How to have a Russian accent - Rule 5

Part of the (interminable) series on how to have a Russian accent in your American English.

Rule 5. Every consonant in "dental" should actually be dental. In Russian-accented English, the tongue should touch the back of the teeth when pronouncing a (hard) "t" ("tomorrow"), "d" ("don't!"), "l" ("loser") and "n" ("neighbour") whether this is actually somewhat close to a native pronunciation (in word final position, e.g. like the "n" in position") or not (in word-initial and word-medial positions). Practice having your tongue touch the back of your teeth in words with "t", "d" or "n". Make all your "n"s sound not like the "nn" in "cannon", but like the "n" in "position", only with your tongue even more forward. Make all your "d"s sound not like the "d" in "door", but like the "d" in "bloodthirsty", only with your tongue even more forward. Make all your "t"s sound not like the "t" in "take", but like the "t" in "gutless", only with your tongue even more forward. Make all your "l"s sound not like the "l" in "late", but like the "l" in "poltroon", only with your tongue even more forward.

Exceptions to this are, as mentioned, places where "t", "d", "l" or "n" are "soft". Now you might be saying, what does that even mean? Good question, especially since I don't think most anglophones strongly palatalize anything (as Natalie pointed out, they actually palatalize some things a little. Paradoxically, things you should not palatalize in a russian accented English!). Stay tuned until rule 7 to find out what that means and how this affects your fake Russian accent!

How to have a Russian accent - Rule 4

Part of the (ever-growing in conception) series on how to fake Russian accents.

Rule 4. Reduce unstressed vowels. Of course, unstressed vowels are also reduced to some extent in normal American English. But Russian accented English takes this to the next level. And what's more, in faking the accent, people often tend to go the other way. A lot of people who try to sound Russian end up sounding somehow German (maybe they think it should be similar because of the /w/ -> /v/ and /θ/->/s/ shifts). I think their main problem is that they enunciate unstressed vowels too much. They end up speaking all the syllables slowly and clearly, which is un-Russian to the extreme. Basically every unstressed syllable should sound somewhat muddled and very neutral. And almost every word (unless it's supercalifragialisticexpialidocious) should only have one stressed syllable. The /ɐ/, like a carelessly pronounced "u" in "they're nuts!" or a good old /ə/, like the "a" in "about", should be substituted for pretty much every vowel except the stressed one. If the vowel is somewhat front and close (i or u, basically), a /j/ may be added in front. Easy and fun! Let's have some examples (which also use rules that haven't yet been discussed)!

Word/phrase	"normal" Am.E.	Ru.Acc.E.
"commensurate"	/kʌmmensɜɹət/	[kɐmʲensərət]
"contrived examples"	/kʌŋˌtɹaɪvdɪg'zæmplz/	[kəntrɐɪftək'zempls]
"moonbeam"	/'muːnˌbiːm/	['munbʲəm]

How to have a Russian accent - Rule 3

Part of the series (of very dubious usefulness) on getting a Russian accent if you don't already have one

Rule 3. Keep aspiration to a minimum. For instance, if you're aspiring to have a good Russian accent by reading this blog, forget about it! Har har har. But seriously, Russian-accented English should just not be breathy. The classic example in English is the difference between the "p" in pin (/pʰɪn/) and spin (/spɪn/). This example is slightly confusing for me, because I pronounce the two very similarly, and many other westcoasters do, even if they aren't Russian. I think take (/tʰɛɪk/) and steak (/stɛɪk/) is more clear. A Russian, then, would pronounce take as [teɪk], like an s-less steak. Try to de-aspirate word-initial "t", "ch", "k", "p" and word-final "p" and "t". A side benefit of making everything unaspirated is that you will find it hard to pronounce word-initial θ, as I think most people aspirate it (albeit only slightly). There, you're sounding more Russian already.

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.

How to have a Russian accent - Rule 1

Part of the series of pointers on getting a good fake Russian accent.

Rule 1. Know your cyrillic alphabet! (and your phonemes of Russian). The most basic way to try to get a foreign accent is to try to imagine the things you are saying being written in the orthography of the given foreign language. This isn't always effective, but it is a good starting point, because it's quite likely that, say, a Spanish person beginning to learn English, upon hearing an English word can mentally imagine it as a word written in Spanish that approximates its English sound. There are ways to improve on this significantly, but it all starts from here. So if you can read cyrillic, great! Here is the first sentence of this paragraph written in cyrillic.

Дэ мост бэйсик вэй ту трай ту гет а форин эксэнт из ту трай ту имэджин дэ тингз ю ар сэйинг биинг риттэн ин дэ ортографи ов дэ форин лэнгуэдж.

If you don't know cyrillic, but know IPA, it will look something like this:

/demost'bejsikvejtu'trajtuɡʲetə'forin'eksəntiztutraj.../ etc. etc.

If you don't know either cyrillic or IPA, well, then this is going to be a little tough - for now just try to read the IPA stream as if it were Spanish, except that /j/ is read as the 'y' in 'yes'. Learning the cyrillic alphabet isn't that difficult, though, and it is useful for much more than just pretending to have a Russian accent well! Get started!

You'll notice reading this that this is far from a perfect or even great Russian accent. Partly it is because I did the transcription on what I think is most reasonable from an English speaker's point of view (e.g. The - Дэ is not a transcription most Russians seem to follow, but if English is your first language, it's the one that I think makes the most sense). Partly it's because russophones speaking English realise that they're not actually speaking a gibberish language written in Russian. So there are problems. But already it's much better than most people can do. And what if you can't read cyrillic, or at least can't transcribe on the fly? I would suggest trying to practice writing snippets of English phrases in cyrillic until it comes somewhat naturally. But there is something you can do that takes much less effort and practice time - learn the phonology of Russian.

The easiest way is to familiarise yourself with what consonant phonemes English has that Russian doesn't and what the Russian phonemes that might be used to replace them are. So, here they are:

/h/ (the "h" in "hat"). Most russophones don't have /h/. Some do have /ɦ/ (the voiced version which is actually very close to /h/ - like the initial "h" in "huh" said by a stereotypical neanderthal) - but I haven't heard any of those people use it for /h/, probably because because of the vagaries of cyrillic orthography, the /ɦ/ is associated with /g/ and not /h/, and in any case, most russophones don't have this phoneme. Instead, the closest associated phoneme is, first and foremost /x/ (like the "ch" in scottish "loch"), for which /χ/ (like spanish "j") is an allophone for some speakers (e.g. me). In extreme cases, even /g/ pops up. You should generally go with /x/. If you are having trouble pronouncing it, try to start saying "k" and just draw it out. And then try to do the same without the onset "k" part.

/ɹ/ (the "r" in "rat"), or for that matter the rhotic vowels such as the "r" in "care". The standard Russian phoneme is /r/ (like Scottish "r"), but a short, restrained one, nothing extreme like the Spanish "double r" or anything. /ɾ/ is a sometimes-used allophone. Less common (sometimes considered a defect) is /ʁ/. Also sometimes used (and considered defects) are /ʀ/, /ɰ/, /w/ and even, possibly, /ɢ/. Many russophones have trouble with the letter "r" and there is even a famous monologue by a popular comedian (Zhvanetsky) where much of the humour comes from the fact that none of his characters can pronounce "r" properly, and they all screw it up in different ways. The standard practitioner of the Russian accent should go with /r/, and leave the other ones to experts and the very adventurous.

/ð/ (the "th" in "that") is totally foreign to Russian ears. Depending on the circumstance, preference or sheer dumb luck /z/ or /d/ or /v/ is used. Infuriatingly enough, mostly /z/.

/θ/ (the "th" in "think") ditto above. Replaced by /s/ (AAGHHH!), /t/ or /f/. The only Russians who will have the dentals are those who were taught English when they were very young. And if they still have a Russian accent, it means they were probably taught somewhere in the Soviet Union. And that probably means they were taught (a russified) RP. So the /θ/ and /ð/ are very breathy. If you want to pretend to be a Russian who was taught RP as a kid, hell, you are brave, for one thing, and you probably don't need this guide for another, and you prolly should be writing it, for a third.

/w/ (the "w" in "win"). Many russophones - and all southerners, belarussians and ukrainians have this sound. But most do not. It's usually perceived as a "defective" /v/. So you should in general use /v/ for /w/. Although /u/ is sometimes more reasonable. And, again, many russophones can pronounce /w/ very well - they just don't necessarily remember where the /w/ goes and where the /v/ in English words.

/d͡ʒ/ (the "g" in "gin") is always replaced by /dʐ/. The thing to keep in mind is that /dʐ/ is not used in native Russian words, and is not actually one phoneme, but just a normal "d" followed by a "zh" pronounced further back in the mouth (see below).

If you want to be very precise, Russian also doesn't have these exact phonemes, though it has very similar ones which can be paired unambiguously.

/ʃ/ (the "sh" in "shin") is replaced by a /ʂ/, same sound but with the tip of the tongue further back in the mouth.

/ʒ/ (the "s" in "leisure") ditto its devoiced pair above. The replacement phoneme is /ʐ/.

/t͡ʃ/ (the "ch" in "chin") is possibly not the exact same sound as the phoneme /t͡ɕ/, used in Russian, which again involves putting the tongue further back. I can't distinguish these in speaking or listening.

/ŋ/ (the "n" in "think") is replaced by /n/.

The bottom line:

Normal English phrase: What are you thinking about?

Cyrillicised: Вот ар ю синкинг эбаут?

In IPA: [votarjusinkinge'baut]

How to have a Russian accent - Rule 0

Watching a lot of Hollywood movies, it used to surprise me how horrible peoples' supposedly "Russian" accents were. Now that I'm older and watch less movies (and way less action movies), Russians are no longer the stereotypical villains of screen on one hand, and there are more russophones in Hollywood (probably) on the other, I don't know if it's as bad. Still, a lot of people can't do a good Russian accent. Not least of them my freind V., whom we've been trying to teach. So what does it involve? I'm going to try to give some pointers. Watch this space!

Rule 0. No Russian words! This is the most obvious thing in the world to make a reasonable foreign accent, yet it's often ignored even by professional actors. In general if x is a foreign language, and you are not actually extremely fluent in x, you should NOT EVER have x words in your x-accented English. The problem is not even (at least not mainly) that you will give away your lack of proficiency in the source language, though this is also true. The problem is that it is not something an actual accent would ever contain. A Scottish person could stick in scots English words into their English when speaking to an American - whether because they are proud of their scots heritage or because they don't realise that this word wouldn't sound normal in standard American English speech. But no Russian person is going to say "droog" or "tovarisch" in an English sentence - they are trying to speak English, not to ridicule themselves! They realise that "tovarisch" isn't actually an English word! If they will ever use a Russian word, it will be for a word that they don't know in English, but have some basis for thinking might be recognizable to an English speaker in its Russian form. Or maybe in using a false friend. But how to say "hello", "friend" "comrade" or whatever, that's some of the first things you learn. A good example of how to do this right is Nabokov's Pnin saying "quittance" (квитанция) when he means "receipt". When I read that, I nearly glowed with appreciation. But the thing is, you and I are not Nabokov. Neither you nor I will ever know either Russian or English to the same order of magnitude that he knew both. So, my advice is, don't try. And definitely don't try on the fly. You can do a perfectly believable, more than serviceable accent without ever using Russian words.

The Bottom Line:

Normal English phrase: "Yes, my friend, I am from Russia"

Russian accented English phrase: "Yes, my friend, I am from Russia"

Ridiculously bad phrase: "Da, my droog, I am from Rossiya"

Furry Alphabet Q-Z

The toughest part, since no translateable animal starts with Q or X. Still not sure about the Q here...

A QUOKKA once told me: "Oh what a pity!

Maybe it's true that I'm not very pretty...

But I don't deserve this ridiculous name!"

Honestly people! Have you no shame?

-
A RHINO
That I know
Goes out for walks
And clears the sidewalk for several blocks.

I know
The rhino
likes this a great deal
But how do the other pedestrians feel?
-
The SPERM WHALE he lives in the sea
Though he is not a fish
Some people think that it's suspic-
ious, but it's fine by me:

Not everybody understands
How big he really is
Would we have any space on land
With that huge bulk of his?
-
The TAPIR's nose is hanging low
His dreams have been frustrated
He tried to be an elephant
But never really made it
-
The URCHIN told the porcupine
"A back with spines is mighty fine!
But do you know how long it took
For us to come up with this look?"
-
It's ages since I've seen a VIPER
Can't really say I miss them, either
-
The WILDHOG
He is rude and vicious
But he's also quite delicious
Even the most piggish kind
Have their good sides, you will find
-
I'm sure that in some respects
X is a fantastic letter
But there's no animal for X
So I made up the XETTER
-
What's not to love about the YAK?
It's fun to ride upon its back
If I was living in Tibet
I'd want to have one as a pet
-
A ZEBU won't know about blizzards of snow
About hail and ice and other such topics
Because even though he's only an ox
The zebu, my friends, is a child of the tropics

Innokentij Annenskij (and Cladistics!)

Here's a poem that I love. Probably the best poem about a guilty conscience that I know.

Copying out this poem, I noticed I was making some mistakes, mostly in punctuation, but also in words. I corrected the word mistakes - since I don't really want to misrepresent Annensky's poem. But on the other hand, this problem that appears when copying by hand is also very interesting in itself. I went to a talk Mark Collard gave about using cladistics in culture. Although he made some claims that I (as a non-expert, obviously) think were pretty dubious (e.g. that use of cladistic methods in linguistics is a new phenomenon - when Morris Swadesh's word lists were made in the 1940's). But perhaps we can talk about cladistics and the talk later. What I want to point out is that as almost an aside, he mentioned the use of cladistic methods (comparing for similarity by using a list of traits, comparing to an outgroup, defining derived and primitive traits) for ascertaining the treelike relationship between different copied versions of the same text, say a holy book copied and re-copied by monks. That way, you not only can hope to learn what the original text was like, but the variegated relationships between the copiers.

Can you do that, o copy and paste? (Actually, if you can look at which sites I visited, you can, but ignore that).

Anyway, enough of this crap. Here's the poem.

Старые эстонки

Если ночи тюремны и глухи,
Если сны паутинны и тонки,
Так и знай, что уж близко старухи
Из-под Ревеля близко эстонки.

Вот вошли, - приседают так строго,
Не уйти мне от долгого плена.
Их одежда темна и убога,
И в котомке у каждой полено.

Знаю, завтра от тягостной жути
Буду сам на себя непохожим...
Сколько раз я просил их: "Забудьте!..."
И читал их немое: "Не можем".

Как земля, эти лица не скажут
Что в сердцах похоронено веры.
Не глядят на меня - только вяжут
Свой чулок бесконечный и серый.

Но учтивы - столпились в сторонке...
Да не бойся: присядь на кровати...
Только тут не ошибка ль, эстонки?
Есть куда же меня виноватей.

Но пришли, так давайте калякать,
Не часы ж, не умеем мы тикать.
Может быть, вы хотели б поплакать?
Так, тихонько, неслышно, похныкать?

Иль от ветру глаза ваши пухлы,
Точно почки берез на могилах?
Вы молчите, печальные куклы,
Сыновей ваших... я ж не казнил их

Я напротив, я очень жалел их,
Прочитав в сердобольных газетах,
Про себя я молился за смелых,
И священник был в ярких глазетах.

Затрясли головами эстонки:
"Ты жалел их... На что ж твоя жалость,
Если пальцы руки твоей тонки,
И ни разу она не сжималась?

Спите крепко, палач с палачихой!
Улыбайтесь друг другу любовней!
Ты ж, ты нежный, ты кроткий, ты тихий,
В целом мире тебя нет виновней!

Добродетель... твою добродетель
Мы ослепли вязавши, а вяжем...
Ничего, вот накопится петель,
Мы словечко придумаем, скажем..."

Сон всегда откупался мне скупо,
И мои паутины так тонки...
Но как это печально и глупо
Неотвязные эти эстонки

(1906)

Furry Alphabet H-P

More of translations of Zakhoder's Furry Alphabet

If you meet a HEDGEHOG, it is nice to say
"My my, isn't someone sharply dressed today!"
-
"It's hotter here than in a sauna!"
The walrus told the IGUANA
"Why it's so cold I thought I'd freeze!"
Said the iguana with a sneeze
-
The brains of a hare
The tact of a bear
A hyena's good looks
(including the hair)
The JACKAL's an animal beyond compare
The greatest that's ever been seen anywhere
-
Every KANGAROO will vouch
Nothing's better than a pouch
"Its advantage is apparent!"
Says the proud kanga-parent
"It's a lovely hiding spot!"
Says the happy kanga-tot.
-
The LION, as you are aware,
was once the king of beasts.
But these day monarchies are rare
and lion's reign has ceased

The lion wasn't a good king
and he abused his power
so I don't have much sympathy
if now he's feeling sour.
-
Us MONKEYS and you humans share
Ancestors (were you aware?)
Now we're in zoos and people stare
Dear kids: do you think this is fair?
-
In deepest night
It's quite a fright
To meet a great big OWL
But when it's light
They're just about
As scary as ... a towel??
-
The PEACOCK is pretty - I wont pretend
That I can't see what sets him apart
But all of his beauty begins at the end
And that's not the best place to staart

Renat Gilfanov

You know whose poetry I kind of like? Renat Gilfanov's.

Here is some, and here is some more and also here, although the poems are mostly the same in all three places. Here's one I copied here, just for kicks, you know, practising being a scribe and all. Which reminds me of another thing that makes becoming good at writing more difficult: copy and paste functions.

Школа жизни

Радио квохчет: "три года как убит Александр Мень"
На столе - рассказ "Frau Mutter" и деревянный нецке.
Узкоглазый толстяк улыбается, Пашку же ждет ремень
За невыученный немецкий.

Нина Петровна постанывает: мол, расшатались нервы.
Придвигает стул к пианино и херачит глиссандо.
Пашка смотрит в окно, на море, где производит маневры
Скутер, унося на себе Александра

Вдоль розовой кромки прибоя - все дальше и дальше от дома...
На облизанном прибоем пляже раздается девичий смех.
Это смеется, тыча пальчиком в скутер, красавица Тома.
Александр имеет успех.

Уж вечером он оттянется. И Тома будет довольна.
Потому что Александр умеет любить.
Паша смотрит на Тому влюбленно, на Александра - крамольно,
Мечтая его убить.

Хорошо бы, чтоб все они умерли: Фрау Муттер,
Вечно постанывающая тетя Нина,
Горы пирожного, Мальборо, Тома, скутер,
Вдребезги разломанное пианино...

Пашка лелеет образы, приходящие ему на ум.
Дверь комнаты открывается. В комнату входит мать.
Пашка смотрит в окно и привыкает к тому,
Что о лучшем в этой жизни приходится лишь мечтать.

Furry Alphabet A-G

Boris Zakhoder should be every Russian-speaking kid's favourite person (unless it's Tove Jansson of course). To us former Russian kids, Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, especially Winnie the Pooh, and even Alice in Wonderland "loses something in the original"... Not only that, but he wrote MOST of the poems I first heard as a kid

Кто носорогу
дорогу
уступит
Тот несомненно разумно поступит

В названиях пород обман - а может произвол
Не так уж добр доберман - хотя не так уж зол

etc. etc... I thought I would try translating some of his "мохнатая азбука" (furry alphabet) into English. Here's the first instalment, A-G

We'll start with the ANTEATER if that's okay
For just like the alphabet, he starts with A

The BRONCO decided he'd be a giraffe
And even though all of the animals laugh
The bronco himself doesn't pay much attention
He has no problems with bucking convention

Why is the COBRA so upset?
It's easy to explain
There's lots of poison in that head
And very little brain

DOGS will often disagree
But they don't need to fight
The loudest "woof"
Can serve as proof
Of your side being right

I started this poem 'bout the EMU
But it's quite hard to continue
I just wish I really knew:
Is it E-mu or e-MU

Tigers and lions are big and impressive
But the little FERRET is much more aggressive
Let's be thankful that at least

It's not a gigantic beast

There is neither rhyme nor reason
To keep a GNU - in any season
For you see, this southern ruminant
Is unfriendly and quite gloominant