That was a super fun lesson with Liza! We did some serious language nerding but kept it light.
First, we matched funny dog memes to phrases like "Привет" (Hi) and "Дела – ужасно!" (Things are terrible!). The dog sitting among the mess perfectly taught me how to say I'm having a rough day. 😂
Then, we dove into sounds. The biggest shock was the O-to-A rule (vowel reduction).
If O isn't stressed, it turns into an A sound.
That’s why хорошо́ (good) is pronounced kharashó, not horosho. It's like the unstressed vowels get lazy!
We also looked at how vowels soften consonants:
Hard Vowels: а, о, у, ы, э (Keep the sound tough)
Soft Vowels: я, ё, ю, и, е (Make the consonant before them soft/squishy)
Learning these simple sound tricks makes reading so much easier. It feels like I cracked a secret code today! Thanks, Liza!
18 nov. 2025