Portuguese → Russian
Russian uses 46 sounds. You already own 21 of them from Portuguese. The other 25 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 vida (life).
the move: close → near-close
Russian: hand · written "у (unstressed)"
Your /u/ is the one in tudo (everything).
the move: palatalised
Russian: five · written "пь", "пе", "пи", "пя"
Your /p/ is the one in pão (bread).
the move: palatalised
Russian: white · written "бь", "би", "бе"
Your /b/ is the one in boca (mouth).
the move: palatalised
Russian: books · written "ки", "ке"
Your /k/ is the one in casa (house).
the move: palatalised
Russian: guitar · written "ги", "ге"
Your /ɡ/ is the one in gato (cat).
the move: palatalised
Russian: film · written "фи", "фе"
Your /f/ is the one in falar (to speak).
the move: palatalised
Russian: evening · written "вь", "ве", "ви"
Your /v/ is the one in verde (green).
the move: palatalised
Russian: all · written "сь", "си", "се"
Your /s/ is the one in sol (sun).
the move: palatalised
Russian: winter · written "зь", "зи", "зе"
Your /z/ is the one in casa (house).
the move: palatalised
Russian: day · written "нь", "ни", "не"
Your /n/ is the one in nada (nothing).
the move: palatalised
Russian: salt · written "ль", "ли", "ле"
Your /l/ is the one in livro (book).
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 chave (key).
the move: postalveolar → retroflex
Russian: wife · written "ж"
Always hard too.
Your /ʒ/ is the one in hoje (today).
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 tudo (everything).
the move: alveolar → dental, palatalised
Russian: day · written "дь", "де", "ди"
Your /d/ is the one in dedo (finger).
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 chave (key).
the move: near-open → mid
Russian: good · written "о", "а (far from stress)"
Further from the stress, the reduction goes further still.
Your /ɐ/ is the one in cama (bed).
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 casa (house).
the move: plosive → affricate
Russian: price · written "ц"
Always hard, even before и.
Your /t/ is the one in tudo (everything).
the move: tap → trill
Russian: hand, arm · written "р"
Trilled, as in Spanish perro.
Your /ɾ/ is the one in caro (expensive).
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
- 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
- i = ɪ → your i vs
- u = ʊ → your u vs
- ɐ = ə → your ɐ vs
Genuinely new
Nothing in Portuguese 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.
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.
| Portuguese | Russian | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Stress-timed (Portugal) | Stress-timed, heavily reduced |
| Stress | Contrastive and written. The default is the second-to-last syllable; anything else takes an accent, and the accent also picks between open and close vowels — avó /ɔ/ is a grandmother and avô /o/ is a grandfather. | 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
14 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 Portuguese 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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