# Volga



## alc112

Hi!!!
How are you?
I need to know how to say volga which is a river in Russia where gemran people lived.
In spanish is Volga, I think in enlgish too, and in german is Wolga.
I hope somebody can help me
thanks a lot


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## Jana337

It is Волгa = Volga.

Jana


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## Thomas1

russian pronunciation
Волгa vowga

english pronunciation
Volga volga

hope this will help


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## alc112

Thank you!!!


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## smorodina

Thomas1 said:
			
		

> russian pronunciation
> Волгa vowga


I do not agree. Phonetically correct way to pronounce it is <volga>.


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## Whodunit

smorodina said:
			
		

> I do not agree. Phonetically correct way to pronounce it is <volga>.



I agree with you, because it's an "el' [эль]" and not a "be [вэ]".


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## Thomas1

well, i heard it pronounced as vowga or vawga , so are there a few variants of pronunciation ????


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## smorodina

Hi, Thomas. 
The correct pronounciation is <volga>. You might have heard it pronounced differently, I am sure. My cousine would say <vowga>, but she prounounces "w" instead of "l" in any other word too. She just can't say "l". 

Regards, 
Dina


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## Thomas1

Helo Dina  
Do you think that there can be a few variants?  Russia is a quite big state (the biggest to be perfect ) so some variations I think are very likely to exist, let's say in some part of it they can pronunce Volga as <volga> , in the other as <vowga/vawga> and in the other one in another way that is specific to its local dialect. What would you say about that???

Cheers
Thomas


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## Lakeview

whodunit said:
			
		

> I agree with you, because it's an "el' [эль]" and not a "be [вэ]".


 
Not sure this is quite right, as the word is spelled 'Волга' and not 'Вольга'.

If it is spelled 'Wołga' (WOŁGA) in Polish, then I can understand why Thomas1 pronounced it as he did.


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## smorodina

again, the only grammatically correct way is to say <volga>. russian is pretty straight forward in this respect, words are usually pronounced the way they are spelled.


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## Whodunit

Lakeview said:
			
		

> Not sure this is quite right, as the word is spelled 'Волга' and not 'Вольга'.



Well, the soft sign ь is only for the word эль. That doesn't fit EVERY other word, e.g. not 'Волга'.

Dina, correct me please.


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## smorodina

л is pronounced "эль", i.e. soft L, when it is said on its own, e.g. in the alphabet. It is so called "the name of the letter". when in a word it can sound both hard and soft, depending on the letter, by which it is followed. 
whodunit is right, when speaking about the letter, we refer to it as "эль". in the word "volga" it sounds hard "л"


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## alc112

What are you all talking about?????


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## Whodunit

alc112 said:
			
		

> What are you all talking about?????



About Russian ...


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## Lakeview

whodunit said:
			
		

> Well, the soft sign ь is only for the word эль. That doesn't fit EVERY other word, e.g. not 'Волга'.
> 
> Dina, correct me please.


 
Sorry, whodunit.  Misunderstood what you wrote.


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## Whodunit

Lakeview said:
			
		

> myself said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well, the soft sign ь is only for the word эль. That doesn't fit EVERY other word, e.g. not 'Волга'.
> 
> Dina, correct me please.
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry, whodunit.  Misunderstood what you wrote.
Click to expand...


What did you misunderstand? The letter ь is a Cyrillic soft sign to soften the preceding letter. But since Волга isn't pronounced with a soft л, but with a hard one, we must not write such a soft sign.

The word эль has a soft л like an English fading-out 'l' in "vowe*l*" instead of "*l*amp" which has a hard l. Hope you can understand it, although it's way off-topic.


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## Lakeview

whodunit said:
			
		

> What did you misunderstand?


 
I hadn't realized you were simply referring to the letter 'эль' and not to the pronunciation of the 'л' in 'волга'.


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## Whodunit

Lakeview said:
			
		

> I hadn't realized you were simply referring to the letter 'эль' and not to the pronunciation of the 'л' in 'волга'.



Did you understand now?


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## OZMA

hey people i think it is sort of a major problem for laguages which use what i would call `hard l` - i`m primarily referring to slavic languages: russian, serbian, bulgarian etc. if you try to pronounce the hard l you will notice that you need to change the position of your tongue so that it touches the part of the palate right behind your upper teeth. so, i guess this makes it pretty difficult for people to say it. which leads to some pretty weird stuations by the way. in bulgarian we use the french merci instead of the bulgarian equivalent blagodaria, because of the common l/w problem. i also just remembered a funny experience when a japanese scholar of bulgarian was surprised hearing me pronounce the `l`s quite crispily (i come from northern bulgaria where sounds are pronounced with a minimal degree of softness) as from his experince they tended to sound more like `w`s... non native speakers notice this l/w thingie i guess and it is confusing. i mean, what would you care for dictionaries` pronunciation when 80 percent of the native speakers of a language pronounce it in a different way...
btw, i wanted to ask a Q: i was wondering in which languages there is a word for `making friends` instead of a phrase which uses usually the same verb used for `make a cake` etc situations?


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## Whodunit

OZMA said:
			
		

> btw, i wanted to ask a Q: i was wondering in which languages there is a word for `making friends` instead of a phrase which uses usually the same verb used for `make a cake` etc situations?



Welcome to the forum. Please start a new thread about your question, otherwise some mods will complain that you mustn't ask two different questions in one thread.


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## OZMA

oops ok. i just i might use the opportunity for a double purpose so as not to flood the forum. btw, i can correct your machigai in japanese; if you need something just let me know


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## Whodunit

OZMA said:
			
		

> oops ok. i just i might use the opportunity for a double purpose so as not to flood the forum. btw, i can correct your machigai in japanese; if you need something just let me know



If you want to tell me something about my signature, please PM (write a private message) me. You don't have to apologize for your not knowing that you shouldn't post two different questions. The forum is never flooded at this moment, I suppose.


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## Saluton

so, alc112, to sum up what the others said: in Russian, L is not always like the Spanish L. It is the "hard L" described by OZMA that you must have interpreted as a 'W', like that Japanese student OZMA mentioned. If the Russian word 'Volga' used a Spanish-like L, it would be Вольга_,_ not Волга_._ That version with the "soft sign" Ь (Вольга) would mean an ancient male name, though.
OZMA, not quite sure I understood what you asked, but in Russian,

make friends = заводить друзей;

'make cakes' can be translated as
печь пироги/торты/пирожные
готовить пироги/торты/пирожные
делать пироги/торты/пирожные (a worse variant)
The word for 'cake' depends on the kind of cake you mean.


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