How to Pronounce Zenit, From Dillard's Department Store

Having majored in and taught Spanish, I'm well of aware of the foibles between languages. Spanish is far more "set" in its pronunciation of letters.

The basic cause of all this is what are called "phonemes" - the minimal difference between words that changes the meaning. (bit, pit, sit, etc.) English has far more more "phonemic" differences than Spanish, and I suspect, many other languages. Our so-called "short" vowels are a special pain, and explain why Spanish speakers make "hat" sound to us like "hot".

As it happens, I spent 32 years teaching at a jr. high in East L. A. Besides Spanish I also taught ESL (English as a Second Language). Try to get Spanish- speaking kids to understand that "live" is not the same as "leave", and you have your hands full. It's just because Spanish doesn't HAVE that difference. That's why we talk about "accents".
 
P.S. I might add that reading and writing are a totally different process than speaking, and writing only "sort of" represents speaking. For reasons that no one totally understands, only human beings are capable of speech, and writing is a totally human-invented addition to things. Any normal child will learn to speak his/her native language, but what does "illiterate" mean?? That takes a lttle more time.
 
Found an example for the letter 'e' in FED or more correctly "э" in ФЭД. It sounds like the first letter 'e' in electricity.
 
At least the aforementioned languages are alphabetical.

Studying (or teaching) a non-alphabetical language is infinitely harder. If one were to only learn the oral aspect, it would not be much more difficult, and in fact I would say that Chinese and Japanese pronounciations have fewer irregularities than most Western languages.

It's learning the written characters that kills you.

Clarence
 
santino said:
fed isn't that hard. FYEE-D
the "e" should be pronounced like "a" in "arrow"
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It was spelled "ФЭД" not "ФЕД". "E" could be read as "ye" but "Э" would be "e" as in "egg". Or "Eff- Eh-Deh"? :D FED is an acronym for F.E. Dzherzinski. On the labels and marks, "FED" always appear in all caps (upper case) letters.

Zorkii would probably sound like "zahRkee", Kiev sounds like "kee-yeff".... :D

Jay (Джэй=Dzhey)
 
clarence said:
At least the aforementioned languages are alphabetical.

Studying (or teaching) a non-alphabetical language is infinitely harder. If one were to only learn the oral aspect, it would not be much more difficult, and in fact I would say that Chinese and Japanese pronounciations have fewer irregularities than most Western languages.

It's learning the written characters that kills you.

Clarence
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Hi Clarence

At least in Chinese, each character (with the exception of a very few ones) are read the same way in the same language. It's possible to write the same characters and have it read in Mandarin, Cantonese or Fujianese with the same meaning. Read aloud in these languages, the words would sound different.

Written Japanese uses both alphabet ( "kana"-which spells out the words) and Chinese characters ('kanji'). The latter is a killer. A particular character can be read several ways, depending on the context it's written. One method suggested to me to read Japanese took several steps:
first recognise what the character stood for, then think of the Japanese word(s) and possible pronunciations given for it, and then use the most appropriate for the context.. :)

Jay (我不能读汉语！:D ）
 
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iliks said:
Wrong. The correct (literary) accent for Iskra is on 'i'. EEskra.
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Perhaps, the official rule states that inclination shall be made on the letter ‘I’ in the word Iskra. However, most native speakers would say Iskraaa. Besides, the language is constantly evolving and the rules are changing. Quite frankly, I don’t care who wrote the rules 50-60 years ago. What important is how 70%-80% of Russian speakers pronounce the word Iskra.
 
raftman said:
Heh, as a Russian, I find this discussion rather silly.
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Well, as a native Russian speaker I don't. There's nothing wrong with curiosity.

And yeah, I would rather spell Iskra with emphasis on "a".
 
joey said:
In every sentence, when pronouncing Iskra, the inclination will be made on the last letter 'a' and never on I. Unless you saying iskorka, where inclination is made on 'i' and it translates to sparkle.
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No. As I have said the correct stress is on I. And the stress is always on I in any sentence. (Unless the word is being used in a technical talk.) As for the camera "Iskra" in particular the accent must be on I.

Some people might make the stress on a, but this is not correct.
 
joey said:
Perhaps, the official rule states that inclination shall be made on the letter ‘I’ in the word Iskra. However, most native speakers would say Iskraaa. Besides, the language is constantly evolving and the rules are changing. Quite frankly, I don’t care who wrote the rules 50-60 years ago. What important is how 70%-80% of Russian speakers pronounce the word Iskra.
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That is not correct. That depends on the region you live. Where I'm from 100% of (educated) people would say Iskra with stress on I. And that is the standard.

Even though I agree some of the words can be speled differently in a convo, the word Iskra as for the camera or for the infamous magazine simply can not be spelled with the stress on a. It will be very very wrong!
 
raftman said:
Heh, as a Russian, I find this discussion rather silly.
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As a non-Russian, I find that this is the kind of discussion that only Russians can have :)

Seriously, Russian accents are more ambiguous than Russian lexicography would have it. I think few linguistic traditions are so obsessed with having Only One True Version like in Russian, and whenever there is a case of real ambiguity people either arbitrarily choose one version or have a fight... I guess during the repressions people were sent to Siberia over ambiguous cases. It's like твóрог vs. творóг, only that in this case people have accepted the the ambiguity eventually and both versions are acceptable. I had a discussion once whether it was нáчался or начался́ with five Russians, and it ended with them having a very personal argument about it.

Ozhegov says и́скра with the accent on the I, and while Ozhegov isn't always right it's still fine with me that way.

Philipp
 
rxmd said:
As a non-Russian, I find that this is the kind of discussion that only Russians can have :)

Seriously, Russian accents are more ambiguous than Russian lexicography would have it. I think few linguistic traditions are so obsessed with having Only One True Version like in Russian, and whenever there is a case of real ambiguity people either arbitrarily choose one version or have a fight... I guess during the repressions people were sent to Siberia over ambiguous cases. It's like твóрог vs. творóг, only that in this case people have accepted the the ambiguity eventually and both versions are acceptable. I had a discussion once whether it was нáчался or начался́ with five Russians, and it ended with them having a very personal argument about it.

Ozhegov says и́скра with the accent on the I, and while Ozhegov isn't always right it's still fine with me that way.

Philipp
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Well, all you say is right, with one exception. This particular case is not ambiguous. ;) There is an (almost) definite rule how to spell Iskra in that or that situation. If stress on a is acceptable and even preferable in a technical talk (when you are talking about electrical sparks), it is till unappropriate in literature. Here are some examples (for those who can read russian, where spelling word Iskra with a stress on a will sound extremely wierd:

- gazeta Iskra
- fotoapparat Iskra
- iskra soznanija
- mezhdu nimi proskochila iskra
- Iz iskry vozgoritsya plamya
- bozh'ja iskra

Spelling this with the stress on a would sound very very wrong, even though some russians might do this mistake too.

Actually I can not find any examples where Iskra can be spelled with a stress on a (unless you mean an electrical spark)
 
Iskra with stress on A is fine, unless you are from Moscow or stuck in 19th century :)
 
varjag said:
Iskra with stress on A is fine, unless you are from Moscow or stuck in 19th century :)
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To me it sounds a little weird, and I'm neither from Moscow nor a time-traveller. But then I'm not one to get hung up on pronunciations.
 
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