# rules of pronunciation of г



## Crescent

Hello all! 

I was just thinking of how is it possible to define the rules for when the letter *г *is pronounced as *в* and when it is not? For some reason I seemed to come to a strange conclusion that in most cases *г* is pronounced as *в*: 
e.g. e*г*o, ниче*г*о etc.

But now I realise that that is rather a silly comment, since words such as *город *will never be pronounced as *вород*. 

The problem is that I am trying to teach this to a non-native speaker (who is French, if that would be of any help at all!) (and of course, I wouldn't have ever thought about it twice myself before I faced this problem ) so... I was wondering if any of our foreros would be kind enough to share some of their knowledge on the subject to help me out? 

Thank you very much in advance!


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## Woland

Let me see if I can remember some of the pronounciation rules I was thaught in school.

 1)These are called hard consonants which are pronounced using a different sound in some contexts.
They are are transformed in sas follows:
Б-П; В-Ф ;г-к/в ;д-т ;ж-Ш з-с

For example :
.всего - *f*se*v*a (v becomes F and g becomes v)
зуб - zu*p* (b becomes p)
.завод -zavo*t*
.нож- no*sh*
мог-mo*k*
завтра-za*f*tra
et cetera.

2)Other consonants(deaf consonants) before sound consonants(except for в) are read as follows:
СДЕЛАТь=*z*delat', футбол-fu*d*bol
but свой for example is read as svoi(the rule doesn't apply for V)


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## Ptak

Woland said:


> For example :
> .всего - *f*si*v*o (v becomes F and g becomes v)


O is stressed.


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## Woland

indeed,sorry,I have already corrected it


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## Maroseika

*Г* turns phonetically into *В* only in 2 cases:

1. In the endings of Pronomes. Adjectives and Numerals in Genitive or Accusive: чего, хорошего, первого, etc.
2. In some Pronomes (etimologically also originating from the Gen./Acc.): итого, всего, ничего, etc. (I'm not sure too many unmentioned remains...).

The reason I guess is that unstressed combination *ог/ег* is very inconvinient to pronounce in Russian.


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## Crescent

Thank you very much to everyone for their help! 



Woland said:


> For example :
> .всего - *f*se*v*a (v becomes F and g becomes v)
> зуб - zu*p* (b becomes p)
> 
> 2)Other consonants(deaf consonants) before sound consonants(except for в) are read as follows:
> СДЕЛАТь=*z*delat', футбол-fu*d*bol
> but свой for example is read as svoi(the rule doesn't apply for V)


 
Sorry, Woland, may I throw up a hand of protest, please?  I'm afraid that after reading your post, I sat there for ten minutes trying to pronounce the words in your list, and to figure out whether or not I do indeed pronounce them as you say the grammar rules state..

And I don't think I do..  See, this is a really hard thing for me to judge -because being a native speaker, I don't pay any attention to it at all! Ever! So.. I don't know.

What do the other foreros think? Do we really say ''всего - *f*se*v*a,зуб - zu*p'*' etc? 
I'm still very grateful for your help!


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## Crescent

Maroseika said:


> *Г* turns phonetically into *В* only in 2 cases:
> 
> 1. In the endings of Pronomes. Adjectives and Numerals in Genitive: чего, хорошего, первого, etc.
> 2. In some Pronomes (etimologically also originating from the Gen.): итого, всего, ничего, etc. (I'm not sure too many unmentioned remains...).
> 
> The reason I guess is that unstressed combination *ог/ег* is very inconvinient to pronounce in Russian.


 
Hi, Maroseika! 

First of all - a big thank you. This is probably just what I need - as long as I am able to figure out all of the ''code'' language of genetives and pronomes. 

By the way, what exactly are ''*pronomes*''? I'm terribly confused: did you perhaps mean ''*pronouns*'' and accidently mixed it up with the french ''*prénoms'*'? 
And if this is so, how is it possible for words such as _*итого, всего, ничего*_ to be pronouns? (mestoimeniya ) 
Or maybe it's just that I really struggle with identifying some of the grammatical functions of words...

In any case, thank you for your patience and please don't run out of it!


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## Ptak

Crescent said:


> What do the other foreros think? Do we really say ''всего - *f*se*v*a


We say fsiv*o*.


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## Maroseika

Crescent said:


> By the way, what exactly are ''*pronomes*''? I'm terribly confused: did you perhaps mean ''*pronouns*'' and accidently mixed it up with the french ''*prénoms'*'?


Surely, I meant pronouns, sorry, Crescent, and thank you for correction.



> And if this is so, how is it possible for words such as _*итого, всего, ничего*_ to be pronouns?


Sorry, again I was too inaccurate
Ничего - negative pronoun (Acc., Gen. of ничто)
Всего - attributive pronoun (Acc., Gen. of весь), or
- adverb (in the sense of итого), or
- particle (in the sense of только) 
Итого - adverb



> Or maybe it's just that I really struggle with identifying some of the grammatical functions of words...


In any case, thank you for your patience and please don't run out of it! [/quote]
Not only you...

P.S. We really say [zup].


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## jester.

As far as I know, го is pronounced as -vo if it is part of a case ending. Like in the accusative pronoun eгo, for instance.

From what I've learnt, the word сегодна is an exception. In this case, as you can see, го is not part of the ending but of the stem.

And there is also Бог, another exception, obviously.


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## tkekte

It's not a part of the stem, because сегодня is composed of two parts.
сей день (this day) -> сего дня (of this day).
Later this phrase came to be used as a single word to mean "today", but the pronunciation stayed.


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## jester.

Thanks, tkekte, that's very interesting.


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## Maroseika

jester. said:


> And there is also Бог, another exception, obviously.


Why?


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## Crescent

Thank you again to everyone for your priceless help! 



jester. said:


> As far as I know, го is pronounced as -vo if it is part of a case ending. Like in the accusative pronoun eгo, for instance.
> 
> From what I've learnt, the word сегодн*я* is an exception. In this case, as you can see, го is not part of the ending but of the stem.


 
Thanks, Jester, that's wonderful!  That's what I was looking for, more or less: a simple rule which clearly defines how you pronounce the same sound in different circumstances. 
So, if I've understood correctly, it's not only the accusative and genetive whose endings are pronounced as ''*vo*'' but also all of the other cases, except for the nominative, I suppose? 



> And there is also Бог, another exception, obviously.


Jester, Maroseika is right, I'm afraid  : *Бог* is not an exception to this rule because you pronounce it with a slightly softer *г* - almost like a ''h'', but it isn't in any case part of a case ending - unless, of course you count the nominative, which isn't really fair, because then words like _*пирог*_ are also pronounced with that same slurred ''h'' at the end. 

It's really interesting what *tkekte* has said about _сегодня -_ I must admit that although I would have never thought of it myself, now I see that he's completely right in splitting this word up into the two componenets - like it used to be in ancient Russian.. 

Thank you very much again to all of you!


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## jester.

Crescent said:


> Thanks, Jester, that's wonderful!  That's what I was looking for, more or less: a simple rule which clearly defines how you pronounce the same sound in different circumstances.
> So, if I've understood correctly, it's not only the accusative and genetive whose endings are pronounced as ''*vo*'' but also all of the other cases, except for the nominative, I suppose?



Not sure. I have not yet learnt enough case endings to tell you. In fact, I've hardly learnt anything about Russian until now...



> Jester, Maroseika is right, I'm afraid  : *Бог* is not an exception to this rule because you pronounce it with a slightly softer *г* - almost like a ''h'', but it isn't in any case part of a case ending - unless, of course you count the nominative, which isn't really fair, because then words like _*пирог*_ are also pronounced with that same slurred ''h'' at the end.



No problem. I see that I was wrong.


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## Crescent

jester. said:


> Not sure. I have not yet learnt enough case endings to tell you. In fact, I've hardly learnt anything about Russian until now...


 
I have tried to conjugate (or ''decline''?  what do we say for ''cases/declensions'' ?) some of the words which would have the ''*гo*'' as part of their ending and as far as I could see - my supposition was obviously wrong, in thinking that it would be like that throughout all of the cases of the word, because in fact - only the roditel'niy padez' (the genetive? ) and the datil'nyi (...accusative?..) would actually contain those endings! 

i.e.
word: *Nikto *
Nominative: *nikto*
Genetive: *nikogo*
Accusative(?): *nikogo *

Please correct me if I'm wrong, anyone!


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## Maroseika

Crescent said:


> I have tried to conjugate (or ''decline''?  what do we say for ''cases/declensions'' ?) some of the words which would have the ''*гo*'' as part of their ending and as far as I could see - my supposition was obviously wrong, in thinking that it would be like that throughout all of the cases of the word, because in fact - only the roditel'niy padez' (the genetive? ) and the datil'nyi (...accusative?..) would actually contain those endings!
> 
> i.e.
> word: *Nikto *
> Nominative: *nikto*
> Genetive: *nikogo*
> Accusative(?): *nikogo *
> 
> Please correct me if I'm wrong, anyone!


родительный и винительный


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## Crescent

Maroseika said:


> родительный и винительный



А ну да, вы правы, Маросейка!  Я только что посмотрела в своём учебнике русского языка (для 3-_ого_ p!) класса! ) и действительно, только в родительном и винительном падеже есть это окончание "го".

А ещё, немного поразмышляв по этому поводу, я открыла для себя что в основном прилагательные мужского рода имеют окончание такого рода.

например: _красивый_

Именительный: _(кто? что?)_ красивый
Родительный: _(кого? чего?)_ *красивого*
...
Винительный: _(кого? что?)_ *красивого

*Так что получается всё как Вы и сказали: в *прилагательных* (муж. рода), *местоимениях *и *числительных* окончание "го" читается как "во". 

Здорово! Спасибо всем огромное!


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## Awwal12

I dare to briefly summarize everything up.
1. *Normally* "г" represents /г/ or /г'/, according to the usual rules of Russian orthography (/г'/ before "ь", "и", "ё", "ю", "я"; before "е" letter, both /г/ and /г'/ are actually possible, but in fact it's almost exclusively /г'/; finally, in other positions it will be /г/). By default /г/ and /г'/ are pronounced as [г] and [г'] sounds respectively, but before unvoiced consonants and in the coda they get devoiced into [к] and [к'] (although there is hardly a single word with /г'/ in such position).
2. The* exceptions *are:
a) the genitive endings "-го" of adjectives, participles, their nominalizations (like n.
 "управля́ющего", n. "дежу́рного") and applicable pronouns (его́, како́го etc.); in these, "г" reads as [в].
б) "Бог" reads as [бо́х] (this word was influenced by Russian Church Slavonic orthoepy).
в) "Г" also reads as [х] before "к" and "ч" in native Russian words (basically those are мя́гкий, лёгкий and their derivates: размягчи́ть, облегче́ние etc.; cf., however, "мя́[г]ок", "лё[г]ок").
г) Finally, "г" represents a marginal voiced fricative phoneme /ɦ/ (alternatively, it may be also pronounced as velar [ɣ]) in certain interjections ("ага", "гей"). It also often occurs in the vocative "Го́споди". Its usage in other words (like "Богоро́дица", "благо́й" etc.) is outdated. Partly it's onomatopoeic and partly introduced by Church Slavonic.


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