, s, d, t. R- Reichswehr, Roerich; n- pince-nez, tour; h- chimpanzee, Bizet; With- highway, Musset; d- dumping, masterpiece; T- pantheon, aesthetics.
Thus, the letters of soft consonants have a fairly definite composition, but fall under a number of exceptions.
Consonants in in different words sound different. Somewhere it’s hard, and somewhere it’s soft. In this lesson we will learn to distinguish between soft and hard consonant sounds and to indicate the softness of consonant sounds in writing with the letters I, E, E, Yu, I and b. Let's find out which consonants form hard-soft pairs, and which are only hard or only soft.
Compare the first consonants. When pronouncing the sound in the word KIT middle part the tongue rises to the palate, the passage through which air flows narrows and a sound is obtained, which scientists conventionally called soft. And the opposite sound was called - solid.
Let's complete the task. You need to put the vegetables in two baskets. In the first place we put those whose names contain some soft sounds, in the second those in whose names all consonant sounds are hard. Beets, turnips, eggplant, cabbage, onions, tomatoes, onions, pumpkin, cucumber.
Let's check. In the first basket they put: beets(sound [v’]), turnip(sound [r’]), tomato(sound [m’]),cucumber(sound [r’]). Second: cabbage, pumpkin, eggplant, onion .
It is important to listen to the sounds of spoken words. If you say the word NOS otherwise - with a hard first sound, we get a completely different word - NOSE.
Let's listen and watch the movement of our tongue:
row - sound [p’] - rad - sound [p]
hatch - sound [l’] - bow - sound [l]
Rice. 3. Bow ( )
crumpled - sound [m’] - small - sound [m]
Sounds can be written (conventionally) using icons. Musical sounds are written in notes, and speech sounds are written in letters, but in special square brackets - in transcription. In order not to confuse hard and soft sounds when reading the transcription, scientists agreed to show the softness of the sound with an icon very similar to a comma, only they put it on top.
Most consonant sounds form pairs based on softness and hardness:
Some consonants are only hard or only soft. They do not form pairs in terms of hardness/softness:
Only hard consonants: [zh], [w], [ts]. Only soft consonants: [th’], [h’], [sch’].
Let's complete the task: indicate the paired sound.
[z] - ? [and] - ? [r’] - ? [h’] - ? [With'] - ? [l] - ? Let’s check the correctness of the task: [z] - [z’]; [r’] - [r]; [s’] - [s]; [l] - [l’]. [zh], [h’] - unpaired sounds in terms of softness and hardness.
In writing, the hardness of consonant sounds is indicated by the vowels A, O, U, Y, E, and the softness of consonant sounds is indicated by the vowels E, Yo, I, Yu, Ya.
There are words with soft consonant sounds at the end of words or in the middle of words before other consonant sounds. Listen to the words: salt, horse, notebook, coat, ring, letter. Then it will come to the rescue soft sign. Even his name suggests - a sign soft, for soft consonants.
Let's make a reminder of how to act when writing words:
I hear a hard consonant sound - after it I write the letters in place of the vowel sound: A, O, U, Y, E.
I hear a soft consonant sound before a vowel sound - I indicate its softness with vowels: E, Yo, I, Yu, Ya.
I hear a soft sound at the end of a word or before a consonant sound - I show softness b.
Rice. 5. Hard and soft consonants ()
So, today we learned that consonant sounds can be soft and hard, and the softness of consonant sounds in writing in Russian is indicated by the letters i, e, e, yu, i and ь.
- Andrianova T.M., Ilyukhina V.A. Russian language 1. M.: Astrel, 2011. ().
- Buneev R.N., Buneeva E.V., Pronina O.V. Russian language 1. M.: Ballas. ()
- Agarkova N.G., Agarkov Yu.A. Textbook for teaching literacy and reading: ABC. Academic book/textbook.
Additional web resources
- Hypermarket of knowledge ()
- Russian language: short theoretical course. ()
- Logosauria: site for children's computer games. ()
Make it at home
- Andrianova T.M., Ilyukhina V.A. Russian language 1. M.: Astrel, 2011. Pp. 35, ex. 6, Page 36, ex. 3.
- Count how many soft consonants are in a word train? (The word electric train has 3 soft consonant sounds ([l’], [r’], [h’]).
- Using the knowledge gained in the lesson, make up puzzles or charades with words where the softness and hardness of the sound changes the meaning.
Surely when small child parents send the child to first grade to study, the child may encounter new and unforeseen difficulties. He receives most of the knowledge from his teacher, but not everything can be assimilated and remain in his head forever. The problem may be that the child is still too young to have time to “grab” everything at once.
Such barriers can be given in many subjects and topics. And no, these are not only exact sciences, such as mathematics and natural history. The Russian language can also be overwhelming for many children, because it is one of the the most complex languages peace!
As you know, everything big begins with small things, and children, as a rule, begin to study Russian with sounds, which in turn are classified into soft or hard consonants, stressed consonants and unstressed ones. This topic includes many aspects, the study of which is extremely necessary so that every child can perfectly know the basics of the Russian language.
First of all, for a student to begin to study sounds and their features, he needs to become familiar with the letters, which in their own way are divided into consonants and vowels. You also need to know that there are as many as 33 letters in the alphabet, of which only 21 are consonant sounds in the Russian language, which in pronunciation can give 36 different sound pronunciations.
Consonants are always classified. There are hard and soft consonants, voiceless or voiced, sonorant and noisy, paired or unpaired. At the same time, the voiceless and voiced consonants of the word being defined depend on the pronunciation. They consist of noise and voice. Thus, dull sounds are formed with the help of noise and give only deafness, while the latter are distinguished by the presence of sonority due to the voice.
There are fewer vowel sounds; there are only 10 of them in the alphabet, giving only six sounds. They can be shock or unstressed. When the future first-grader has already familiarized himself with and mastered it well this material, we begin to improve the skill when the student could easily distinguish a soft consonant sound from a hard one.
At the same time, you need to learn to distinguish with the help of different signs, because simply memorizing does not always help. There are cases when a consonant sound in a word can sound either soft or hard, but there are exceptions. Now let's start learning the rules.
Before what vowel?
Which vowels are soft and which are hard? Let's try to figure it out. The first rule sounds like this: “In the case when a consonant is followed by one of the following vowels - a, o, u, e, s - then the sound will always be hard. And “e, yu, ya, e” always makes consonants soft.” As a result, the last all consonant soft words are given. For example, let’s take the word “mother”.
After the consonant “m” comes the vowel “a”, which makes the sound hard, and in the word “uncle” the sounds “ya - ya” make the consonant “d” soft. If children learn this simple rule and learn to use it, subsequent determination of the softness or hardness of a sound will not be difficult for them.
To reinforce the material “Hard and soft consonant sounds” even better, give children similar exercises that reinforce these rules. We advise you to start with the simplest words.
Two consonants in a row
In the case of subsequent consonants, we figured it out without difficulty, but what to do when two consonants are in a row and how to determine the characteristics of the sound in this case? Another rule applies here. Such cases always mean that the consonant will always be firm. Only soft consonants do not appear in this rule.
- As an example, you can take the word “pen”. After “ch” comes the sound “k”, and the child must understand that “ch” will automatically become a hard sound, since the next “k” is a consonant.
- Take your time when explaining to your child these simple, but important and sometimes confusing rules. Monitor whether the child understands, ask questions and don’t be lazy to explain several times.
Indication of hardness and softness in writing
Traditionally, all sound recordings are made through transcription. So, in transcription, if the sound is soft, we put an apostrophe after it, which looks like a comma on top. Showing: `. For example, take the letter “b”. In the word “lamb” there is a hard sound, its sound recording is as follows: [b], and in the word “white” it is already [b`]. In the word “ice”, only “l” and “d” will be soft. That is, in essence, the child writes the same letter, but it, in turn, has different pronunciations.
In transcriptions and in writing, a similar moment can be indicated differently, that is, in two ways:
- In the case when soft consonants in Russian appear at the end of a word or before another consonant (in most cases a hard one), softness is indicated by a soft sign, the transcription is an apostrophe. For example, “horse”, “ash”
- If after a consonant there is a softening vowel (which one, see above in the rule), then it is with its help that the softness of consonant sounds is indicated. For example: “chalk”, “sang”, “luk” - the first sounds are always soft.
It is important to know that you should not ignore the fact that any method of indicating the softness of a sound applies only to those who have a pair in hardness. This means that, for example, in the words “tush” and “tush” the soft sign in the second case only indicates that the given object/phenomenon/creature belongs to feminine. Similar words are: “pike”, “sew”, “drink”, “thicket”.
Constant hardness and softness of a consonant sound
You need to know that there are sounds that, regardless of position, rule or even exception, do not change their position. These are “zh, sh, ts” - they are always hard, and “ch, shch, th” are invariably soft, where zh, sh, ch, shch are hissing consonant sounds.
But it can be difficult for children to remember this aspect well, and then the parent can easily prepare a reminder in a notebook, which will look something like this: zh, sh, ts, ch`, sch`, й`or just underline the last three letters.
“Soft” words
This can be called words in which all soft consonant sounds are soft. Their huge amount. For example: “frost”, “glasses”, “skullcaps”, “fun”, “predators”, “squint” - these are words with soft consonants.
- A very exciting and educational activity not only for the child, but also for the parent, will be the search for similar new words in which all the consonants are soft.
- If you have any difficulties, please contact our help! “Pikes”, “uncle”, “blizzard”, “aunt”, “rulers”, “fives”, “ten”, “lilac”, “dates”, “nannies”, “cherry”, “ten” - words, where all consonants are soft. Also play in reverse: we look for all the consonants in the words that are now hard.
Learning by playing
Some sources and reference books recommend focusing on educational games. That is, a child who is carried away by such an activity does not notice how he grasps and learns difficult material. An example of such a game could be the familiar “Find a Pair”.
All that is necessary is to give the child words with hard sounds, and he must come up with another word in response, but with soft ones. This is how you can easily and naturally learn soft consonant sounds in 1st grade!
- If after a consonant there is a hard consonant, then the sound being identified is hard (this is if you do not take into account assimilation, when sounds are likened to each other)
- There is an exception to this point: the letter N is softened before soft D, T And sounds Ch, Shch; and vice versa, D, T are softened before the letter N. Z, S are also softened before soft D, N, T.
- If there is a vowel after a consonant sound, hardness and softness are determined by these sounds
- Softens consonants and a soft sign (its second function is the separation of sounds).
Using the method of elimination, we always remove hard f, w, c.
Only soft th, h, shch.
We determine the softness of the vowel by the vowel next to it. For example, in the word tyr there is a soft consonant sound (t), and in the word how there is a hard consonant sound (k).
if a consonant is preceded by the vowels I, E, Ya, Yu and a soft sign, then the consonants are soft.
See table. To make it easier for children to remember, we designate soft and hard commanders.
To answer this task, remember school years and lessons of the great Russian language. In language, softening consonants during pronunciation is called palatalization, these sounds are produced by raising the middle part of the tongue towards the roof of the mouth. And these consonants are defined as follows:
If after a consonant there are the following vowels: E, I, Yu, Ya.
Or the soft sign b.
Also, the following are always soft: Y, Ch, Shch.
After Alexander’s amazingly detailed answer, it would be inappropriate to write anything.
Therefore, I will add only one thing.
This presence of hard and soft consonants in the Russian language, or rather the need to pronounce them depending on the presence of one or another vowel after the same letter, is a stumbling block for foreigners learning the Russian language.
With a combination of a consonant with e, yu, ya, and - blockage.
IN best case scenario they get the following pronunciation: Tan-ya or Tanya, this is already among the advanced ones. At the same time, they simply pronounce it quite easily.
Although this is a mild sign, it is a problem for some.
I love the old joke about the bulka, the bottle and the stick, the kisel, the mamzel and the gizel.
Recently my child and I went through this topic in pre-school preparation. They even drew diagrams there, soft consonants in green, and hard consonants in blue.
Here was their rule:
That is, there are consonants that will always be hard, these are: Ж, Ц and Ш.
And there are consonants that will always be soft, these are: И, Ш and Ш.
And the rest depends on the vowel coming after and from b.
Soft consonants are scientifically called palatalized.
When soft consonants are formed, in addition to the main articulation, the participation of the hard nba is added. In Latin, solid nbo is palatum, hence the name palatalized. The phenomenon of softening is called palatalization.
How to determine which consonant is soft and which is hard?
As you know, the consonants Ch, Shch, Y are always soft in the Russian language.
In other cases, a soft consonant can be identified by the letter that follows it.
Generally, a consonant letter will represent a soft consonant sound if it is followed by one of the following six letters: E, I, Yu, I, b.
forest (L soft), dog (P soft), view (V soft), ruffle (R soft), mint (M soft), horse (N soft).
But you need to be careful:
1) The consonants Ж, Ш, Ц are always hard! They will never soften, even in front of I or E.
2) In some foreign words, the consonants before the letter E are not softened. Unfortunately, there is simply no universal rule in this regard. For example, text is pronounced, but tEst, TEMP; despot, however damper; Nerve, however vonEma. So here you just have to cram and memorize every word.
3) If after a consonant there is a soft consonant, then the preceding consonant may soften, but may remain hard. The following rules can be formulated:
a) the consonant N is softened before soft T, D: bow, undine. In addition, the letter N is always softened before Ch, Sh: lemon, racer.
b) the consonants T, D are softened before the soft N: worker, rider.
c) the consonants S, Z are softened before soft T, D, N: bridge, idleness, songs, fuss. (Before other soft consonants, the letters S and Z do not soften! Laughter is S, vision is Z.)
In other cases, consonants before other consonants usually remain hard.
But my question is this... For some reason, the rule comes to mind that a consonant sound will be soft if it is followed by a soft consonant sound, softened ь. I remember this when I hear the name of my city spoken: Perm. And they say: pe r m! They say this is how they read the combination r and m. But it seems to me that the pronunciation: pe r m - corresponds to the rules Russian language, and not just a historical pronunciation that only locals know about
The consonants are always soft - Ch, Shch, Y, as well as the consonants that come before the vowels - I, Yu, E, Ya.
But the name of the city: PERM is pronounced PE R M, but many who hear about Perm for the first time pronounce PE R M. For some reason, the rule pops into my head that a consonant is soft if it is followed by a soft consonant. And that the correct pronunciation of Perm is not historically developed, which the locals know, but corresponds to the rules of the Russian language, which everyone should know about. Is this true?
The softness of a consonant in Russian is indicated by a soft sign. For example, day, little.
The softness of a consonant is always indicated by the vowels E, Yu, Ya, I, which come after the consonant. For example, warm, day, uncle.
The sounds Ch, Y, Shch are always soft, they do not have a pair of hard consonants.
It is also necessary to pay attention to the combination of some consonants, since consonants can be softened under the influence of subsequent soft sounds. For example, bantik, n - soft under the influence of soft T.
We need to start from the fact that in the Russian language all vowels are divided into soft and hard.
Soft vowels - E, I, Ya, Yu
Hard vowels - A, O, U, Y, E
All consonants preceding soft vowels will be soft - RI, PYA, PI, ME, Le
All consonants preceding hard vowels will be hard - RA, RO, PU, WE, ME
b also always softens consonants.
In the Russian language, three consonant sounds are always soft: Ch, Shch, Y. The remaining consonant sounds can be softened by some vowel sounds, i.e. if they are followed by the vowels I, Yu, I, E, and a soft sign.
For example, in the word rose, the r sound is hard, but in the word robe, it is soft.
To indicate soft consonants in a word, and such a task is offered in tests about the Russian language (Indicate words with all soft consonants), you always need to immediately discard hard sounds and, w, ts, For example:
in a word ginseng, despite the apparent softness (the presence of the letters e and b) there are actually two solid sound. This word is not suitable as a correct answer.
We also remember about always soft sounds: h, sch, th.
And all other consonants can be either soft or hard. They immediately soften if they are followed by the letters: e,, yu, I, And, b,For example:
la n b, s m ena, r I, l n, l yu l yka, l Isa, co r b.
And sometimes, despite the absence of a soft sign after a consonant, all the sounds in it are still soft due to the interaction of sounds with each other, when one soft sound softens the previous one. This phonetic phenomenon is called assimilation by softness.In the word nurse, at first glance, you cannot immediately determine whether all the sounds are soft. But if we listen to its sound, we will hear this:
nachi t, that is, all sounds are soft.
I would like to summarize the above answers. In the Russian language, there are consonants that are always hard (Zh, Sh, Ts), always soft (Ch, Shch, Y), while the rest can be both hard and soft, depending on which sounds are their neighbors to the right.
