☰ Units · Russian A1

Stress and sounds

Unit 3 · Part A · Russian A1 (Beginners)
5

Reading phrases

Russian A1 · Unit 3
GoalRead short sentences aloud with correct stress and sounds.
New words
э́то (éto) · this isмой (moy) · my (for a masculine word)твой (tvoy) · your (to a friend)здесь (zdesʹ) · hereтам (tam) · there
Explanation

Now put everything together. Read word by word, from left to right. Find the stressed vowel in each word and make it strong. Weaken the unstressed о to an а. Remember hard and soft consonants, and a voiceless sound at the end of a word. A Russian sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, a question mark or an exclamation mark. There is usually no word for “is”: Э́то мой дом means “This is my house”.

RussianTranscriptionMeaning
Э́то мой дом.éto moy domThis is my house.
Вот мой стол.vot moy stolHere is my table.
Worked examples
Ди́ма

Э́то мой друг Са́ша.

Ма́ша

Приве́т, Са́ша!

Са́ша

Приве́т, Ма́ша!

Dima introduces a friend. Read the talk, then press Listen on each line.
Three sentences. Notice that there is no word for “is”.
A question has the same words, but the voice goes up on the key word.
Class activity

Read and record. Read the sentences of this lesson aloud and record yourself on a phone. Listen and check the stress and the weak о. Then write three sentences of your own with Э́то мой… and a masculine word such as дом, стол or друг.

Practice
1
Press Listen. Write the sentence you hear.
2
Read aloud and translate: Твой дом там.
3
Make a sentence from these words: стол, мой, э́то.
4
Which word means “here”, здесь or там?
5
Write in Russian: “This is my friend Dima.”