Always hard unpaired consonants. Vowels and consonants letters and sounds

In this article we will talk about consonant sounds, their quantity, types (soft, hard, voiceless and voiced) and other features and interesting facts.

There are 33 letters in the Russian language, of which 21 are consonants:

b - [b], c - [c], g - [g], d - [d], g - [g], j - [th], z - [z],
k - [k], l - [l], m - [m], n - [n], p - [p], p - [p], s - [s],
t - [t], f - [f], x - [x], c - [c], h - [h], w - [w], sch - [sch].

All named consonant letters represent 36 consonant sounds.

The Russian language also has 10 vowel letters and only 6 vowel sounds.

A total of 33 letters (10 vowels + 21 consonants + “ь” and “ъ”), denoting 42 sounds (6 vowels and 36 consonants), not all sounds of speech, but only the main ones.

The difference between the number of letters and sounds is due to the peculiarities of Russian writing, because, for example, hard and soft consonant sounds are indicated by one letter.

Consonant sounds are divided into:

voiced and voiceless,
hard and soft,
paired and unpaired.

There are a total of 36 different combinations of consonants by pairing and unpairing, hard and soft, voiceless and voiced: voiceless - 16 (8 soft and 8 hard), voiced - 20 (10 soft and 10 hard).

Hard and soft consonants

Consonants are divided into hard and soft, this division is due to the difference in the position of the tongue when pronouncing them. When we pronounce soft consonants, then the middle back of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate. We also note that in addition to the fact that consonants are divided into hard and soft, they can be paired and unpaired.

For example, the letter “k” can denote both a hard sound [k], for example, in the word cat, and a soft sound [k`], for example, in the word glasses. We get that the sounds [k] and [k’] form a pair of hardness and softness. For consonant sounds that have a pair of hardness and softness, the following rule applies:

consonants A sound is hard if it is followed by consonants: a, o, u, s, e;
and is soft if it is followed by vowels: e, e, i, yu, i.

In the Russian language there are letters in which the sound they denote can only be hard ([ш], [ж], [ц]), or only soft ([й], [ч`], [ш`]). Such sounds do not belong to paired sounds, but are unpaired.

Voiceless and voiced consonants

Consonants are divided into voiced and voiceless sounds. In this case, voiceless consonants are pronounced practically with the mouth covered and vocal cords they don't work when spoken. Voiced consonants require more air, and the vocal cords work when pronouncing them. That is, voiced consonants consist of noise and voice, and voiceless consonants consist only of noise.

Lifehack for determining the deafness or voicedness of consonants for schoolchildren

To determine whether a sound you encounter is dull or voiced, and children often have difficulty with this, you should cover your ears with your hands and pronounce the sound. When pronouncing dull sounds, they will be heard somewhere in the distance, but when pronouncing voiced sounds, your ears will actually ring! This way you can determine what sound was encountered. Especially during phonetic analysis words

Some consonant sounds are similar both in their sound and also in the way they are pronounced. However, such sounds are pronounced with different tonality, that is, either dull or loud. Such sounds are combined in pairs and form a group of paired consonants. There are 6 such pairs in total, each of them has a voiceless and a voiced consonant sound. The remaining consonants are unpaired.

paired consonants: b-p, v-f, g-k, d-t, z-s, zh-sh.
unpaired consonants: l, m, n, r, y, c, x, h, shch.

Sonorant, noisy, hissing and whistling consonants

In the Russian language, sonorant, noisy, as well as hissing and whistling consonant sounds are also distinguished. We will give a definition of each of the named types of consonants, and also list which consonants belong to one or another type.

Sonorant consonants

Sonorant consonants - these are voiced unpaired consonants.

There are 9 sonorant sounds in total: [y’], [l], [l’], [m], [m’], [n], [n’], [r], [r’].

Noisy consonants

Noisy consonant sounds are divided into voiced and voiceless. Voiceless noisy consonants include 16 sounds: [k], [k'], [p], [p'], [s], [s'], [t], [t'], [f], [f '], [x], [x'], [ts], [ch'], [sh], [sh'], and noisy voiced consonants include 11 sounds: [b], [b'], [ c], [v'], [g], [g'], [d], [d'], [g], [h], [h'].

Hissing consonants

There are a total of 4 hissing consonant sounds in the Russian language: [zh], [ch’], [sh], [sch’]. They all resemble hissing to the ear, which is why they are called hissing consonants.

Whistling consonants

Whistling consonant sounds [з] [з'] [с] [с'] [ц] are, in their pronunciation, front-lingual, fricative. When articulating hard sounds [z], [s] and [ts], the teeth are exposed, the tip of the tongue leans against the lower teeth, and the back of the tongue is slightly arched, the lateral edges of the tongue are pressed against the upper molars. The air passes through, creating frictional noise.

When articulating soft sounds [s'] and [z `], the same thing happens, but the back of the tongue rises to the hard palate.

When spoken sonorous sounds[z] and [z`] vocal cords are closed and vibrate, but the palatal curtain is raised.

In the Russian language, not all speech sounds are designated, but only the main ones. The Russian language has 43 basic sounds - 6 vowels and 37 consonants, while the number of letters is 33. The number of basic vowels (10 letters, but 6 sounds) and consonants (21 letters, but 37 sounds) also does not match. The difference in the quantitative composition of basic sounds and letters is determined by the peculiarities of Russian writing. In Russian, a hard and soft sound is denoted by the same letter, but the sounds soft and hard are considered different, which is why there are more consonant sounds than the letters with which they are denoted.

Voiced and voiceless consonants

Consonant sounds are divided into voiced and voiceless. Voiced ones consist of noise and voice, deaf ones consist only of noise.

Voiced consonant sounds: [b] [b"] [c] [v"] [d] [g"] [d] [d"] [z] [z"] [zh] [l] [l"] [ m] [m"] [n] [n"] [r] [r"] [th]

Voiceless consonants: [p] [p"] [f] [f"] [k] [k"] [t] [t"] [s] [s"] [w] [x] [x"] [ h"] [h"]

Paired and unpaired consonants

Many consonants form pairs of voiced and voiceless consonants:

Voiced [b] [b"] [c] [c"] [d] [g"] [d] [d"] [z] [z"] [g]

Voiceless [p] [p"] [f] [f"] [k] [k"] [t] [t"] [s] [s"] [w]

The following voiced and voiceless consonant sounds do not form pairs:

Voiced [l] [l"] [m] [m"] [n] [n"] [r] [r"] [th]

Voiceless [x] [x"] [ch"] [sch"]

Soft and hard consonants

Consonant sounds are also divided into hard and soft. They differ in the position of the tongue when pronounced. When pronouncing soft consonants, the middle back of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate.

Most consonants form pairs of hard and soft consonants:

Solid [b] [c] [d] [d] [h] [j] [l] [m] [n] [p] [r] [s] [t] [f] [x]

Soft [b"] [c"] [d"] [d"] [z"] [k"] [l"] [m"] [n"] [p"] [p"] [s"] [ t"] [f"] [x"]

The following hard and soft consonant sounds do not form pairs:

Solid [f] [w] [c]

Soft [h"] [sch"] [th"]

Sibilant consonants

The sounds [zh], [sh], [ch’], [sh’] are called hissing.

[g] [w] [h"] [sch"]

Whistling consonants

[z] [z"] [s] [s"] [ts]

Whistling sounds s-s, z-z, anterior lingual, fricative. When articulating solids the teeth are exposed, the tip of the tongue touches the lower teeth, the back of the tongue is slightly curved, the lateral edges of the tongue are pressed against the upper molars, causing a groove to form in the middle. Air passes through this groove creating frictional noise.

When pronouncing soft s, s, the articulation is the same, but in addition the back of the tongue rises to the hard palate. When pronouncing sounds z-z, the ligaments are closed and vibrate. The velum is raised.

Every first-grader knows that sound is a unit of speech that we pronounce and hear, and letters we read and write. In Russian they are divided into vowels and consonants. Of the 33 letters of the Russian alphabet, 21 are called consonants. They are divided according to their sonority and dullness, softness and hardness. They begin to study the classification of letters in 1st grade, but the student will have to use it before graduating from school. When studying phonetics, each student must learn to distinguish between voiceless sounds and voiced sounds. During writing, they are indicated by transcription - [b]. The table will help you distinguish and remember paired consonant sounds.

Paired consonants according to voiced-voicelessness

All consonants in the Russian language form pairs; a voiced consonant is opposed to a voiceless consonant. There are 12 paired letters in total, making 6 pairs:

Paired and unpaired consonants need to be known in order to be successful in spelling. Many spellings of the Russian language are based on the selection of cognate words according to this classification, for example:

soft - soft,
tooth-teeth.

The first pair contains the letter g, which is not clearly heard when pronounced and spelling it is difficult. The second words are test words when the spelling is pronounced clearly. Younger students often make mistakes in these works.

You may notice that not all letters of the alphabet form pairs. This happens because phonetics has rules that need to be remembered. They are based on the fact that sounds can only be voiced or only unvoiced. They are easy to remember because they are small in number. As a rule, by the end of 1st grade, students know them by heart. These include r, n, l, m, th - sonorous, always voiced, ts, ch, sh, x - always voiceless.

Paired consonants for softness and hardness

Consonants are usually divided into hard and soft. In phonetics, the softening process occurs in several situations:

when after a consonant there is a vowel: yu, ya, e, e, and (blizzard, buttercup);
or there is a soft sign (blizzard, drinking).

If after a consonant there is a vowel, except e, e, yu, ya, and, then it does not allow softening. For example, in the words peony, earth, after the consonant there is a vowel, which provokes the process of softening. In words such as lamp, water, there are no letters e, e, yu, i, and, therefore, when pronounced, all sounds are hard.

There are also letters that, when reproduced in speech, will always be soft or hard. These include: shch, h, j, c, w, g. Every student needs to know the classification of letters and sounds for successful learning.

A special table will help you remember paired voiced and voiceless voices. It's easy to navigate.

Such a table or a similar one can sometimes be found in the office primary classes. It has been proven that younger schoolchildren have more developed visual-figurative thinking, so provide new information they need it in the form of illustrations or pictures, then it will be effective.

Every parent can create such a table on a first-grader’s desktop. Do not be afraid that this tip will lead to laziness of the student. On the contrary, if he often looks at the image, he will quickly remember everything he needs.

There are more consonant sounds in the Russian language, so remembering their classification is more difficult. If you list all the unvoiced and voiced ones, you get the number 12. The letters ch, sh, y, shch, c, zh, r, n, l, m are not taken into account; they are classified as unpaired.

There are tips for children on how to quickly learn to recognize a voiced and a voiceless consonant when parsing a word. To do this, you need to press your palm to your throat and say clearly separate sound. Voiceless and voiced consonants will be pronounced differently and, accordingly, will be reflected differently in the palm of your hand. If there is vibration in the hand, it is voiced; if not, it is deaf. Many children use this hint when studying phonetics.

There is another exercise that helps to accurately determine which consonant is in front of the student. To do this, you need to cover your ears with your hands, but preferably there should be silence. Say the exciting letter and listen to it with your ears closed. If it is not heard, then it is a dull sound; if, on the contrary, it is clearly heard, it is a ringing sound.

If you try, today any parent can find many interesting, exciting and educational exercises and rules that will help the child easily master new knowledge. This will make the learning process more interesting and entertaining, which in turn will affect academic performance.

Phonetics is a capricious lady, although interesting. It's no secret that all sounds in the Russian language are divided into consonants and vowels. The former, in turn, are divided into voiced and voiceless, soft and hard. This classification is based on the way we pronounce sounds and the characteristics of our articulatory apparatus. So how can you tell them all apart?

What exactly is the matter?

1st grade begins to study soft and hard consonant sounds at the very beginning of the Russian language course. But in order to distinguish some phonemes from others, you must first understand what the difference is between them and vowels.

Vowel sounds are pronounced only with the voice. You can sing them, stretch them out - this is exactly how teachers explain to children at school. When the air leaving the lungs passes through the trachea, larynx, and oral cavity, it does not encounter any obstacles. When we talk about consonants, to pronounce them you need to use your lips, teeth and tongue - they all participate in the process, so to speak.

Comparing consonants and vowels by their sound, we notice the following trend: when vowels, as mentioned above, are sounded only with the help of one voice, then the consonants still contain noise created by the interference that the air has to encounter when pronouncing them. This is their main difference. Unvoiced sounds are pronounced only with this very noise, while in voiced sounds a voice is also added to it. Compare, for example, the pronunciation of the words “grotto” and “mole” or “house” and “tom”. In both cases, the first letters are the letters of hard consonants, voiced and unvoiced, respectively.

“Let's go back to our sheep!”

Now that we already know a little about the differences in consonants, let's move on to our main topic.

The best way to learn is by example, right? And again let's turn to the comparison: let's say the following pairs of words:

Racket rack, bun bureau, mother - ball, vine - ice, tower - view.

There is some difference in the way we pronounce consonants. Isn't it? It is determined by vowel sounds that come after consonants. The words are specially selected so that the sounds we need are in the same position in all examples. In this case, they show all their diversity. Say it again, slowly. Do you feel how the tongue, in those words where the consonants sound softer, does not rest against the palate, but seems to relax and become flat? This can be considered main feature, which our hard consonants have during articulation.

Theory

Well, now let's move on to a specific theory. Hard consonants - a table that will consist of two parts. The first thing you need to remember is that the hardness or softness of a sound is determined by its neighboring vowel. When after the letter there is a, o, y, s , then the sound it denotes will definitely be hard (mitten, stomp, lips, played), and if there are e, e, yu, i, and , the consonant will sound softer (blizzard, doggie, mint, Kyiv). Thus, we can say that there is no point in memorizing all hard consonants. Almost all of them are paired. This property was shown in the first row of words, where we learned to distinguish between solid and soft sounds. Therefore, everything depends on this very vowel.

Unpaired consonants

Another question is how to deal with unpaired consonants. There are very few of these in Russian: w, w, c . No matter how hard you try, you won't be able to say them softly. Even if after them those vowels are written that are usually used with soft consonants: ramrod - rustling - chic, creepy - liquid - tin, price - circus - king. These consonants are contrasted with unpaired h, sch, th , which will sound soft in all cases: chock - thicket - cleaning, cheeks - squint - crushed stone, yot - yogurt.

Break the system!

In this situation, you need to understand that the rule of following a vowel with them does not apply to unpaired hard consonant sounds. The table, which can be compiled for better assimilation of the material, in any case, will consist of two parts - paired, the equivalent of which can always be found by changing the vowel, and unpaired, living by their own rules.

Let's remember

Now let's move on to methods of studying and memorizing. 1st grade remembers hard consonants reluctantly - it’s too boring. But there is always a way to increase efficiency by getting the student interested unusual shape work even with such theoretical and unnecessary, at first glance, material. Various pictures, diagrams, drawings and games with word choice will come to our aid.

Let's make cards, perhaps. You will need two sheets of colored paper or colored cardboard. The main thing is that they are contrasting. We cut out identical clouds, balls, figures - whatever comes to your mind. Then we connect the two figures with glue so that these very contrasting sides are on the outside. And then, with the participation of your little assistant, on one side we write vowels that are friendly with soft consonants, and on the other - with hard consonants. In order not to forget anything at all, you can also place unpaired and paired ones next to each other, respectively. When everything is at hand, it is much easier.

Next, we draw something that can help create an association - a brick on cardboard with hard sounds written on it, and a feather with soft phonemes. Or something else like that. Having a concrete example before his eyes, the student will certainly learn the information better. Later, for reinforcement, you can ask your student to distinguish hard and soft sounds in written words different colors- red and blue, for example, so that you can easily check his homework.

Material at hand

To prepare the tablets, which were mentioned just above, you still need to have some kind of material. Hard consonant sounds - a table that you can rely on to make sure you don’t get confused. For convenience, it contains paired and unpaired sounds in terms of hardness and softness. By the way, if we want to indicate the softness of a sound, in phonetic transcription, for example, an apostrophe is placed after it.

In this table, all phonemes at the top are hard. Below are their soft counterparts. True, we have three cases when the sound does not have a pair. This means it is never soft.

Let's remember further

Shall we continue to practice? Let's give more examples of words where the same consonant sound appears in a hard or soft position. One more nuance. In addition to those very vowels that influence a consonant, it can be softened or made hard by a soft and hard sign, respectively. Let's not forget about this in our next task.

Beaver - white, blizzard - goalkeeper, city - helium, entrance - clerk, giraffe, winter - teeth, whale cat, horse - lemonade, zhmenya - sea, Neptune - rhinoceros, steamboat - break, decision-novel, owl - family, cake - theme, film-photography, halva - diagram, chicken, hat.

Determine the words from the presented pair that demonstrate soft or hard consonants. As you can see, the letters used to designate them are still the same. Please note that in some words, hardness and softness are influenced not only by vowels, but also by consonants that stand next to our sound. In addition, you can also ask your child to come up with examples for unpaired consonants, so that he can see for himself that they are only hard. Still, one’s own experience is a much more vivid confirmation than any memorized theory.

One more game

To study the topic of soft and hard consonants, you can offer the student another game like this. It's very simple. In front of him is a series of words, from which only hard consonants need to be written down. And then, inserting vowels into them, come up with some word. For example, there are a number of words: pickles - footman - knives. We write out the consonants: s, l, n, add vowels. And the first thing that comes to mind is the short but capacious word “elephant”. Shall we continue?

Edit - will - crowbar(signed out pr, v, l ).
Tomato - role - swamp(signed out t, r, t ).
Bittern - dormouse - hay(signed out in, with, n ).

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to remind you that under no circumstances should you say “hard consonants.” Only sounds are like that. And their designations are absolutely the same as in the case of soft ones (this was clear from the table above). Now that you have all the material in your hands, all that remains is to practice. On the Internet you can find a huge number of different games and exercises for determining the type of consonants. And, of course, you can re-read the material on the topic “Hard consonant sounds” several more times - the table presented in the article will help systematize all our knowledge. It will be much easier to repeat with her.

Don't forget, for every doubles and unpaired sound Give new examples each time so that our student himself learns to compare the different sounds of consonant phonemes. It sometimes depends not only on the subsequent vowel or soft and hard sign, but also neighboring consonants, which, depending on their hardness or softness, can also influence the original sound. It's not as complicated as it seems. More games and practice - and everything will definitely work out.

At home and on the street we can hear many sounds: human steps, the ticking of a clock, the sound of rain, birdsong, a car horn. However, the sounds of human speech stand apart and differ from others, because with their help you can form words. It is known that all sounds of the Russian language are divided into two groups: consonants and vowels. When forming vowels, air does not become obstructed in the oral cavity. But in the case of pronunciation of consonants, an obstacle arises in the oral cavity. So, what groups can they be, what does the expression “paired consonants” mean?

Voiceless and voiced consonants

The division into these groups is as follows: voiced consonants are pronounced with the help of noise and voice, but deaf consonants consist of noise alone. The first and second can form pairs based on deafness/voice. Correlative pairing is represented by 12 rows. For example: “d” - “t”, “g” - “k”, “z” - “s” and others. Such sounds are paired consonants. But not all consonants can be paired. They are not formed by voiced “n”, “m”, “l”, “y”, “r”, as well as unvoiced “ts”, “x”, “sch”, “ch”. In writing, sounds are indicated by corresponding letters. It's important to be careful. Paired and unpaired consonants at the end of a word or in the middle before a consonant may sound the same, but be marked in different letters. To check their spelling, it is necessary to find a word with the same root, so that after the consonant being checked there is a vowel, and the sound leaves no doubt about the spelling. For example:

gris b- gris b y, gree pp- gris pp chilly;

ro T- ro T ova (cavity), ro d- ro d ova (lock).

Consonants soft and hard

Depending on the position of the tongue when pronouncing sounds, all consonants are divided into hard and soft. These are different phonemes. Paired and unpaired consonants are distinguished. Examples of pairs: “v” - “v,” , “k” - “k,” , “r” - “r,” and others. icon ( , ) indicates the softness of the sound during transcription. Steam is not formed by soft “sch”, “ch”, “th”, and also by always hard “sh”, “zh”, “ts”. Of course, it is very important to distinguish between paired consonant sounds, hard and soft. Sometimes they even distinguish words. For example:

m ate - m ol, me l- meh l b.

IN " m el" and "me lь" highlighted consonants are soft, and in words " m ol" and "me l"- hard. Thanks to this special pronunciation, words are not confused.

When writing words, the softness of consonant sounds can be indicated in the following ways:

Using "b". For example: skates, elk, hit.
Using the letters “i”, “i”, “e”, “e”, “yu”. These are the cases: wheel, thrown, ball.

It is important to remember that in the middle of a word before a consonant, softness is not indicated soft sign in the following combinations: “st”, “schn”, “nt”, “rsch”, “chn”, “chk”, “nsch”, “nch”. Pay attention to the words: to LF ina, spo rshch itza, mo st iki. In the selected combinations, the first consonant is heard softly, but is written without

The letters “ya”, “e”, “e”, “yu” can represent the vowel sounds “a”, “e”, “o”, “u” + the softness of the consonant before them. In other cases (at the beginning of a word, after “ь”, “ъ”) they mean two sounds. And before the “i” sound, the consonants will always be pronounced softly.

So, one could notice that the creation of pairs is a feature that is very characteristic of the system of consonant sounds of the Russian language. Paired consonants are combined into groups and at the same time opposed to each other. They often help distinguish words.