French → Russian
Russian uses 46 sounds. You already own 20 of them from French. The other 26 are the work — and 22 of those are the dangerous kind: close enough to something you already say that you will substitute them without hearing yourself do it.
The silent swaps
Your mouth has something close enough to reach for. These survive for years precisely because they sound right to you — the fix is hearing the difference first, not trying harder.
the move: close → near-close
Russian: winter · written "е", "я (unstressed)"
Your /i/ is the one in lit (bed).
the move: close → near-close
Russian: hand · written "у (unstressed)"
Your /u/ is the one in jour (day).
the move: palatalised
Russian: five · written "пь", "пе", "пи", "пя"
Your /p/ is the one in pain (bread).
the move: palatalised
Russian: white · written "бь", "би", "бе"
Your /b/ is the one in bon (good).
the move: palatalised
Russian: books · written "ки", "ке"
Your /k/ is the one in quand (when).
the move: palatalised
Russian: guitar · written "ги", "ге"
Your /ɡ/ is the one in gare (station).
the move: palatalised
Russian: film · written "фи", "фе"
Your /f/ is the one in fleur (flower).
the move: palatalised
Russian: evening · written "вь", "ве", "ви"
Your /v/ is the one in vin (wine).
the move: palatalised
Russian: all · written "сь", "си", "се"
Your /s/ is the one in sel (salt).
the move: palatalised
Russian: winter · written "зь", "зи", "зе"
Your /z/ is the one in cuisine (kitchen).
the move: palatalised
Russian: day · written "нь", "ни", "не"
Your /n/ is the one in nuit (night).
the move: palatalised
Russian: salt · written "ль", "ли", "ле"
Your /l/ is the one in lit (bed).
the move: postalveolar → retroflex
Russian: school · written "ш"
ALWAYS hard, whatever vowel follows. ши is said /ʂɨ/, never /ʃi/.
Your /ʃ/ is the one in chat (cat).
the move: postalveolar → retroflex
Russian: wife · written "ж"
Always hard too.
Your /ʒ/ is the one in jour (day).
the move: front → central
Russian: son · written "ы", "и (after hard)"
The vowel English has no name for. Say /i/ and pull your tongue straight back without rounding.
Your /i/ is the one in lit (bed).
the move: alveolar → dental, palatalised
Russian: to take · written "ть", "ти", "те", "тя"
брат 'brother' vs брать 'to take'. The soft sign is the only difference, and it is not a sound of its own.
Your /t/ is the one in table (table).
the move: alveolar → dental, palatalised
Russian: day · written "дь", "де", "ди"
Your /d/ is the one in deux (two).
the move: postalveolar → alveolo-palatal
Russian: borscht · written "щ"
Always SOFT and always long — the mirror image of ш.
Your /ʃ/ is the one in chat (cat).
the move: mid → near-open
Russian: water · written "о", "а (unstressed)"
AKANYE: unstressed о is said as an a-sound. молоко́ is /məlɐˈko/ — the three о are three different vowels.
Your /ə/ is the one in petit (small).
the move: plosive → fricative
Russian: good, well · written "х"
Not /k/ and not English h — the sound at the end of Scottish loch.
Your /k/ is the one in quand (when).
the move: plosive → affricate
Russian: price · written "ц"
Always hard, even before и.
Your /t/ is the one in table (table).
Words you may say identically
Two or more Russian sounds landing on one sound of yours. Until the ear separates them, the mouth cannot — which is what the ear trainer is for.
- t = tʲ = t͡s → your t vs vs
- k = kʲ = x → your k vs vs
- i = ɨ = ɪ → your i vs vs
- p = pʲ → your p vs
- b = bʲ → your b vs
- d = dʲ → your d vs
- ɡ = ɡʲ → your ɡ vs
- f = fʲ → your f vs
- v = vʲ → your v vs
- s = sʲ → your s vs
- z = zʲ → your z vs
- ʂ = ɕː → your ʃ vs
- m = mʲ → your m vs
- n = nʲ → your n vs
- l = lʲ → your l vs
- u = ʊ → your u vs
- ɐ = ə → your ə vs
Genuinely new
Nothing in French sits close to these. They sound foreign in your mouth — which is the good news: you can hear that you are not saying them yet.
hour
Always soft, even before а.
Closest thing you own: — but fricative → affricate, postalveolar → alveolo-palatal.
chemistry
Closest thing you own: — but plosive → fricative, palatalised.
hand, arm
Trilled, as in Spanish perro.
Closest thing you own: — but plosive → trill.
door
Closest thing you own: — but plosive → trill, palatalised.
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| French | Russian | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Syllable-timed | Stress-timed, heavily reduced |
| Stress | This is the one that surprises everyone: French words have NO fixed stress. Prominence lands on the last syllable of the rhythmic GROUP, not of the word — so the same word is stressed differently depending on where it sits. 'Un chocolat' stresses -lat; 'un chocolat chaud' moves it to chaud and the word chocolat loses it entirely. There are no French minimal pairs by stress, because there is nothing to contrast. | Contrastive, and NOT written. За́мок is a castle and замо́к is a lock. Worse, it moves within a word’s own declension — рука́ but ру́ку, окно́ but о́кна — so knowing the word is not the same as knowing where to hit it. Dictionaries mark it; native writing does not. |
What you have that Russian doesn't
16 sounds with no job in Russian. They are not mistakes — but they are where an accent leaks in, because a sound you own is easy to use when a hard one is due.
The honest caveat
This is a prediction from the shape of two sound systems, not a recording of you. It says what your inventory makes likely — it cannot know that your French has a regional variety that already owns one of these, or that you learned Russian from someone whose accent you copied. A teacher listening to you beats it. Use it to know what to listen for.
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