Vowels and consonants of the alphabet. Consonants and letters

Is the letter "Y" a vowel or a consonant, hard or soft? Phonetic analysis of the word.

This question is often asked by students who need to parse a word according to all the rules of phonetics. You will get the answer to it a little further.

General information.

Before talking about what the letter “y” is (soft or hard), you should find out why the letters of the Russian alphabet are generally divided according to such criteria.

The fact is that each word has its own sound shell, which consists of separate sounds. It should be noted that the sound of this or that expression is fully consistent with its meaning. At the same time, different words and their forms have completely different sound design. The sounds themselves don't matter. However, they play an important role in the Russian language. After all, thanks to them, we can easily distinguish words.
Let's give an example : [house] - [lady´] - [home´ma]; [m'el] - [m'el '], [volume] - [there], [house] - [volume].

Transcription.

Why do we need information about what the letter "y" is (hard or soft)? During a word, it is very important to correctly display the transcription that describes its sound. In such a system, it is customary to use the following symbols:

- This designation is called square brackets. They must be put to indicate transcription.

[ ´] is an accent. It is placed if the word has more than one syllable.

[b '] - a kind of comma is placed next to the consonant letter and indicates its softness.

By the way, during the phonetic analysis of words, the following symbol is often used - [j]. As a rule, they denote the sound of the letter “y” (sometimes a symbol such as [y] is also used).

Letter "y": consonant or vowel?

As you know, in Russian all sounds are divided into consonants and vowels. They are perceived and pronounced differently.

Vowel sounds are those sounds during the pronunciation of which air passes easily and freely through the mouth, without encountering any obstacles in its path. Moreover, they can be pulled, with the help of them you can scream. If you put your palm to your throat, then the work of the cords (voice) during the pronunciation of vowels can be quite easily felt. There are 6 stressed vowels in Russian, namely: [a], [e], [u], [s], [o] and [i].

Consonant sounds are those sounds during the pronunciation of which the air meets an obstacle in its path, namely a bow or a gap. Their appearance determines the nature of the sounds. As a rule, a gap is formed when pronouncing [s], [w], [h] and [g]. In this case, the tip of the tongue approaches the upper or lower teeth. The presented consonants can be drawn (for example, [zh-zh-zh], [z-z-z]). As for the bow, such a barrier is formed due to the closing of the organs of speech. The air, or rather its flow, abruptly overcomes it, due to which the sounds are energetic and short. That is why they are called explosive. By the way, it is impossible to pull them (try it yourself: [p], [b], [t], [d]).

In addition to the above consonants, the Russian language also has the following: [m], [d], [c], [f], [g], [l], [p], [h], [c], [x] . As you can see, there are many more than vowels.

Silent and voiced sounds.

By the way, many consonants form between pairs of deafness and sonority: [k] - [g], [b] - [p], [h] - [c], [d] - [t], [f] - [c], etc. In total, there are 11 such pairs in Russian. However, there are sounds that do not have pairs on this basis. These include: [th], [p], [n], [l], [m] are unpaired voiced, and [h] and [c] are unpaired voiceless.

Soft and hard consonants.

As you know, consonants differ not only in sonority or, conversely, deafness, but also in softness and hardness. This property represents the second most important feature of sounds.

So, the letter "y": hard or soft? To answer this question, you should consider each feature separately:

During the pronunciation of soft consonants, the entire tongue moves slightly forward, and its middle part rises slightly.
During the pronunciation of hard consonants, the entire tongue is literally pulled back.

It should be especially noted that many consonants form pairs among themselves according to such features as softness and hardness: [d] - [d '], [p] - [p '], etc. There are 15 such pairs in total. However, there are also sounds that do not have pairs on this basis. What solid letters are unpaired? These include the following - [w], [g] and [c]. As for unpaired soft ones, these are [u '], [h '] and [y '].

Letter designation.

Now you know the information about whether the letter "y" is hard or soft. But here comes new question: "How is the softness of such sounds indicated in writing?" For this, completely different methods are used:

The letters "e", "u", "ё", "i" after the consonants (not counting "zh", "sh", and "c") indicate that these consonants are soft. Let's give an example: uncle - [d'a´d'a], aunt - [t'o´t'a].
The letter "i" after the consonants (not counting "zh", "sh", and "c") indicates that these consonants are soft. Let's give an example: cute - [m'and'cute'], sheet - [l'ist], nowhere - [n'i´tk'i].
The soft sign ("ь") after consonants (not counting "zh" and "w") is an indicator of grammatical form. It also indicates that consonants are soft. Examples example: distance - [gave '], stranded - [m'el '], request - [proz'ba].

As you can see, the softness of consonant sounds in writing is conveyed not by individual letters, but by their combinations with the vowels "e", "yu", "ё", "ya", as well as a soft sign. That is why, when phonetically parsing a word, experts recommend paying attention to neighboring characters.

As for the vowel "y", it is always soft. In this regard, in transcription it is usually denoted as follows: [th ']. That is, the comma symbol, indicating the softness of the sound, must always be set. [u '], [h '] obey the same rule.

Let's summarize.

As you can see, there is nothing difficult in correctly making a phonetic analysis of any word. To do this, you just need to know what vowels and consonants are, deaf and voiced, as well as soft and hard. For a better understanding of how it is necessary to arrange transcription, here are a few detailed examples.

1. The word "hero". Consists of two syllables, with the 2nd being stressed. Let's do a breakdown:

G - [g ’] - voiced, consonant and soft.
p - [p] - voiced, consonant, unpaired and hard.
o - [o] - stressed vowel.
th - [th ’] - voiced, consonant, unpaired and soft.

Total: 5 letters and 5 sounds.

2. The word "trees". Consists of three syllables, with the 2nd being stressed. Let's do a breakdown:

D - [d '] - voiced, consonant and soft.
e - [and] - unstressed vowel.
p - [p '] - voiced, consonant, unpaired and soft.
e - [e´] - stressed vowel.
in - [in '] - voiced, consonant and soft
b - [–]
e - [y '] - voiced, consonant, unpaired and soft and [e] - vowel, unstressed;
in - [f] - deaf,

There are a lot of different voices in the world, almost everything, except for the vacuum, can be heard. Mankind has created in the process a system of conditional signals, the combination of which can be perceived by the consciousness of each of the individuals as a kind of image that implies a specific semantic meaning.

In contact with

So what are sounds in Russian? These are essentially meaningless, the smallest elements of words or that help convey a thought from one person to another. For example, the combination of the consonants "d" and "m" and one vowel "o" can create the word "house", which in turn has a very specific meaning. Such "bricks" of the Russian language are vowels and consonants, hard and soft, hissing and sonorous.

What is the difference?

When thinking about how to distinguish between sounds and letters, it is worth knowing that the second is specific characters with which graphically record what we hear, for example, there is an “a”, which we can say out loud, mentally, whisper or shout, however, until it is written down on paper in the desired form, it will not become a letter. From this it is clear that it is very simple to distinguish between these two concepts - what is on paper, a written symbol is a letter, what we hear or say is a sound.

Attention! How do sounds differ from their written symbols? There are 33 graphic elements in Russian, but they consist of 43 voice signals, with 10 vowels and 6 sounds, and vice versa, 21 and 37 consonants, respectively. From this we can draw a simple conclusion - not all letters and sounds coincide with each other and are heard the way they are written.

What are vowels?

This is the name of such elements of the language that can be sung. How do they differ from their opposite - consonants? They are consist only of voice, the air during their pronunciation is easily drawn into the lungs and passed through the mouth. What are vowels? These are graphic symbols written on paper or a combination of them.

table of correspondence

What letters make two sounds? Some are formed by two elements - a consonant (s) and a vowel corresponding to the sound. These are the iotized elements of the alphabet that are needed to perform the following functions:

1. If you need to put a vowel after a vowel, for example, the word "my".
2. After the separating sign - "hug".
3. In cases where the vowel should be at the beginning of the phonetic word - "pit".
4. If you need to soften the consonant in front - “chalk”.
5. If you need to reproduce a foreign word.

If such an iotized symbol comes after an unpaired one in terms of hardness or softness, then it denotes an ordinary one, for example, “silk” is read as “silk”.

Iotated vowels

What are consonants?

Consonants are the smallest language units that cannot be sung when they are pronounced. air exhaled from the lungs hits an obstacle, for example, on the language. They are divided into pairs, hissing, as well as hard and soft. Let's deal with everyone in order.

Voiced, deaf and hissing

What are the consonants? The table will help you see clearly:

The apostrophe denotes softened elements. This applies to all of the listed pairs, except for "g", since it cannot be soft. In addition, there are consonants that have not been defined in pairs. It:

In addition to the deaf and voiced ones listed, there are also hissing ones. These include "g", "w", "u" and "h". They are necessarily deaf, when they are pronounced language different ways pressed against the palate. To the ear, they are a bit like the hiss of a snake, if you stretch them a little.

Consonants

Hard and soft

Soft differ from hard in the way of pronunciation. When a person pronounces them, he presses his tongue to the palate, which makes them not so rude. As in the previous case, they are divided into pairs, with some exceptions. Almost all elements of the Russian alphabet can be both hard and soft. How many of them do not have such a pair?

It turns out that the pairs do not make up all hissing, “sh” and Y, which is also present in the composition of several vowels. All others can be softened under certain conditions.

Such a difference between the number of consonants in the Russian language is justified precisely by the last division according to softness. The fact is that such a softened form is not reflected graphically in writing in any way - we learn about softness by the softening vowel that follows it. This almost doubles the number of sounding units compared to letters.

Hard and soft consonants

How do vowels differ from consonants?

The division into two types of sounds occurs depending on pronunciation techniques. Melodious and "light" vowels, unlike consonants, are easy to pronounce, pull, sing. If you listen to any melodic song, you can hear that they stretch like marshmallows.

Consonants, in turn, imply some kind of obstacle, that is, the flow of air does not come out of the mouth easily and smoothly, but bumping into the tongue, lips, teeth, and so on. Such elements are difficult to pull, they seem to have a sharp ending, regardless of whether they are sonorous or deaf, hard or soft.

Interesting! With graphic symbols, everything happens in exactly the same way, because despite the fact that they are written on paper, belonging to one or another group is determined precisely by sound.

"Special" elements of the Russian language

There are two characters in the Russian alphabet, under which no audible signals are implied. This is a hard sign "b" and a soft sign "b". They are needed:

1. To share. The presence of one of these signs in a word indicates that the vowel following it should be iotized.
2. A non-separating soft sign can inform the reader that the consonant preceding it is soft, or perform grammatical function, for example, indicate the gender of the word - "oven".

Russian lessons Sounds and letters

Vowels and consonants. Designating them with letters

Conclusion

Knowing the correct interaction of these basic elements helps to write many Russian words correctly. Sound and writing give the key to the melody of speech and writing, its beauty and harmony.

Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy said that there is nothing sedimentary or crystalline in the Russian language; everything excites, breathes, lives. Such "liveness" of our mother tongue, is the merit of its constituent words. But before you learn how to use them, you need to learn the letters and sounds. about them and will be discussed in this article.

When studying a language with a child, you need to clearly let him understand the differences between oral and written speech. To do this, it is important to give him the concept of what a sound is, and what is a letter.

Sounds are what we perceive with our ears. Our brain easily separates what is related to speech from other sounds and interprets them into images. We can write the sounds of speech in letters, forming words from them.

A letter is a graphic symbol of the alphabet, thanks to which we can display on paper what we hear by ear. But, here for the child lies a very big difficulty. After all, the number of sounds and letters that reproduce them on paper, in different words may differ in one direction or the other.

How many letters and sounds in the Russian language and alphabet and their ratio

IMPORTANT: We hear sounds and can produce them with our speech apparatus. We can see and write letters! There are sounds in all languages. Even in those where there is no writing.

In a word like "chair" letters correspond to sounds. But, in the word "sun", the letter "L" not pronounced. Letters are also not pronounced. "b" and "b". They only slightly change the pronunciation of the words in which they are used.

There is also such a "school" word as "Compass". In which instead of sound [AND] sound is pronounced [S].

There are still a lot of words in Russian that are not pronounced the way they are written in letters. Therefore, it is very important for a child to learn to correctly understand this difference.

Alphabet

Language is the main invention of mankind. Moreover, for each people who created their own language, it differs in features characteristic of this people. At a certain stage in the development of a community that uses a particular people, there is a need to record speech sounds combined into words and sentences. This is how writing appeared, and at the same time the alphabet. That is, a set of all letters used in writing, standing in strict order.

The alphabet of the Russian language has 33 letters and looks like this:

The alphabet is the base of any language that everyone who learns it needs to know. Is it possible to learn to speak without knowing the alphabet? Of course. But, in addition to being able to express your thoughts, you need to learn how to write and read. And this can not be done without knowing the alphabet.

Today, children have a lot of different aids for learning the alphabet. You can buy special flash cards, magnets, a small primer that the child can take with him on walks or trips.

In our computerized age, electronic gadgets can also be called upon to help you learn the alphabet. Type letters in text apps and name the sounds that teach them. You can connect your imagination and use graphic editors, change fonts and add fills. Create your own alphabet that will be of interest to the child. Then the training will go faster and more efficiently.

INTERESTING: Teachers came up with a very interesting and fun way to learn the alphabet. Dedicate each new day in your family to one of the letters of the alphabet. Of course, we should not forget about the rest. Bake buns in the shape of letters, make letters from plasticine with your child, draw them, collect them from counting sticks. Be sure to talk about the letter that the day is dedicated to and give examples of its use.

Vowel sounds and letters

Introducing the alphabet to a child is a very exciting activity. But, this is only one of the first steps in mastering the language. To continue the study of its elementary units, you need to learn how to divide them according to their characteristics.

Those letters that are pronounced lingeringly are called vowels.

• There are 10 vowels in Russian "A", "E", "E", "I", "O", "U", "S", "E", "Yu", "I"
• 6 vowels [a], [o], [y], [e], [and], [s]. Usually vowels in school curriculum should be highlighted in red.

We have already identified the difference between elementary particles language.

Letters I, Yo, Yu, E - iotated. They mean one or two sounds.

From this table - this difference can be seen again:

INTERESTING: By the way, about the letter "Yo". Today it is mistakenly considered that it was introduced into our alphabet by Karamzin. But, it's not. This was done by the director of the St. Petersburg Academy, Princess Ekaterina Dashkova, on November 18, 1783 at a meeting on the occasion of the creation of the first explanatory dictionary in Russia. She suggested changing the letters "IO" to one "Yo".

Stressed and unstressed vowels

• Stressed vowel pronounced with great force and does not change.

For example: sn e g, st ý l, sh a f

• unstressed vowel sound pronounced with little force and undergoes changes.

For example: to O rzina (heard instead of O, sound BUT), m E two d (In the first unstressed vowel instead of E, is heard And), pl E cho (vowel And heard instead E).

IMPORTANT: The stress is not put in words with one syllable and in words with a letter Yo.

Vowels Iotated letters I, Yu, E, Yo make the consonant sound in front of them soft and create one sound: e → [e] or [i], ё → [o], yu → [y], i → [a ].

For example:

• At the beginning of a word: hedgehog [y'ozhik]
• In the middle of a word: shelter [at y'ut]
• At the end of a word: gun [rouge y'o]

Hard and soft vowels directly affect consonants. For example, a consonant "P", maybe as solid (in a word "package"), and soft (in the word "cookie").

Consonants and letters

Consonants are called such because of the inclusion of consonants in their composition. There are 36 consonants in Russian:

Apostrophe marked soft sounds.
And 21 consonants:

Consonants and sounds soft and hard: table

Consonants, like vowels, can be either hard or soft. For example, in the word "River", beech "R" soft, but "Hand"- solid. In general, several factors influence the softness and hardness of sounds in a word. For example, the location of a sound in a word. Soften the sounds of iot vowels ( "E", "Yo", "YU" and "I") and diphthongs that come after consonants. For example:

• "White"
• "Love"
• "Friday"

Also softens the sounds of the letter "AND", and its antipode "Y", on the contrary, makes the sound hard. An important role is played by the presence soft sign at the end of a word:

• "Linen" and "laziness"

A soft sign can soften the sound, even if it is inside a word:

• "Skates"

Voiceless and voiced consonants in Russian: table

Consonants can be voiced or voiceless. Voiced are obtained with the participation of the voice in the formation of sound. Whereas in the formation of a deaf sound, the voice practically does not play its creative role.

Voiced consonants are formed when an air stream passes through the oral cavity and the vocal cords vibrate. This results in consonants such as:

To make it easy to remember deaf consonants, remember the expression: STEPKA DO YOU WANT A PIECE? - FI!

If you delete all vowels from this expression, only deaf consonants remain.

Paired and unpaired hard and soft consonants: table

By hardness-softness, most sounds form pairs:

Paired and unpaired voiced and deaf consonants: table

In Russian, it is customary to distinguish pairs of deaf-voiced consonants:

The remaining consonants are unpaired:

Sometimes there is a "forced" deafness or sonority of a consonant sound. This is due to the position of the sound in the word. A common example of such a forced state is the words: pond [rod] and booth [butka].

Sonorant- voiced unpaired consonants. There are only 9 of them: [th’], [l], [l’], [m], [m’], [n], [n’], [r], [r’]

Noisy consonants - there are voiced and deaf:

1. Noisy voiceless consonants(16): [k], [k'], [p], [n'], [s], [s'], [t], [t'], [f], [f'], [ x], [x'], [c], [h'], [w], [w'];
2. Noisy voiced consonants(11): [b], [b'], [c], [c'], [d], [g'], [e], [e'], [g], [h], [h '].

Summary table of commonly used soft and hard letters and sounds in Russian:

Hissing consonants

Consonants "AND", "SH", "H" and "SCH" are called hissing. These letters bring some zest to our language. At the same time, they make it very difficult. While studying these letters, the child should know the rules:

• "ZhI" — "SHI" write with "AND"
• "CHA" — "ShA" with a letter "BUT"
• "CHU" — "SHU" with a letter "U"

Letters "AND" and "H" are voiced, and the other two ( "SH" and "SCH") deaf. An important feature of these sounds is that it is impossible to pronounce from without opening the mouth. Compare their pronunciation with the pronunciation "M" or "N". To pronounce hissing consonants, there must be a gap between the lips through which air will escape, creating an acoustic accompaniment of these sounds.

The letter "and short" denotes the consonant sound th

Letter "Y" or "And short" found in almost all Slavic alphabets, as well as in those non-Slavic alphabets where the Cyrillic alphabet is used. In the Russian alphabet, this letter occupies the 11th place. It was formed from the vowel "AND" and voiced consonant J.

It is interesting that in the 18th century, when the civil type was introduced (as opposed to the church type), all superscript characters disappeared from it. And the letter "Y" missing an important part. At the same time, the sound that was designated by this letter “did not suffer” from such reforms. Return "Y" in the letter succeeded under Peter I. But, at the same time, it was not returned to the alphabet. This was done only in the 20th century.

Today, more and more philologists attribute sound "Y" to sonorant consonants. That is, to such sounds that are located between vowels and consonants, but still refers to a consonant. In addition, it is always considered soft.

Which letters have multiple sounds?

Ribbon of letters and sounds for elementary school

Very good help in learning the Russian language in various manuals. One of these benefits is "Summer of Letters". It helps to understand the difference between letters, develop reading skills in children faster and facilitate the phonetic analysis of a word.

Even at first glance "Tape of Letters" carries a minimum of information, this is far from the case. This manual can be used not only at school, but also at home. Parents can self-teach their child literacy with this tool.

On the initial stage learning the Russian language in grade 1, you need to learn the vowels and consonants of the alphabet. To consonants relate: B, C, D, D, F, Z, Y, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, T, F, X, C, H, W, S . Note, Y- consonant letter. To vowel letters are A, E, E, I, O, U, S, E, Yu, I . Letters b and Kommersant are neither vowels nor consonants. Vowels are pronounced with the participation of the voice, they can be sung. Consonants consist only of noise, they cannot be sung. (When memorizing vowels and consonants, you can try to sing them).

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

Online game "Vowels and consonants"

Introduction

In Russian, all letters, both vowels and consonants, are its basis. After all, thanks to letters, syllables are formed, and with the help of syllables we compose words, from words, expressions, sentences, and so on.

But today's lesson we will start by studying the consonants of the Russian language.

Consonants

Distinguish between consonants and sounds. What are these letters that are called consonants? To understand what consonants are, let's learn about the origin of the word "consonants". And they are called so because they always go next to vowels or together with vowels.

There is a fundamental difference between consonants and vowels. If you remember that all vowels can be easily pulled or even sung, then consonants should be pronounced as short as possible. The only exceptions are hissing consonants, since they can also be pulled.

The alphabet of the Russian language has twenty-one consonants and 37 consonants.

Consonants

Voiced and deaf sounds

Consonants are divided into voiced and unvoiced sounds. Here, pay attention to the letters that are written in pairs. If you look closely, then in each pair there is one letter that has a deaf sound, and the other has a voiced sound.

Silent letters mean a dull sound, and when we pronounce them, we hear only noise, while pronouncing voiced letters, we can hear not only noise, but also a voice.

B - P, Z - S, D - T, G - K

But in this moment we see letters that have a pair. These pairs in Russian can be counted eleven pieces. But not all letters got pairs, so in the Russian alphabet there are also unpaired voiced, as well as unpaired deaf.

An exercise: Think of words for paired voiced and deaf sounds.

Soft and hard sounds

In addition to voiced and unvoiced letters of the alphabet can have soft and hard consonants.

During the pronunciation of sounds, in accordance with what sound we pronounce, the position of our tongue changes. When pronouncing soft consonants, our language takes one position, and when it is hard, it is completely different.

Now let's try to pronounce soft sounds first, and then hard ones. If you notice, then when pronouncing soft consonants, we move the tongue a little forward and at the same time its middle part slightly rises. But when we pronounce hard consonants, our tongue is slightly pulled back.

Vowels and sounds in Russian

Now we invite you to remember what vowel sounds and letters are in Russian. There are only ten of us:

Pronouncing vowel sounds, unlike consonants, during pronunciation we can pull or sing them, and at the same time we feel how the air passes through the whole oral cavity and we hear our voice clearly.

Exercise 1.

Write the word rose

1. Change the letter z to s in this word.
2. What word did you get?
3. What has now changed in the third sound, and how did it begin to sound?
4. What are all the vowels in this word?
5. What are the consonants in this word?

Exercise 2.

Cat, juice, small, feast, bow, ball

1. Replace the vowels in these words with other vowels.
2. What kind of words did you get?
3. Write down the new words you come up with.
4. How are vowels read in previous words?
5. How should sounds be read, hard or soft, in newly formed words?

Homework

1. Vowels and consonants - what is their difference?
2. What is the difference between letters and sounds?
3. Does the number of letters of the Russian alphabet match the number of sounds?
4. Why are there fewer vowels in Russian than vowels?
5. How can you explain why there are more sounds than letters?
6. What types of consonant sounds are divided into?