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’