I understand that it makes a 'V' sound but how would you say it in a phrase like this: в шесть часов. When I hear people say it, 'в' sounds almost nonexistent and it's hard for me to distinguish between в шесть часов and шесть часов. Created by jt. travel-en - europe-continental-en - russia-en

How to make 'в' sound in Russian?

May 2021 7 91 Report

How to make 'в' sound in Russian?

I understand that it makes a 'V' sound but how would you say it in a phrase like this: в шесть часов. When I hear people say it, 'в' sounds almost nonexistent and it's hard for me to distinguish between в шесть часов and шесть часов

Travel / Europe (Continental) / Russia

Verified answer

In Russian consonants can be split into voiced (media) consonants and muffled (breath) consonants.

When there are no vowels after voiced consonants they are turned into muffled. It's called оглушение (muffling).

Voiced - muffled

б - п

в - ф

г - к (х in some dialects)

д - т

ж - ш

з - с

Other consonants do not make the transition in any case.

When transcribed the phrase sounds like this:

ф шэс'т' ч'(и/э)соф

Consonant sound with ' means palatalised sound.

(и/э) means и with э overtone, the same way as unstressed о produces о with а overtone.

sortier

The spoken language differs a lot from the written one. For you it is best to pronounce the single в sound distinctively like Ve or just like v at the end of a word. It is not wrong to speak clearly. You are a foreigner anyway who just wants to be understood.

Dood

Usually they just pronounce the 'в' very fast, or even omit the sound. Anyway it is pretty silent.

There's another Russian word, 'вша' (louse). Same story, the 'в' is said very fast but the 'в' is certainly there. Without pronouncing the 'в' the word would distinctively sound 'ша' and it would be different. I mean, Russians would tell the difference.