# Pronunciation of -ие vs.- ия



## Interprete

Hello,

I really, really have trouble hearing the difference between the singular and the plural form of neutral words ending in -ие, because to me, the way Russians pronounce -ие and -ия sounds exactly the same. I've even come to wonder if my assumption, that those are two different sounds, might simply be wrong, and that in practice they do sound the same. So what's the truth?
Thanks...


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## Interprete

Here is an example: is this guy saying избиение or избиения ? Example
Thanks.


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## HotIcyDonut

You have trouble because they're pronounced whery fast and are unemphasized. Colloquially, both -ие and -ия sound the same: ʲɪɪ̯ə (international phonetic alphabet). In your example, speaker pronounces more clearly, it's singular. No trouble there, even for a Russian it's often impossible to distinguish both forms. Look at verbs/adjectives/participles/pronouns (if there're any) attached to such a troubling noun for grasping its number by context.


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## Interprete

HotIcyDonut said:


> In your example, speaker pronounces more clearly, it's singular.


Haha, this is sooooooo pleasurable. It was pluraaaaal 
Here is the full sentence: Passageàtabac

I'm not making fun of you of course, I'm just so relieved by your 'mistake' (if it can be called one) and your explanation, because I was starting to really ask myself questions about my hearing!
Thanks for the tips, I was wondering what to do with such nouns when they start a long sentence, and the verb indicating if they are singular or pluarl come only at the end...


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## Rosett

Interprete said:


> Hello,
> 
> I really, really have trouble hearing the difference between the singular and the plural form of neutral words ending in -ие, because to me, the way Russians pronounce -ие and -ия sounds exactly the same. I've even come to wonder if my assumption, that those are two different sounds, might simply be wrong, and that in practice they do sound the same. So what's the truth?


The truth can be revealed by comparison with French, where most of the endings in plural are either sourd, or mute. The French have almost no trouble with that, due to unimportance of the issue which can be distinguished using other means, like accord, syntax, expression, and so on. (In writing, of course, the difference is unequivocal.) What you say in unstressed position in Russian is almost of no importance for communication.


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## Interprete

Rosett said:


> The truth can be revealed by comparison with French, where most of the endings in plural are either sourd, or mute. The French have almost no trouble with that, due to unimportance of the issue which can be distinguished using other means, like accord, syntax, expression, and so on. (In writing, of course, the difference is unequivocal.) What you say in unstressed position in Russian is almost of no importance for communication.


Not really, because in French we have articles (le, la, les, un, une, des) which is why the endings are useless. The articles contain all the necessary information and are always clearly pronounced.


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## Maroseika

Interprete said:


> Here is an example: is this guy saying избиение or избиения ? Example


Избиение and избиения (and similar pairs) are pronounced equally, unless one outlines the ending to avoid misunderstanding. Here Plural is clear from the context.


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## Rosett

Interprete said:


> Not really, because in French we have articles (le, la, les, un, une, des) which is why the endings are useless. The articles contain all the necessary information and are always clearly pronounced.


The articles you mentioned are not universally present as determinants or often not applicable, however, most of plural forms in French can be still recognized in speech. So is in Russian.

Let’s take « au passage » based on your example *«избиение»* and make it plural: « aux passages »;  naturally, since they sound equal in French, you can’t figure out the number just like that.


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## Interprete

Rosett said:


> The articles you mentioned are not universally present as determinants or often not applicable, however, the most of plural forms in French can be still recognized in speech.


How so? I really can't imagine any case in French where the singular/plural distinction would require other means than the articles that come with the words...


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## Rosett

Interprete said:


> How so? I really can't imagine any case in French where the singular/plural distinction would require other means than the articles that come with the words...


The plural form of a determinant preceding the word can be indistinguishable from its singular  form in speech, too (see above the « aux » vs. « au » example deriving from the OP.)


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## Xavier61

Rosett said:


> What you say in unstressed position in Russian is almost of no importance for communication.


Maybe that "almost" can be made more precise.I had the idea that in unstressed positions, it is *very* important to keep the difference between soft/hard for consonants even in unstressed positions with reduced vowels.


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## Rosett

Xavier61 said:


> Maybe that "almost" can be made more precise.I had the idea that in unstressed positions, it is *very* important to keep the difference between soft/hard for consonants even in unstressed positions with reduced vowels.


The issue is about unstressed vowels in Russian, not consonants. In the given case, -ия в «избиен*ия*» may be equally pronounced as -ея, -ее, -ие - with no compromise of clarity.


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## Interprete

Rosett said:


> The plural form of a determinant preceding the word can be indistinguishable from its singular  form in speech, too (see above the « aux » vs. « au » example deriving from the OP.)


EDIT : Right, as in 'je donne à manger au(x) pigeon(s)', hadn't thought of that one...
I was having this concern because my purpose with Russian is to (one day...) be able to interpret from Russian into French, 'live'. So having to wait for the verb or other clues to be able to start translating a sentence beginning with a noun in -ие may be problematic. I'm just explaining this because I know I might give the impression I'm fixating on a non-issue


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## Rosett

Interprete said:


> EDIT : Right, as in 'je donne à manger au(x) pigeon(s)', hadn't thought of that one...
> I was having this concern because my purpose with Russian is to (one day...) be able to interpret from Russian into French, 'live'. So having to wait for the verb or other clues to be able to start translating a sentence beginning with a noun in -ие may be problematic. I'm just explaining this because I know I might give the impression I'm fixating on a non-issue


A French-Russian interpreter would have the same trouble with French « leur(s) passage(s) ... », based on the same example and would have to stop and take a breath at «их избиен...»  before concluding on the ending «-ие/ия».

Fortunately, it happens to be indistinguishable to Russian ear at this point in this particular example, as if in French as well: both endings in Russian are acceptable in synchro talk.


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## Xavier61

Rosett said:


> The issue is about unstressed vowels in Russian, not consonants.


But I think that the vowel determines whether the consonant is hard or soft. Or it doesn't matter?


Rosett said:


> In the given case, -ия в «избиен*ия*» may be equally pronounced as -ея, -ее, -ие - with no compromise of clarity.


Could it also be pronounced as -а, -о, -у?


Rosett said:


> What you say in unstressed position in Russian is almost of no importance for communication.


I am only a learner, and what you wrote confused me. Are you saying that три брýс*a* may be pronounced as -я, -и, -е, -о, -у or whatever?


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## Rosett

Xavier61 said:


> But I think that the vowel determines whether the consonant is hard or soft. Or it doesn't matter?
> 
> Could it also be pronounced as -а, -о, -у?
> 
> I am only a learner, and what you wrote confused me. Are you saying that три брýс*a* may be pronounced as -я, -и, -е, -о, -у or whatever?


Russian consonants may sound hard or soft depending on their permanent nature and on the following hard sign «ъ» pr soft sign «ь». Vowels have their own rules, among which presence of “yot” sound leaves impression that the consonant before the vowel is soft, but indeed it has no incidence on preceding consonant as such - in fact, it’s other way around: in certain cases, a preceding vowel may suffer from the consonant.

In the example above, only «и» and «е» are conceivable. Not all known vowels are always possible, only some. Unfortunately, there’s no simple rule of thumb, but tons of exceptions instead.

In «три бру́с*а*», there’s an elusive _shwa_ sound that has no graphic representation in Russian alphabet, but may sound in Russian as something between «а», «о» and «э»/«ы» (but never «у».) _Shwa_ is essentially language dependent and, sometimes, would even fall under the stress (never in Russian, though.) An example of _shwa_, possibly closest to your background, exists in Portuguese in certain common positions.


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## Xavier61

Rosett said:


> Russian consonants may sound hard or soft depending on their permanent nature and on the following hard sign «ъ» or soft sign «ь». Vowels have their own rules, among which presence of “yot” sound leaves impression that the consonant before the vowel is soft, but indeed it has no incidence on preceding consonant as such


Thank you for explaining, I had never thougt about it as you say. I had the idea that in Russian there are soft and hard vowels, and that a soft vowel softened the preceding consonant. So, in a word like "небо"  the "б" is always hard, even in forms like "небе", небеса", ...? What about "провод"? In Forvo "проводе" sounds soft to me  https://es.forvo.com/search/проводе/ru/
I know the difference in the pronunciation of "б" between "объятие" and "обязан", maybe it is not like the difference between "неба" and "небе"?



Rosett said:


> In «три бру́с*а*», there’s an elusive _shwa_ sound that has no graphic representation in Russian alphabet, but may sound in Russian as something between «а», «о» and «э»/«ы» (but never «у».) _Shwa_ is essentially language dependent and, sometimes, would even fall under the stress (never in Russian, though.) An example of _shwa_, possibly closest to your background, exists in Portuguese in certain common positions.


I know about schwa, I have studied some linguistics, and I can speak some English. That's why I am not sure about what you exactly mean by "shwa", since it has two different definitions (in Spanish an English linguistics, I don't know about Russian). Let me copy from the Spanish and English wikipedia (the Russian version makes no difference):

"En lingüística y fonología, schwa (pronunciado aproximadamente «shuá») tiene dos significados:
1. Una vocal neutra inacentuada y átona en cualquier lengua, a menudo pero no necesariamente una vocal media-central (redondeada o no). Estas vocales, a menudo, se transcriben con el símbolo ə a pesar de su valor fonético real.
2. El sonido de la vocal media-central no redondeada del centro de la plantilla de vocales, acentuada o no. En la transcripción fonética del AFI, se escribe como ə. En este caso, puede usarse el término vocal media central en vez del término «schwa» para evitar ambigüedades. En algunas lenguas existe un timbre vocálico como este, siendo la vocal tónica.

In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (/ʃwɑː/, rarely /ʃwɔː/ or /ʃvɑː/[1]) (sometimes spelled shwa)[2] is the mid central vowel sound (rounded or unrounded) in the middle of the vowel chart, denoted by the IPA symbol ə, or another vowel sound close to that position. An example in English is the vowel sound of the 'a' in the word about. Schwa in English is mainly found in unstressed positions, but in some other languages it occurs more frequently as a stressed vowel.

In relation to certain languages, the name "schwa" and the symbol ə may be used for some other unstressed and toneless neutral vowel, not necessarily mid-central."  Schwa - Wikipedia

Now, in in a word like "нéбо", the last vowel is always unstressed, so its forms (не́бо,не́бa,не́бу,не́бо,не́бе) are pronounced always the same as /nebə/ with schwa? To my ear, "небо" and "небa" sounds the same but different from "небу" , and also from "небе". Am I hearing too much, I mean, am I hearing differences that don't exist or that doesn't really matter?


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## Awwal12

In post-tonic positions there's only one more or less consistent vowel opposition: /u/ vs. /a, i, e, (o)/, meaning the latter four are pronounced identically. Moreover, in some idioms ALL the vowel phonemes may merge there. Sometimes /i/ after hard consonants (~[ы]) may form an additional opposition, but /e/ and /a/ cannot be distinguished from each other anyway.
Some scholars postulate that in inflections this reduction may be phonetically inconsistent, but I haven't ever seen a proper phonetic study on that subject.


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## Xavier61

Awwal12 said:


> In post-tonic positions there's only one more or less consistent vowel opposition: /u/ vs. /a, i, e, (o)/, meaning the latter four are pronounced identically. Moreover, in some idioms ALL the vowel phonemes may merge there. Sometimes /i/ after hard consonants (~[ы]) may form an additional opposition, but /e/ and /a/ cannot be distinguished from each other anyway.


Then, should I pronounce "прóводе" and "прóвода"the same? Небо, неба and небе are all pronounced /nebə/? Could you give some examples of idioms that merge ALL vowels?


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## Awwal12

Xavier61 said:


> Then, should I pronounce "прóводе" and "прóвода"the same?


No, you shouldn't, but not because of the very vowel phonemes.  The actual quality of the last vowel here is set by the softness of the preceding consonant (and ONLY by it), which IS phonologically important. And, as you can see, in "проводе" "д" is soft (/д'/ > [dʲ], [dᶻʲ]).

The problem is that Russian is a nice example of a consonant language, where the absolute majority of phonemic oppositions is made by consonants; while vowels may differ in pronuncation greatly, they have a rather small role of their own. Russian has 5 or 6 vowel phonemes, but they all are differentiated in the stressed position only, and, due to the influence of their consonant surrounding, are represented there by roughly 12 sounds or so (many of which won't even be consciously differentiated by the native speakers). In the weakest positions mentioned above, on the other hand, only 2 vowel phonemes are more or less consistently opposed (which correspond to ~ 4 sounds).


Xavier61 said:


> Небо, неба and небе are all pronounced /nebə/?


Небо and неба are, qute predictably, [nʲebə]. Небе, on the other hand, is [nʲebʲə] (~[nʲebʲɪ]; the last vowels are obviously different in quality, but all are nevertheless very close to the neutral, mid central articulation). Just don't ignore the palatalization, please.

The core of the Cyrillic orthography was created in the IX century, when all Slavic dialects were much more vocalic compared to the modern Russian. However, its rules don't fit the modern Russian phonology well enough. For instance, when we scribe "люк" and "лук", we use different vowel letters, but even though the vowels here are somewhat different, the key difference lies in the first consonant; in "люк" it's soft (/л'/ > [lʲ]), while in "лук" it's hard (/л/ > [ɫ]). The vowel /у/, on the other hand, takes that exact shape which the surrounding consonants command.  For a comparison, in the Old Russian the situation was rather opposite: we can say that hardness or softness of consonants was fully dictated by the following vowels back then. What quickly inverted the situation was the fall of the yers (and a lot of new loanwords finished the job).


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## Sobakus

Awwal12 said:


> Sometimes /i/ after hard consonants (~[ы]) may form an additional opposition


To my mind the situation is completely the opposite: while in cases of extreme reduction Cы may sound exactly like Са (particularly after ж/ш/ц), these cases are few and far between. Postulating that this is a regular phenomenon is a clear case of scientific wishful thinking when in order to make your elegant theory work you start seeing a distorted reality.


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## Rosett

Xavier61 said:


> Now, in a word like "нéбо", the last vowel is always unstressed, so its forms (не́бо,не́бa,не́бу,не́бо,не́бе) are pronounced always the same as /nebə/ with schwa? To my ear, "небо" and "небa" sounds the same but different from "небу" , and also from "небе". Am I hearing too much, I mean, am I hearing differences that don't exist or that doesn't really matter?


In fact, «небо» is no different from what we’ve already seen up the thread:
«неб_о_/неб_а_» are pronounced with _shwa_, while «неб_е_» can be reduced to «неб_и_» only, and «небу» shows no reduction at all.


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## rusita preciosa

_Mod note: The topic is fully explored. The thread is now closed._


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