👑♟️If you struggle with reading long, difficult Russian words, you should learn how to split them into smaller parts. To do this correctly, it helps to know the rule of Queens and Pawns.
Queens are vowels (the open-sounding letters in the alphabet), and pawns are consonants (hard sounds).
👑 - а, е, ё, и, й, о, у, э, ы, ю, я
♟️- б, в, г, д, ж, з, к, л, м, н, п, р, с, т, ф, х, ц, ч, ш, щ
Let's try to split the word "путеше́ствие" (journey).
First, find all the queens: пУтЕшЕ́ствИЕ
Now, remember that queens are greedy—they take as many pawns as possible to create one sound. However, they can only take the pawns that come before them.
Because of this, pawns almost always "run" to the right, toward the next queen.
пУ-тЕ-шЕ́-ствИ-Е
зА́-втрА-кА-ть (to have breakfast)
встрЕ-чА́-тьсЯ (to meet, to date)
Exception: The "Sticky Letter Й"
The letter "Й" acts like glue. It always sticks to the queen that comes before it and never runs away to the next one.
Examples:
ча́й-ка (seagull)
тро-ле́й-бус (trolleybus)
ска-ме́й-ка (bench)
The Rule of the "Independent Queen"
Sometimes two queens appear next to each other with no pawns in between. What do you do in that case?
Rule: Each queen is so important that it can stand alone as its own separate syllable!
Examples:
фо-то-а-ппа-ра́т (camera)
би-бли-о-те́-ка (library)
To pronounce difficult words more quickly and naturally, you can clap 👏 along with each syllable as you say them.
фо-(clap)-то(clap)-а(clap)-ппа(clap)-ра́т(clap)
