How many vowels and consonants are there in the Russian language? Consonant sounds of the Russian language (hard-soft, voiced-voiceless, paired-unpaired, hissing, whistling)

The Russian language has 21 consonants and 36 consonant sounds. Consonant letters and their corresponding consonant sounds:
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], ch - [ch], sh - [sh], shch - [sch].

Consonant sounds are divided into voiced and voiceless, hard and soft. They are 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).

Scheme 1. Consonants and consonant sounds of the Russian language.

Hard and soft consonants

Consonants are hard and soft. They are divided into paired and unpaired. Paired hard and paired soft consonants help us distinguish between words. Compare: horse [kon’] - kon [kon], bow [bow] - hatch [l’uk].

For understanding, let’s explain it “on the fingers”. If the consonant is in in different words means either soft or solid sound, then the sound belongs to pairs. For example, in the word cat the letter k denotes the hard sound [k], in the word whale the letter k denotes soft sound[To']. We get: [k] - [k’] form a pair in terms of hardness and softness. Sounds for different consonants cannot be classified as a pair, for example [v] and [k’] do not form a pair in terms of hardness-softness, but they do form a pair [v]-[v’]. If a consonant sound is always hard or always soft, then it belongs to unpaired consonants. For example, the sound [zh] is always hard. There are no words in the Russian language where it would be soft [zh’]. Since there is no pair [zh]-[zh’], it is classified as unpaired.

Voiced and voiceless consonants

Consonant sounds are voiced and unvoiced. Thanks to voiced and voiceless consonants, we distinguish words. Compare: ball - heat, count - goal, house - volume. Voiceless consonants are pronounced with the mouth almost covered when pronouncing them. vocal cords does not work. Voiced consonants require more air, the vocal cords work.

Some consonant sounds have a similar sound in the way they are pronounced, but are pronounced with different tonality - dull or voiced. Such sounds are combined in pairs and form a group of paired consonants. Accordingly, paired consonants are a pair of a voiceless and a voiced consonant.

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 and sibilant consonants

Sonorants are voiced unpaired consonant sounds. There are 9 sonorant sounds: [y’], [l], [l’], [m], [m’], [n], [n’], [r], [r’].
Noisy consonant sounds are voiced and unvoiced:

Noisy voiceless consonants (16): [k], [k"], [p], [p"], [s], [s"], [t], [t"], [f], [f "], [x], [x'], [ts], [h'], [w], [w'];
Noisy voiced consonant sounds (11): [b], [b'], [v], [v'], [g], [g'], [d], [d'], [g], [z ], [z'].

Hissing consonant sounds (4): [zh], [ch’], [sh], [sch’].

Paired and unpaired consonants

Consonant sounds (soft and hard, voiceless and voiced) are divided into paired and unpaired. The tables above show the division. Let's summarize everything with a diagram:

Scheme 2. Paired and unpaired consonant sounds.

To be able to do phonetic analysis, in addition to consonant sounds, you need to know

At the initial stage of learning the Russian language in 1st grade, it is necessary to learn the vowels and consonants of the alphabet. TO consonants relate: B, V, G, D, F, Z, J, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, T, F, X, C, H, W, Shch . Note, Y- consonant letter. TO vowel letters refer to A, E, E, I, O, U, Y, E, Y, I . Letters b And Kommersant do not apply to either vowels or consonants. Vowels are pronounced with the voice and can be sung. Consonants consist only of noise; they cannot be sung. (When learning vowels and consonants, you can try to sing them.)

We are offering to you online game which will help in game form learn vowels and consonants of the Russian alphabet. It is created similar to online coloring books, and can be used not only by first graders, but also to prepare for school. In the game you need to color the vowels red and the consonants blue. To color a letter, click on it. Each time you press the color changes.

Online game “Vowels and consonants”

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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 hard s-z teeth 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.

The most important part of speech are words; we pronounce, write and read them, and from them we put together phrases and sentences. They consist of letters and sounds that have become so firmly established in our lives that we hardly notice them.

Letters and sounds are not the same thing, although they are closely interrelated concepts. We write, see and read letters, and we pronounce and hear sounds. Letters are graphic written symbols, while sounds are the acoustic component of words and human speech in general. In different words, the same letter sometimes corresponds to different sounds.

“In the beginning there was the word. Then words, words, words..." (author Vladimir Kolechitsky).

“The word is given to a person not for self-satisfaction, but for the embodiment and transmission of that thought, that feeling, that share of truth and inspiration that he possesses - to other people.” (author V. Korolenko).

Various branches of linguistic science study letters and sounds. Studies sounds phonetics, A alphabetic characters - graphic arts. Spelling letters is a prerogative spelling .

The collection of letters of any language makes up its alphabet. The letters of the Russian language are divided into consonants, vowels and auxiliaries. The auxiliary ones include those that do not carry sound information - solid and soft sign.

Consonants and sounds of the Russian alphabet

Consonant sounds and letters are characterized by the fact that during their pronunciation a certain obstacle appears in the path of air in the oral cavity. As a result, noise is necessarily present in the acoustic sound of consonants. They got the name “consonants” because they almost always stand next to vowels or in the same word with them.

There are a total of 21 consonant letters in the Russian language:

b	V	G	d	and	h	th
To	l	m	n	P	R	With
T	f	X	ts	h	w	sch

Another characteristic feature of consonants is that they cannot be chanted. The pronunciation of sibilant consonants can be stretched (for example: With , f , w , sch), but “singing” will not work.

As noted above, consonants in words almost always coexist with vowels. However, there are a limited number of words that consist only of consonants. Along with prepositions To , With or particle b, these are some foreign proper names ( Krch- Prague region; Armenian name Mkrtch, which in Russian is sometimes written with a vowel - for euphony), as well as interjections like brr or shh .

The classification of consonant letters and sounds in the Russian language is based on acoustic criteria.

Voiced and voiceless consonants

Those consonants whose pronunciation consists only of noise are called voiceless. In contrast, consonants formed by sound and noise are called voiced.

The letter stands apart th(and short). According to its acoustic sound, it is classified as a voiced consonant, however, it is impossible to pronounce it in isolation. Letter th can only be pronounced together with a preceding or following vowel sound, for example [yy], [yy], etc.

Paired and unpaired consonants

Most voiced consonants correspond to certain unvoiced consonants. Such letters that are consonant with each other are called paired. There are also consonants that do not have a pair. Among them there are also deaf and voiced, and they are called unpaired .

Paired voiced and voiceless	Unpaired voiced	Unpaired deaf
b - p	l	X
v - f	m	ts
g - k	n	h
d - t	R	sch
f - w	th
z - s

Soft and hard consonants

The pronunciation of consonants in words can be hard or soft. If the sound is pronounced softly, the tongue moves forward slightly, approaching or touching the upper palate. When pronouncing hard sounds, the tongue does not move forward (but the tongue can touch the upper palate due to an upward movement).

Most consonants form both hard and soft sounds, but there are some exceptions. In particular, the letters and , ts , w always have a hard sound, and the letters th , h , sch- soft.

In other cases, the hardness or softness of the consonants is determined by which letter comes after them.

If the consonant is accompanied by letters A , O , at , uh , s , ъ- then you get a solid sound. The same applies if a consonant is at the end of a word or another consonant comes after it.

If the consonant is accompanied by letters e , e , And , Yu , I , b- then its sound will be soft.
Video lesson

Hissing and whistling consonants

Some of the consonants in Russian are pronounced like hissing. These are the sounds and , w , sch , h, which are called sibilant consonants.

Another group of consonant sounds, when leaving the oral cavity, forms acoustic vibrations that resemble a whistle. These are the sounds h , With , ts- whistling.

The properties of hissing and whistling consonants are especially noticeable when they are pronounced for a long time.

One of important features of these sounds is that most of the speech defects are associated with their pronunciation. For this reason, work with hissing and whistling consonants should be given Special attention when teaching children. It is important to note that speech deficits associated with these sounds may be susceptible to speech therapy correction.

Russian vowels and sounds

Unlike consonants and letters, characteristic feature vowels is that when they are pronounced, air passes through the oral cavity freely. As a result, vowel sounds can not only be easily stretched, but also chanted. Another one distinctive feature- they can be pronounced as loudly as you like, at the full strength of your voice.

Through vowels and sounds, consonants are combined into syllables. Each syllable has only one vowel. The number of other letters - consonants, hard and soft signs - may be different. Words can consist of one or more syllables: ros-pis, breaking , yard , painting .

The number of vowels in the Russian language is 10:

And

And there are only 6 vowel sounds: [a], [i], [o], [u], [s], [e]. The vowels corresponding to them are monophonic. The remaining 4 vowels are e , e , Yu , I- two-voiced, and separately pronounced as [ye], [yo], [yu], [ya]. At the same time, in words these letters mean one sound (examples: squirrel, ball, went, key).

As with consonants, there are a number of Russian words that consist only of vowel sounds. These are pronouns - I , her; unions - And , A; prepositions - at , O; interjections - uh , aw .

Stressed and unstressed vowels

In words, vowel sounds can be stressed or unstressed.

If the vowel in a word is under stress, it is read more clearly, with more emphasis and a little more drawn out.
In the absence of stress, vowels in words are read less clearly. Accordingly, the unstressed position is a weak position for them, and the position in stressed syllable- a strong position.

As a rule, in traditional writing, words are not stressed. If necessary, they are indicated by the sign “acute” - a small “/” stroke above the vowel letter.

Video lesson

Designations of sounds during phonetic parsing of a word

Phonetic or sound analysis of a word serves the purpose of displaying and parsing its correct pronunciation. Both words and individual letters can be designated phonetically.

Designations of sounds, unlike letters, are enclosed in square brackets. A graphic recording of the pronunciation of a word is called transcription.

Basic rules according to which sounds are designated when phonetic analysis the words are as follows:

The hardness of consonants does not have any designation, but softness is indicated by an apostrophe. For example, if [b] is a hard sound, then [b’] is soft.
A long sound in transcription is indicated by a colon, for example: cash register- [kas:a] .
Not always, but often, emphasis is placed in the transcription of words. For example: wave- [walla].
The soft sign and the hard sign do not have audio pronunciation, therefore there is no display during phonetic parsing.

Video lesson

How to teach children to distinguish between hard and soft sounds

Sometimes children may have difficulty distinguishing between hard and soft consonants. In this case, there are some techniques that make it easier to understand the topic.

First of all, you need to explain to the child that the concepts of hardness and softness refer not to consonant letters, but to their sounds. And that the same letter can sound both hard and soft. Let me give you an example: “ b" - the words ram - white, " R" - work - belt, " l"- horse - swan.

When explaining the exception letters, for better memorization it is recommended to write them like this:

th , h , sch
and , w , ts

You need to make it clear to the child that the underlined letters seem to be “sitting on pads” - the pads are soft and the letters are also soft.

In order for the child to remember well before which vowels the letter becomes hard or soft, you can use the following technique: first, with a serious expression on your face, read a syllable with a hard consonant - and then, with a smile on your face, read another syllable where this consonant is soft. Then, do the same with other letters and syllables. For example: la — la , mu — mi , zo — son, bo — byu , ry — ryo etc. A child associates soft pronunciation well with a smile, and hard pronunciation with seriousness and severity, which allows him to associatively remember the material.

Gradually you need to improve your skills and do the same exercises with simple words, such as: Mother , dad A - uncle , aunt etc. As you memorize, from simple words you should move on to more complex ones. Explanations and exercises must be gradually alternated with tasks: write words and then ask which consonants in them are hard and which are soft.

You can also suggest another exercise: make signs with words in which soft consonants are written in one color, and hard consonants in another. For example:

N O S I K
CARPET
NUMBER
WARM

There are many options, but it is advisable to choose among them those that your child likes best. This contributes to better perception of the material, its memorization and practical assimilation.

Video lesson

Some interesting and useful information

Sounds and words can be formed without human intervention. A well-known example is the pronunciation of words by birds of the parrot family. As for individual sounds, then they can appear in inanimate nature- with the rustling of leaves, gusts of wind, splashing waves. This cannot be said about letters - after all, only their meaningful writing can be recognized as a letter designation, and this is characteristic only of people.
Despite the small number of words consisting only of vowels, they can be used to form a sentence: “Eh, and me?”
Almost all words in the Russian language containing the letter " f", are of foreign language origin. Only in relation to rare words(for example: eagle owl) is assumed Russian origin, but this has not been proven for sure.
All words starting with the letter " th", also foreign languages. For example: iodine, yogurt, iota, Yemen, Yokohama, Yorkshire, etc.
Letter " e" in words almost always carries an emphasis. There are very few exceptions to this rule - these are the words foreign origin (Königsberg surfers ), and Difficult words, which contain the numerals of three or four - ( twenty-three digit , four-door , three thousandth ). It should also be noted those rare situations when one word contains two letters “ e", one of which becomes stressed, and the other - unstressed ( three-star , four-wheeled , airplane lift , three-ruble note ).
The Russian language has many words with unusual letter combinations. For example, words in which the same vowel is repeated three times in a row: snake eater , animal association , long-necked. Word with 7 consonants in a row: countermeeting (Maybe, occasionalism ). Words with three soft signs: seductiveness , diminutive , multifunctionality , charm etc. Word with two soft and one a solid sign: courier . One-syllable word of 8 letters: in passing. Many others can be cited interesting examples.
Any letter has a certain repetition frequency, the most commonly used letters in the Russian language are O , e , A , And , T , n , With , R. This phenomenon is used to recognize cipher messages.

Knowledge of letters and sounds, their spelling and pronunciation is the basis of language literacy. In turn, good command of spoken and written language is one of the indicators of a person’s erudition, and the skills of reading and understanding text are the basis for knowledge of other sciences. After all, the lion's share of information in modern world is comprehended by reading or listening, and only a small part of it is through personal experience.

Consonant sounds sound different in different words. Somewhere it’s hard, and somewhere it’s soft. In this lesson we will learn to distinguish between soft and hard consonant sounds and to indicate the softness of consonant sounds in writing with the letters I, E, E, Yu, I and b. Let's find out which consonants form hard-soft pairs, and which are only hard or only soft.

Compare the first consonants. When pronouncing the sound in the word KIT middle part the tongue rises to the palate, the passage through which air flows narrows and a sound is obtained, which scientists conventionally called soft. And the opposite sound was called - solid.

Let's complete the task. You need to put the vegetables in two baskets. In the first place we put those whose names contain some soft sounds, in the second those in whose names all consonant sounds are hard. Beets, turnips, eggplant, cabbage, onions, tomatoes, onions, pumpkin, cucumber.

Let's check. In the first basket they put: beets(sound [v’]), turnip(sound [r’]), tomato(sound [m’]),cucumber(sound [r’]). Second: cabbage, pumpkin, eggplant, onion .

It is important to listen to the sounds of spoken words. If you say the word NOS otherwise - with a hard first sound, we get a completely different word - NOSE.

Let's listen and watch the movement of our tongue:

row - sound [p’] - rad - sound [p]

hatch - sound [l’] - bow - sound [l]

Rice. 3. Bow ( )

crumpled - sound [m’] - small - sound [m]

Sounds can be written (conventionally) using icons. Musical sounds written down in notes, and speech sounds in letters, but in special square brackets - in transcription. In order not to confuse hard and soft sounds when reading the transcription, scientists agreed to show the softness of the sound with an icon very similar to a comma, only they put it on top.

Most consonant sounds form pairs based on softness and hardness:

Some consonants are only hard or only soft. They do not form pairs in terms of hardness/softness:

Only hard consonants: [zh], [w], [ts]. Only soft consonants: [th’], [h’], [w’].

Let's complete the task: indicate the paired sound.

[h] - ? [and] - ? [R'] - ? [h’] - ? [With'] - ? [l] - ? Let’s check the correctness of the task: [z] - [z’]; [r’] - [r]; [s’] - [s]; [l] - [l’]. [zh], [h’] - unpaired sounds in terms of softness and hardness.

In writing, the hardness of consonant sounds is indicated by the vowels A, O, U, Y, E, and the softness of consonant sounds is indicated by the vowels E, Yo, I, Yu, Ya.

There are words with soft consonant sounds at the end of words or in the middle of words before other consonant sounds. Listen to the words: salt, horse, notebook, coat, ring, letter. Then a soft sign will come to the rescue. Even his name suggests - a sign soft, for soft consonants.

Let's make a reminder of how to act when writing words:

I hear a hard consonant sound - after it I write the letters in place of the vowel sound: A, O, U, Y, E.

I hear a soft consonant sound before a vowel sound - I denote its softness with vowels: E, Yo, I, Yu, Ya.

I hear a soft sound at the end of a word or before a consonant sound - I show softness b.

Rice. 5. Hard and soft consonants ()

So, today we learned that consonant sounds can be soft and hard, and the softness of consonant sounds in writing in Russian is indicated by the letters i, e, e, yu, i and ь.

Andrianova T.M., Ilyukhina V.A. Russian language 1. M.: Astrel, 2011. ().
Buneev R.N., Buneeva E.V., Pronina O.V. Russian language 1. M.: Ballas. ()
Agarkova N.G., Agarkov Yu.A. Textbook for teaching literacy and reading: ABC. Academic book/textbook.

Additional web resources

Hypermarket of knowledge ()
Russian language: short theoretical course. ()
Logosauria: site for children's computer games. ()

Make it at home

Andrianova T.M., Ilyukhina V.A. Russian language 1. M.: Astrel, 2011. Pp. 35, ex. 6, Page 36, ex. 3.
Count how many soft consonants are in a word train? (The word electric train has 3 soft consonant sounds ([l’], [r’], [h’]).
Using the knowledge gained in the lesson, make up puzzles or charades with words where the softness and hardness of a sound changes the meaning.