III. Pronunciation Rules & Voicing
1. Final devoicing
Russian words experience something known as ‘final devoicing’. If a word ends in a voiced consonant (see above table), at the end of a word it becomes voiceless. So, a final ‘б’ will sound like ‘п’, a final ‘д’ like a ‘т’, a final ‘г’ like a ‘к’, and so on.
Listen to the following examples. Note the difference in pronunciation when a voiced consonant is the FINAL letter of the word versus when it is not.
| го́род ‘city’ | |
| города́ ‘cities‘ | |
| флаг ‘flag’ | |
| фла́ги ‘flags’ | |
| зуб ‘tooth’ | |
| зу́бы ‘teeth’ |
2. Regressive voicing assimilation
One more. When these consonants (in the table above) are clustered together in a word, the voicing quality of the final consonant in the sequence determines those consonants before it. If a cluster ends in a voiced consonant, then the consonants preceding it will also be pronounced voiced (even though they may be written as voiced consonants).
Listen. Notice the spelling and listen to what happens:
| футбо́л ‘soccer’ | |
| та́к же ‘likewise’ |
Likewise, a sequence of consonants whose final letter is ‘voiceless’ requires that all consonants immediately preceding it must also be voiceless. For example:
| ло́дка ‘boat’ | |
| авто́бус ‘bus’ |
*NOTE: The letter {В, в} is somewhat exceptional to these rules. It can undergo voicing, as in ‘автобус’ above, but it cannot trigger voicing. For example, твой is pronounce as [tvoj], with no voicing assimilation triggered for /t/. Listen:
| твой ‘your’ |