How to have a Russian Accent - Rule 7

Part of the series on how to develop a fake Russian accent for fun and profit (1. develop Russian accent 2. ... 3. Profit!)

Rule 7. Palatalize! (except where you would normally). It's not as important to palatalize when speaking Russian-accented English as it is when speaking Russian. However, that's like saying it's not as important to pass in basketball as it is in ultimate frisbee. It just means that palatalizing properly is really important when speaking Russian. Not doing so is the distinguishing characteristic of a bad accent for anglophone-accented Russian. Okay, you say, palatalize. Got it. What's palatalize, again? Well, for instance it's the distinction in the "m" in "mew" /mʲuː/ (palatalized) and "moo" /muː/ (not). Now you may find yourself thinking: there's no distinction in the "m"! It's just that in one case it's followed by a "you" and in the other by an "oo". This actually may be true depending on your specific pronunciation, but many English speakers perceive it to be true even when it's not. That, however, just won't do. Try to maintain the distinction without pronouncing the vowel part. Just the "m". You should be left with just /mʲ/ and /m/. The former should sound "softer" than the latter. The actual mechanism for producing palatalized consonants is to raise the middle of your tongue until it touches the roof of your mouth and then pronounce the consonant, pulling your tongue back at the end. Uh, something like that, anyway.

Most English speakers that I've talked to have difficulty palatalizing, or hearing the difference between a palatalized consonant and one that has a "j" added afterwards. To make it clear, I will borrow Natalie's example of English palatalization: the word "can". The normal, (very lightly) palatalized variant can be seen as this sequence: /kʲæn/. It should now be obvious that this is very different from its unpalatalized partner [kæn] (sort of like the French town Caen, but not nasal, or like a Spanish que (but more open) followed by an n). It is also clearly different from [kjæn] ("k'yan", maybe?). And [tʃæn] ("chan") is also very different. This, then, is palatalization.

So now that you know what palatalization is, where should you use it in your Russian accented English? Well, not in "can"! (A Russian will pronounce it [kæn]). Loosely, you should use palatalization
-when Consonant-j-Vowel occurs. /CjV/ is usually read as [CʲjV] and sometimes [CʲV]
("few" /fju/ --> [fʲju]); ("music" /mjuzɪk/ --> [mʲuzʲək])
-when you have an unstressed /Ci/ or /Cɪ/. It usually becomes [Cʲə]
("military" /ˈmɪlɪt(ə)ɹi/ --> [ˈmilʲətərʲə])
-Often when you have unstressed /Cə/.
("college" /kɔlləd͡ʒ/ --> [kollʲətʂ]
-Whenever you have /Cʉː/ it becomes [Cʲu].The sound is pretty rare in Am.E., (but I disagree with wikipedia, and claim it exists).
("threw" /θɹʉː/ --> [srʲu)]

Last, in connection with the title of this rule, here's a video of Tom Lehrer's song "Lobachevsky". The connection? I like to imagine "Palatalize!" mispronounced in such a way as to make it fit this song's chorus ("plagiarize! let no one else's work evade your eyes!") Enjoy, but take note! Tom Lehrer does a Russian accent here, but his accent is by no means very good. See if you can spot some of the problems...