# Ukrainian: Letter combinations with "Й"



## Yôn

Hello everyone,

I was wondering how to pronounce the Ukranian letter combinations:

ий
йду
яй
й

Phonetic spellings and English examples of each pronunciation would be extremely helpful.


Thankyou,
Jon


----------



## Victoriya

Hi there! It's a very difficult question to explain by means of English sounds since English does not have ukrainian sound "ий" , but I'll try. 
Let's start with "й" - if you say the word "yummy" the first "y" is exactly the sound you need for ukrainian (or Russian) "й". Example: "йод" (iodine) - "yod".
Let's move to "йду". exactly the same sound "ydu" (means I go..or I'm going)
"ий" - is a little bit difficult. Sound "и" in Ukrainian (or "ы" in Russian) does not have any twin sounds in English. It's more tough then _ in English let's say in the word "bitter". (Gosh..I wish I could leave voice recording here ))) But all together I would say it's pronounced as "iy" in Enlish...for example "добрий" (kind) will be pronounced as "dobriy".
Regarding "яй" - I cannot think of any Ukrainian word that would have this combination of letters..i'm sure there should be some ..Just can't think of any right-off-the-bat. But a common combination would be "ай" which is just "ay" with [a:] from the word car..for example "бувай" (good bye) will be "buvay".
Sorry if it's confusing. I tried my best.Good luck!_


----------



## Yôn

This is exactly where I'm having trouble.  The book says to use "iy", but I cannot imagine how that would sound in English.  And I cannot think of words that have that letter combination in English.

Do you know of any sites that would have voice clips that I could look at?


Thank you so much for your help thusfar,
Jon


----------



## cyanista

I have a suggestion. Look here and here, click on the loudspeaker in the  Russian column and you'll hear "черный" (black) and"зеленый" (green). Both of them end in [ɨy] and though it's not Ukrainian these sounds are the same, so it might give you an idea.


----------



## jester.

To my ear, ий sound just like и (without й).

Is й silent at the end or am I mistaken?


----------



## Victoriya

Nope...it's the same old sound 'y" in the word Yummy...iy. Like for example you would say the latter "K" in the English Alphabeth. or like in the word "day" ..the sound is exactly the same. (and it's both for Russian and Ukrainian). But unfortunately my German is so bad after so many years without practice that I can't think of any German word to have the same or similar sound. sorry...


----------



## Phillip

HI everyone. Yôn is my brother and I was discussing with him some problems I have been having with pronunciation while trying to learn Ukrainian. After telling him that I was only able to find very little about the Ukrainian language through search engines and websites, he suggested that we use the forums. So the questions he asked were for me.  I have to say that it was very delightful to see how kind and willing to help out people are so thank you for all of your responses thus far. However; there are still a couple of things that I was wondering about and I think I may have improperly communicated to my brother a few of the things I wanted to ask. 

 In regards to the *ий*, I listened to the Russian recordings of the two colors and it sounded to me like ий was being pronounced as two syllables: The first(и) being pronounced like the *i* in the English words g*i*ve, h*i*t, and l*i*ve and then followed for the second syllable(й) with an *ee* sound like in the English words tr*ee* and s*ee (*which i think is the same as the Ukrainian* I) *and that these two syllables were pronounced so rapidly together that it almost made the same sound as the Ukrainian *I*, but not quite.  Is any part of what I just said right?


----------



## Victoriya

Hello!
I am very surprised people are willing to learn Ukrainian. Not many people in Ukraine want to study it. They speak mainly Russian, although I personally think Ukrainian deserves some attention - it's a beatiful language and it's easier than Russian !!!
Anyways, the sound "и" in Ukrainian language is the same as "ы" in Russian and it IS very similar to sound "i" in English in the word "live", so you were absolutely right about that. Still, it's a tougher sound..more round. However, the sound "й" is not a long "ee" even if it sounds so from the speakers of your computer. It is a normal sound of a letter "y" in the words like yawn, yummy, lay, but again, it's pronounced harder. 
anyways, i have an idea..if you want to I can give you my cell through message system and I can slowly teach you how to say these sounds - my husband is doing much better with his Russian pronouncition now than before, so I have some experience )0 plus I am a native speaker for both Russian and Ukrainian. 
Good luck!!

P.s. I guess i understand why you guys think that "й" is either silent or reminds you of a sound "ee". We have a very strong one syllable stress int he words and we tend to "eat" the rest of the word. But if you want to speak proper language - we do not have silent letters in Ukrainian, and we have just a few silent in Russian.


----------



## Phillip

Hello everybody; 

in regards to the *ий *combination,from what everybody is saying, this is _exactly_ the same as the Russian *ый* combination and is this _always_ the case? Is this correct? If so, I should be ok on this one and I think I got the pronunciation of the *йду *now too; Thanks everyone!

I am wondering still about *й *by itself. (i.e. how would you say it if you were reciting the alphabet, I guess I would like to know this of all the letters because some of them seem to stand alone as words, but I am not sure if that is appropriate for this thread)

I also am wondering about the *aй* like in the wordбувай is this pronounced like the English *ay* in the English word b*ay*ou and Spanish phrase Cinco de M*ay*o _or_ like the *ay *the word d*ay* or the pronunciation of the letter K.  I also am wondering if the *яй*, like in the word *яй**це*, would rhyme with the *aй *sound.

   Thank you, 
   Phillip


----------

