Malay → Russian
Russian uses 46 sounds. You already own 21 of them from Malay. The other 25 are the work — and 25 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: postalveolar → alveolar
Russian: price · written "ц"
Always hard, even before и.
Your /t͡ʃ/ is the one in cinta (love).
the move: postalveolar → alveolo-palatal
Russian: hour · written "ч"
Always soft, even before а.
Your /t͡ʃ/ is the one in cinta (love).
the move: close → near-close
Russian: winter · written "е", "я (unstressed)"
Your /i/ is the one in ini (this).
the move: close → near-close
Russian: hand · written "у (unstressed)"
Your /u/ is the one in untuk (for).
the move: palatalised
Russian: five · written "пь", "пе", "пи", "пя"
Your /p/ is the one in pagi (morning).
the move: palatalised
Russian: white · written "бь", "би", "бе"
Your /b/ is the one in besar (big).
the move: palatalised
Russian: books · written "ки", "ке"
Your /k/ is the one in kita (we (incl.)).
the move: palatalised
Russian: guitar · written "ги", "ге"
Your /ɡ/ is the one in gigi (tooth).
the move: palatalised
Russian: film · written "фи", "фе"
Your /f/ is the one in faham (to understand).
the move: palatalised
Russian: all · written "сь", "си", "се"
Your /s/ is the one in satu (one).
the move: palatalised
Russian: winter · written "зь", "зи", "зе"
Your /z/ is the one in zaman (era).
the move: palatalised
Russian: chemistry · written "хи", "хе"
Your /x/ is the one in khabar (news).
the move: palatalised
Russian: day · written "нь", "ни", "не"
Your /n/ is the one in nasi (rice).
the move: palatalised
Russian: salt · written "ль", "ли", "ле"
Your /l/ is the one in lima (five).
the move: alveolar → labiodental
Russian: water · written "в"
Your /z/ is the one in zaman (era).
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 syukur (gratitude).
the move: velar → retroflex
Russian: wife · written "ж"
Always hard too.
Your /ɣ/ is the one in ghaib (unseen / supernatural).
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 ini (this).
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 tahu (to know).
the move: alveolar → dental, palatalised
Russian: day · written "дь", "де", "ди"
Your /d/ is the one in dua (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 syukur (gratitude).
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 kereta (car).
the move: palatalised
Russian: door · written "рь", "ри", "ре"
Your /r/ is the one in rumah (house).
the move: alveolar → labiodental, palatalised
Russian: evening · written "вь", "ве", "ви"
Your /z/ is the one in zaman (era).
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.
- v = vʲ = z = zʲ → your z vs vs vs
- i = ɨ = ɪ → your i vs vs
- p = pʲ → your p vs
- b = bʲ → your b vs
- t = tʲ → your t vs
- d = dʲ → your d vs
- k = kʲ → your k vs
- ɡ = ɡʲ → your ɡ vs
- f = fʲ → your f vs
- s = sʲ → your s vs
- x = xʲ → your x vs
- ʂ = ɕː → your ʃ vs
- t͡s = t͡ɕ → your t͡ʃ vs
- m = mʲ → your m vs
- n = nʲ → your n vs
- l = lʲ → your l vs
- r = rʲ → your r vs
- u = ʊ → your u vs
- ɐ = ə → your ə vs
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| Malay | Russian | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Syllable-timed | Stress-timed, heavily reduced |
| Stress | Light and non-contrastive, usually on the second-to-last syllable — and it shifts when suffixes are added, without any effect on meaning. No Malay pair is distinguished by stress, which is one of the reasons Malay is regularly called the most approachable major language to pronounce. | 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
11 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 Malay 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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