# Pronunciation of endings -ное and -ная



## Alan Evangelista

Hi, guys!

I'm having a hard time with sequences of unstressed vowels in Russian. It seems to me that they are not clearly pronounced and are merged into only one vowel.

For instance, Wiktionary says that *ванная* is pronounced [ˈvanːəjə] and that  *существительное* is pronounced [sʊɕːɪstˈvʲitʲɪlʲnəjə] , but I hear [ɛ] instead of [əjə] at the end of both words in the Wiktionary recordings and in Google Translate. Am I hearing these audios wrong or is there some kind of vowel reduction happening in those words? If there is indeed some vowel reduction, is it wrong to pronounce them as mentioned in the IPA phonetic transcriptions above?

Thanks in advance!


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## Nikined

Maybe it's a confusion between "ванна" and "ванная"


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## Alan Evangelista

Nikined said:


> Maybe it's a confusion between "ванна" and "ванная"



Whose confusion ? The speakers of the audios in Wiktionary? I assume you have heard them?


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## Nikined

I've listened to the pronunciations, there _are_ [j]'s there, although they are not obvious.


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## Maroseika

Alan Evangelista said:


> Am I hearing these audios wrong or is there some kind of vowel reduction happening in those words? If there is indeed some vowel reduction, is it wrong to pronounce them as mentioned in the IPA phonetic transcriptions above?


There is really vowel reduction in these endings, especially in the fast speech.


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## Alan Evangelista

Nikined said:


> I've listened to the pronunciations, there _are_ [j]'s there, although they are not obvious.



I confess I can't hear them. Anyway, the point is not only the presence/absence of [j]. The unstressed endings -ое and -ая should be pronounced [əjə] but it seems to me that they were reduced to [ɛ]; I can not even hear a [ə]. [ɛ] and [ə] are completely different vowels (for instance, compare "bed" and "butter"). That's why those 2 pronunciations seemed very odd to me. Again, please correct me if I am hearing it badly.



Maroseika said:


> There is really vowel reduction in these endings, especially in the fast speech.



Thanks for confirming it! Would it be wrong to pronounce these 2 words without the vowel reduction, as I transcribed in my original post?

Does this vowel reduction usually take place in these vowels endings, regardless of the word? Are there patterns of vowel reductions documented somewhere or do I have to learn case by case?


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## Awwal12

Normally there is no [j] in the unstressed inflectional vowel clusters. Not even in slower speech, it is purely phonemic (just what I mentioned recently in the thread about the IPA in dictionaries); attempts to articulate [j] there actually sound very unnatural  - though native speakers may do that when they try to pronounce a word with an extreme accuracy, as it is often happens on Forvo, for example (so, both pronunciations of "сильная" on Forvo wouldn't possibly occur in any form of normal speech, and among 5 recordings of "ванная" only that of szurszuncik sounds normal).

Ironically, it *is* present in the Wiktionary recordings indeed (albeit in the form of a less intensively articulated [ɪ̯]). It actually shouldn't at all. Still, the fact that you are missing it means that you shouldn't trust your ear too much either.

Sadly, I cannot remember which sounds are exactly present in which of these combinations, and a native ear is of poor assistance here (we often hear what we do not actually pronounce, and we often pronounce something different from what we imagine). Spectrograms and x-ray imaging are the only reliable source. Hopefully I'll be able to add some info later.


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## Vovan

Alan Evangelista said:


> it seems to me that they were reduced to [ɛ]


The first vowel is indeed _close _to [ɛ]. Then there's a _very, very slight_ [jə]. Together, all three make a *triphthong* in oral speech (not in singing).
There' some similarity here with the way some Americans (e.g. in the South or of Afro-American origin) pronounce "man": [me:jən].


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## Awwal12

Vovan said:


> Together, all three make a *triphthong* in oral speech (not in singing).


Diphthongs and triphtongs are concepts of phonology rather than of actual phonetics. Since in Russian these vocalic combinations are phonologically divided between different syllables, it's problematic to view them as di- and triphtongs. Anyway, combinations of three vowels and semivowels don't actually exist on phonetic level in unstressed positions (although if one of the vowels is stressed they may occur); they make two adjacent vowel sounds at most.


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## Maroseika

Alan Evangelista said:


> Would it be wrong to pronounce these 2 words without the vowel reduction, as I transcribed in my original post?


It would be correct, but this [j] is very weak, as already mentioned. But although the weaker it is the faster is the speech, but it's definetely always there no matter how fast one speaks. At least  [sʊɕːɪstˈvʲitʲɪlʲn*əə*] would sound extremely weird. And [ˈvanːəə] sounds like a variant of [ˈvanːə] - ванна.


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## Awwal12

Maroseika said:


> At least [sʊɕːɪstˈvʲitʲɪlʲn*əə*]


I'd suppose [sʊɕːɪstˈvʲitʲɪlʲn*əə̟*] in slow speech and some kind of monophthongization in fast speech, but I need confirmations. It's apparent, though, that all records where the speakers actually tried to articulate /й/ don't sound even remotely natural.

By the way, it's no wonder that ванная tends to merge with ванна in colloquial Russian; even though the pronunciation is normally different, it becomes really close in fast speech.


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## Eirwyn

Alan Evangelista said:


> I confess I can't hear them. Anyway, the point is not only the presence/absence of [j]. The unstressed endings -ое and -ая should be pronounced [əjə] but it seems to me that they were reduced to [ɛ];


Somehow you're right and wrong at the same time. Yes, unstressed -ая- and -ое- (as well as any other VjV combination unless one of the vowels is /u/) are actually pronounced like a monophthongal sound between [ə] and [e̞], but it's not what we hear in the Wiktionary pronunciation of the word "ванная". There's clearly an unnaturally sounding triphthong there. The other example is correct though.



Alan Evangelista said:


> I can not even hear a [ə]. [ɛ] and [ə] are completely different vowels (for instance, compare "bed" and "butter").


"uh" in English "butter" is not pronounced like [ə]. It's lower and more back advanced.



Alan Evangelista said:


> Thanks for confirming it! Would it be wrong to pronounce these 2 words without the vowel reduction, as I transcribed in my original post?


Well, I can't say it would be formally wrong since I've never encountered a prescriptive instruction on this issue , but it would immediately reveal you as a foreigner learning Russian from books. Native speakers don't pronounce it that way.



Alan Evangelista said:


> Does this vowel reduction usually take place in these vowels endings, regardless of the word?


Yes, as far as both vowels are unstressed.


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## Awwal12

Eirwyn said:


> "uh" in English "butter" is not pronounced like [ə]. It's lower and more back advanced.


 Normally it's just lower, though there is a great dialectal variation. The default pronunciation in both modern RP and GA is [ɐ].


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## Alan Evangelista

Awwal12 said:


> I'd suppose [sʊɕːɪstˈvʲitʲɪlʲn*əə̟*] in slow speech and some kind of monophthongization in fast speech





Eirwyn said:


> unstressed -ая- and -ое- (as well as any other VjV combination unless one of the vowels is /u/) are actually pronounced like a monophthongal sound between [ə] and [e̞]



That sounds closer to what I hear. Thanks!



Maroseika said:


> this [j] is very weak, as already mentioned. But although the weaker it is the faster is the speech, but it's definetely always there no matter how fast one speaks. At least [sʊɕːɪstˈvʲitʲɪlʲn*əə*] would sound extremely weird.



As other Russians users said above that there is no [j] in these vowel clusters in fast speech and I don't hear it at all, I have to agree with them. The monophtong is surely not a [əː], though, but rather closer to [e̞], as confirmed by @Eirwyn.

I'd appreciate if some moderator could rename this thread to "Pronunciation of unstressed endings -ое and -ая". So, it will be easier to find by other learners of Russian with the same question.


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## Nikined

Awwal12 said:


> Normally there is no [j] in the unstressed inflectional vowel clusters. Not even in slower speech, it is purely phonemic (just what I mentioned recently in the thread about the IPA in dictionaries);


А в других славянских языках, не знаете, такая же история?
Например, Украïна; репрезентациja


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## Awwal12

At least Ukrainian keeps intervocal [j] intact, and quite consistently.


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## Assiduous student

I also have the feeling intervocalic /j/ is present only suggestively if at all, and the example of the Ukrainian pronunciation of украина is a case in point. I would add: следующий - often sounds like следущий (native speakers might comment on whether this is so); проект sounds like проэкт or has only the most suggestive /j/. Probably it is [ɪ̯], as mentioned by Awwal, or not there at all. I would like to bring into this verb conjugation patterns that have -аешь and similar endings, apparently with no or only the very most fleeting /j/ (знаешь=знаэшь),

A final thing that surprised me listening to the recording of У войны не женское лицо is that ЕЩЁ can be pronounced without an initial yod - and indeed that is how the reader pronounces it consistently, ie. ищё. And a final, final thing is that the interesting video on старомосковское произношение on Youtube by Микитко сын Алексеев shows that the Old Moscow way of pronouncing иx, им, etc had an initial yod, in fact, like the Ukrainian їх, їм.


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## Nikined

I think as in the case with "следующий" (not "проект", though) Russian words have several ways of pronunciation, more strict and more informal used in speech


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## Awwal12

Anyway, pronunciation "следущий" (and some other adjectives and nouns originating from active present participles with unstressed endings) seems kind of lexicalized. The participles in general are pronounced differently, but one must have in mind that colloquial Russian basically lacks active present participles whatsoever (that element of the literary language is loaned from Church Slavonic).


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## Nikined

Assiduous student said:


> следующий - often sounds like следущий


I remembered the word "diaper", American pronunciation of which can be both with [ə] and without it, [ˈdaɪ(ə)pɚ]. Isn't it similar to this, a more complicated correct pronunciation and a "lazy" conversational?


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