How to have a Russian accent - Rule 2

Part of an (unexpectedly involved) series of pointers on getting a good fake Russian accent.

Rule 2. Keep a level pitch - you're not Swedish (unless you are, but I mean, even if you are, pretend you're not). English speakers listening to Russians converse often report that they sound loud and angry, or on the other hand that it sounds very boring. These seemingly contradictory reactions stem, I think, from one source - Russians don't speak in singsong. There is in general little variation in pitch or volume within a sentence (whereas the volume can be quite high). The stress in a phrase usually falls towards the end - second to last or last syllable. Additionally, it is important to see that in English the end of a phrase is usually raised in pitch. In Russian, and hence in Russian-accented English, this does not happen.

One place this comes up is in question sentences, where the rise in pitch in English is very pronounced. Russian accented English either doesn't have the rise at all, or, if it does, rises only to the main point of stress in the sentence and then falls back down. The sentence 'coda' in any case, is flat or slightly falling in pitch.

Note that there are some generalisations here that I could be wrong about. This is my interpretation, take it as such.