Which letters make more sounds? Vowels and consonants sounds and letters – Knowledge Hypermarket

The human voice is a universal, inimitable and unique instrument. People who have the opportunity to exchange information using oral speech. Thanks to all the listed characteristics, the child is always aware of the presence of his parents (by ear), animals recognize the voices of their owners by ear. Some characteristics of the voice are used by polygraphs to confirm the truth of a statement. But it is more interesting to study the mechanisms of voice manifestation in oral speech. After all, only thanks to the proper functioning of the vocal cords can a person communicate, sing, and express his thoughts.

Functions of speech sounds

The kingdom is ruled by Phonetics. Therefore, in order not to look ignorant in the eyes of others, you should study the rules and patterns of pronunciation. If in the alphabet the sound has a graphic image, which at the same time is also a symbol (carries a certain semantic load), then in the alphabet the letters are signs designed to facilitate the recording of the sound composition of the word (according to the rules of spelling). However, there are rules of pronunciation that often puzzle schoolchildren, students, and sometimes even parents.

To the question of what vowel sounds and consonant sounds are in the Russian language, you can find the answer in such a branch of linguistics as phonetics. The smallest unit of expression (sound) is called a phoneme, which usually does not carry any meaning. Replacing or omitting just one sound in a word can change its meaning to the opposite.

Designation of vowel sounds of the Russian language in written speech

All sounds of the Russian language are divided into vowels and consonants. Distinctive characteristics are the presence of voice and noise in the formation of sound. The acoustic characteristics of the former are viscousness, smoothness, absence of noise, strength and beauty of sound. The syllable-forming role of phonemes is highlighted using the listed possibilities. What vowel sounds there are in the Russian language can be seen using examples.

As all first-graders rightly note, the ratio of sounds and letters in the Russian language is 6 to 10.

To differentiate in writing, sounds are represented by symbols in (transcription). Characteristic Features in pronunciation, the location of the vowel in a strong (stressed) or weak (unstressed) position, the beginning of a word, differs.

Pronunciation of vowel sounds

Here are the types of vowel sounds in the stressed position: they are pronounced for a long time, with greater force, and clearly. TO simple examples we can include the words: tank, side, beech, bull, bit, sir. The first four colorfully illustrate how changing the pronunciation of one sound changes the meaning of a word. It is worth noting that in this position the sound does not change. Things are more complicated with weak positions.

Here are the types of vowel sounds in unstressed positions: they are pronounced briefly, with less force, indistinctly (or weakened). Consequently, sounds acquire variability in pronunciation, which makes them different from the previous situation considered, and this good soil for the emergence spelling errors. This occurs due to the discrepancy between the sound and its graphic designation in writing.

For example: granary [zakrama]; cart [pavOska]; test [thous’Irawat’]; sixth [shystOy’]; chocolate[shykalAt].

The following examples show what vowel sounds there are in the Russian language that are never pronounced in weak positions. This is [o], [e] and in defined by the rules situations [a]. As an example, we can consider the following words: Tsokotukha [tsikatUkha]; floor [itАш].

In a weak position, only four vowel sounds are pronounced: [A, U, Y, I]. When writing words, you should always remember that the graphic representation of sounds in a weak position may be different.

Yotized letters

Such designations include the vowels [E], [O], [U], [A] and the consonant [Y], but they appear together only under certain conditions. What vowel sounds are like when iotated letters are placed after consonants to indicate their softness is clear from the following examples: ball [m'ach]; pencil case [p'enal]; lazy [l'eneif]. As you can see, only the vowel is pronounced, the sound [Y] softens the previous consonant. There are many other patterns for the arrangement of iotated letters: if they are at the beginning of a word, after vowels and separating signs b and b. What are the vowel sounds in pronunciation? In the listed cases, both a consonant and a vowel are pronounced, for example: poison [y’at], hedgehog [y’osh], huntsman [ye ‘ger’]; clown [pay'ats]; volume [aby'om], congress [sy'est].

Sometimes there is confusion with transcription marks and letters. To avoid mistakes, you should remember that transcription marks are always written in square brackets.

Instead of a conclusion

The question of what vowel sounds are in 4th grade secondary school is studied quite superficially, but at the middle level, knowledge and skills are systematized, specified and automated. If for some reason errors begin to slip through, it is enough to repeat the “Phonetics” and “Spelling” sections. In addition to this, there are a lot of “cheat sheets” that are easy to use.

The number of letters in the Russian alphabet is well known - 33. It would seem that there are the same number of sounds. But in fact, letters and sounds are different concepts, although interrelated. There are, for example, letters that have no sound correspondence at all - these are hard and soft signs. They convey not the sounds themselves, but certain characteristics, for example, the hardness or softness of the consonant phonemes of the Russian language. In addition, these unpronounceable letters affect not only the consonants, but also the vowel sounds that follow them. But how?

Let's count how many vowels are there in the Russian alphabet: “a”, “e”, “e”, “i”, “o”, “u”, “s”, “e”, “yu”, “ya”. Total 10. What about sounds? only six: [a], [o], [i], [y], [s], [e]. It turns out that the letters “e”, “e”, “yu”, “ya” have no sound correspondence? Not really. Let's create the following table:

Thus, we see that some vowel letters denote not one sound, but a whole combination. So the “I” in the word “poison” is actually [ya]. And the “e” in the word “ice” is [o] after the soft “l”: [l’ot]. What if after a consonant there suddenly appeared an unpronounceable soft sign, for example, “it’s pouring”? Then we would again have a double phoneme: [l’yot]. Why did the Russian language have “extra” paired letters? Obviously, because the alphabet was born before the science called phonetics, which deals with the study of sounds. In any case, the compilers of the alphabet least of all thought about how the consonant sounds of the Russian language influence vowels.

What does position in a word mean?

It turns out that the sound of vowels and the writing of the corresponding letters depend on the previous consonant, or, more precisely, on its hardness or softness. There are no exceptions to this rule, because if “yu” or “ya” are even at the beginning of a word, then, from a phonetic point of view, such a word begins with a consonant [th ‘], which, unlike other consonants, is always soft. However, since traditionally there are letters in a language, denoting double sounds, then we write “yug” and “box”, not “yug” and “box”.

It would seem logical to get rid of this confusion, eliminate the “extra” vowels and write as we hear. But it's not that simple. The thing is, what if we go deeper into phonetics, then we will discover: the sound of vowels depends not only on the previous consonant, but also on such an important thing as stress. If the vowel under stress is distinct and understandable, then the further it is from stressed syllable, the less clear its sound. Let's take the word "bun". It is clear that the last vowel here is [o]. But what after the “l”? If we listen, we will hear something between [a] and [o]. Such a change in sound, depending on its position relative to the stressed syllable in phonetics, is called reduction.

For this new vowel, middle between [a] and [o], a new designation is introduced - [ʌ]. But that's not all. As already mentioned, the further a syllable is from the stressed one, the more its vowel changes. And if we listen carefully again, then in the first syllable of the word “kolobok” we will hear a sound similar to [a], and [o], and [e]. And this new phoneme is designated as [ъ].

Thus, if we wanted to write “as we hear,” then having gotten rid of some letters, we had to introduce others. Yes, and change the spelling rules. After all, if today you just need to remember that there is not a single letter “a” in the word “kolobok”, then calculating which vowel should be written, depending on the position of stressed and unstressed syllables, is hardly an easier task. In any case, literacy will not improve from this. Additionally, writing “as you hear” can be a challenge to understand. It’s not a fact that everyone hears the same. Which means it’s not excluded different options spelling the same word. For example, “bigimot”, “hippopotamus”, “bigemot” and, finally, “hippopotamus”.

But we haven’t yet taken into account that not only “a” and “o” change in the same way, but also other vowels. At the same time, scientists are moving further and further, discovering new variants of sounds. For example, along with [ʌ] and [ъ], another variant of the same sound appeared - [ɑ̟]. This is “a” after hard consonants before “l”. It turns out that the further we delve into the topic, the less likely it is to get an answer to the question: how many vowel sounds are there in the Russian language?

Vowel letters of the Russian alphabet - how many are there?

In fact, everything is not so sad. There are still six vowel sounds. The fact is that science recognizes vowels as real sounds in the form in which they are heard under stress. Still other variants are called allophones, in other words, forms depending on position in the word and stress. Of course, the division is somewhat artificial, but still better than chaos.

Video

Vowel sounds and letters, how to figure them out? The video will help you with this.

Didn't get an answer to your question? Suggest a topic to the authors.

    Vowel sounds in the Russian language respectively represent vowel letters. It is worth remembering that the Russian language is rich in 10 vowel letters, which account for a total of six vowel sounds:

    However, there are letters denoted by two sounds at once - these are letters such as i, e, yu, .

    In the Russian alphabet, letters representing vowel sounds

    Letters need to be memorized and definitely known, because letters can mean not one sound, but two, can soften a consonant sound and may not soften it. If you skip this topic in first grade, then problems arise later. phonetic analysis. You need to learn to determine which letter carries which sound and in which cases there are two sounds and both vowels, and in which cases an iotated sound appears.

    Below is a table, it shows that letters and vowel sounds do not match in number. Draw a similar table for yourself at home to help you do your homework correctly.

    The letters of the Russian alphabet are divided into three groups:!) vowels, 2) consonants and 3) two letters that do not indicate a sound: b and b.

    Vowel sounds represent ten letters: a, o, u, s, e, i, e, yu, i.

    The sound a is indicated in two ways: a or i (after a consonant sound). For example: fall, five

    pa te r o.

    Similarly, the sound o is indicated by the letters o or : water, berza be rO z a.

    The sound y is the letters u or yu (after a consonant sound): bow, hatch.

    The sound e in writing is indicated by two letters: e or e (after a consonant sound): mayor, muffler, forest.

    The sound and is the letter and: beat, sour.

    The sound ы is correspondingly denoted by the letters and or ы: fat, zinc, was, was.

    There are single- and multi-character letters representing vowel sounds. Their difference is that unambiguous ones always sound the same - they have the same phoneme.

    In polysemantic letters, the phoneme can change depending on its location in the word.

    So, here are the unambiguous letters representing vowels:

    Here are the multi-valued ones:

    It is known from school that there are ten vowel letters in the Russian alphabet - a, o, y, s, e, i, e, yu, i. They also represent sounds, as far as I understand. Moreover, there are vowel letters that are divided into two sounds, for example, i, yu, e. For example, the letter i is divided into two sounds a and j.

    Vowel sounds in the Russian language represent vowel letters, of which there are exactly ten in the Russian alphabet.

    So, the following letters (vowel letters) represent vowel sounds:

    • a, e, i, o, y, s, e, yu, i.

    Example words:

    • strength - two vowels and two vowel sounds: i, a;
    • ld is a vowel letter that denotes the vowel sound o;
    • mint - two vowel letters and two vowel sounds: the sounds a and a.
  • There are only 10 vowel letters in the Russian language. For clarity, I will post a picture showing the alphabet. Red letters are vowels, blue letters are consonants, black letters are separators, not denoting any sound:

    But it is worth remembering that although there are ten letters, there are fewer vowel sounds - only six (a, o, u, e, i, s). The fact is that the remaining vowel letters (e, yu, i) are formed by combining the consonant y with any vowel letter (for example, is y and o).

    This question is probably the simplest for a person who can write. If he learned to write, then he can already read too. The vowels of the Russian alphabet are studied first, after the consonants. At least that's what I did. Of course, I’m not saying that these were only two letters, the first and the last, but these are also vowels.

    There are only ten such letters, let's list them all.

    That's it. These are all letters that represent vowel sounds.

    There are only thirty-three letters in the Russian language.

    There are only twenty-one consonant letters.

    There are ten letters that are vowels, namely: the letter A, the letter O, the letter U, the letter I, the letter Y, the letter E, the letter Y, the letter E, and also the letter I.

    There are only six vowel sounds, namely: A, U, O, E, I, and also the sound Y.

    a, o, y, s, e, i, e, yu, and;

    They are familiar to everyone at least people who know Russian. There are single-valued and multi-valued letters. Polysemantic is when a letter represents two sounds.

The Russian language has 33 letters forming 42 sounds, six of which are vowels, the rest are consonants. Where did so many of them come from, since the letters - b, b, ya, e, yu, e - do not represent sounds? It is very difficult to master and understand such information not only for a first-grader, but also for an adult. Let's take it one by one, in a simple way, supporting the rules with simple examples.

How many vowel sounds are there in the Russian language - a basic concept

Help: letters are symbols that we see and write; sound can only be heard and pronounced, but it does not have a sign.

Learning to distinguish:

  • say it syllable by syllable, stretching out the first syllable in the word - mom. You hear the pure single sound of the sound A - M-a-a. Now say the word - Christmas tree, paying attention to the first syllable. Listen - Yo sounds like “yo”, that is, a double sound;
  • let’s consolidate the material: bush, here – [u], spinning top – “yu” is heard as [yu]. Olya – [o][ya], spruce – [ye], hedgehog – [yo][i];
  • as you can see, the letters E, E, Yu, I do not have their own sounds, each of them consists of 2 alien ones, borrowed from other letters: [ye], [yo], [yu], [ya]. This is why they are considered letters;
  • Now about hard and soft signs: one performs a dividing function, the other softens letters in phrases, and since we don’t hear them, they are not sounds.

How many consonant sounds are there in the Russian language - divisions

The consonant series has 21 letters and 36 sounds.

  • Fifteen letters - B, V, G, D, Z, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, T, F, X have a double sound: soft - linen [b′] and hard - ram [b] , in other words, there are two sounds in one letter. Total – 15 x 2 = 30 sounds.
  • The softest letters have Y, CH, Shch with one sound each.
  • Only hard sounds come out when pronounced - Zh, Sh, Ts (also one sound per letter).

We count: 30 + 3 +3 = 36 consonants.

How many vowels and consonants are there in Russian - additional information

  • Consonant sounds are divided into voiced sounds - clearly audible when colloquial speech(heat) and deaf, whose pronunciation is similar to a whisper (sleep, noise).
  • Voiced/voiceless sounds are combined into pairs that are easy to remember - b/p, v/f, g/k, d/t, zh/sh, z/s, the rest of the sounds are unpaired - [h], [n], [ts] , [x], [p], [m], [l].
  • When pronounced, a voiced sound can be deafened, and a dull sound can become audible: eyebrow - we hear - brobro, berry - we say - yagatka. In this case, find a test word so that after this consonant there is a vowel - eyebrows, berries. An exception (you need to remember) is an astronaut, a station, a zigzag and others.

  • Hissing - Zh and Sh in the presence of a hard sound - Y, are written with a soft vowel - I (reeds, belly, living creatures). The sounds Ch and Shch with soft voicing (Ya-Yu) are written with hard vowels - A-U. For example: sorrel, rooks, pike, miracle.

  • Among the consonants there are also unpronounceable ones, which are checked by related word with a clear sound: reed - reed.

  • We can only hear some sounds. For example: skillful, wonderful, heavenly sound with the sound “T”, but it is not there. There is a funny rhyme about this, memorize it and write it correctly.

Correlating letters and sounds is very important for correct pronunciation and writing, so carefully study the presented material and try to convey it to the child in an accessible way.

It is important not to confuse the concepts of letter and sound.

There are 10 vowels in the Russian language, but only 6 vowel sounds:

a o and e y

There are 21 consonants, a consonants 36:

b c d e h j l m n p r s t f x

their paired soft options b c, etc.

sounds that are not paired in softness and hardness: zh ts sh h i sh

In total, it turns out Russian language has 42 sounds.

Interestingly, most sources indicate that the Russian language has 42 sounds. But this source assures that there are 43 sounds in the Russian language (of which 6 are vowels and 37 consonants), with total number letters equal to 33.

Interesting. But it seems to me that, say, the letter a in the words owl and room are two different sounds.

And indeed, in phonetic transcription There are 9 or even 10 sounds in the Russian language:

http://www.hi-edu.ru/e-books/xbook107/01/part-025.htm

http://www.gramota.ru/book/litnevskaya.php?part1.htm#4_2

There are 42 sounds in the Russian language. Of these vowel sounds 6- a, o, e, and, y, s.

Consonants sounds 32 . And this despite the fact that there are only 21 consonant letters. But so many sounds arise due to the fact that some sounds have a hardness-softness pair: hard p and soft p, hard d and soft d, and so on. The sounds sh, shch, ts, y, ch, zh do not have a pair in terms of softness and hardness.

Different authors have different ways. At the lyceum they teach this: in the Russian language there are 10 vowel sounds. My little son asks me: How can this be? After all, the sounds e, yu, ya are friendly sounds: they consist of a vowel sound and a consonant - Y? I turned to the teacher with this question, because the child is right! In response I heard the following: Forget what you know! We will talk about this in elementary school, but for now let him know 10 vowel sounds. It so happened that we taught the child according to one system, but at the preparatory courses at the lyceum they are told something completely different. And on next year the child will need to be retrained again. What a metamorphosis in our Russian education!

To date, according to the rules, in the Russian language there are 33 letters 42 sounds.

The letters b and b have no sounds.

10 vowels give a total of 6 sounds - A, I, O, U, E, Y.

21 consonants form 36 consonant sounds.

15 letters - B, V, G, D, Z, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, T, F, X form 2 sounds each: hard b and soft b.

The letters Y, Ch, Shch make one soft sound each, and the letters Zh, Sh, Ts form one hard sound each.

But some language researchers also identify other consonant sounds.

There are 33 letters in modern Russian. There are 10 vowels and 21 consonants, and there are two more signs. But there will be only 6 vowel sounds. There are many more consonant sounds - 36 sounds. And there are 42 sounds in the language.

There are 36 consonant sounds in the Russian language, but there are only 21 letters, because many letters have a hard and soft sound, causing the number of sounds to increase. As for vowel sounds, there are only 6 of them in the Russian language, these are a, e, i, o, u, y. In total there are 42 sounds.

The Russian language has 33 letters, or as some people believe, 31 letters and 2 signs. They have 9 units more sounds.

So - 33 letters - 10 vowels, 21 consonants, 2 signs. 42 sounds - 6 vowels (o, e, i, ы, а, у), 36 consonants.

Human speech is made up of speech sounds. There are 33 letters in the Russian alphabet, 2 of which - b and b - have no sounds. There are 6 vowel sounds (a, i, o, u, e, s). There are 36 consonant sounds. 15 letters are formed from letters containing two sounds, these letters are b, c, g, d, z, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, x, f.

  • How many vowels and consonants are there in the Russian language...

    Sound is the unit of any spoken speech. In ordinary writing, sounds are represented by letters. The sound itself does not carry any meaning. Sounds just form words.

    There are exactly 33 letters in the Russian language, 21 of which are consonants, which form 36 sounds in spoken speech. This difference in quantity can be explained by the fact that the softness of some paired consonant sounds is indicated by vowels or soft sign. And there are 10 vowels, but only 6 vowel sounds are formed from them.