 The most common problems students in Russia face when learning English. It is not a secret for anyone that native speakers of any language always easily identify non-native when they hear at least a few words spoken by them. Often native speakers are able to fairly accurately determine the country from which the person came, based on his pronunciation. This happens due to the fact that it is common for all of us to use the sounds of our native language in the pronunciation of words of a foreign language, as well as to use articulation models we know from childhood the position of the organs of speech, lips, tongue, etc. The Russian mistakes. We pronounce words with stress characteristic of the native language and speak with intonations corresponding to the intonational patterns of the native language. All these aspects create a recognizable national accent. The so-called Russian mistakes characteristic of Russian speaking people studying English are due to the discrepancy between Russian and English sounds. It is difficult for a Russian speaking students to use precisely those phonemes that have no analogs in Russian phonetics. Students are simply not used to this type of articulation. Consider the basic errors in English pronunciation, which have Russian roots. Legendary combination of T H is the visiting card of Russians abroad. These specific sounds theta and F Russian speaking people often pronounce as F and Z the words there is there is Zara there are free three and Finky Ushinkyu thank you are the most common examples it seems to us that we pronounce similar Russian sounds and there is no harm in that however native speakers do not understand us because words lose their meaning due to the replacement of sound when pronouncing the sound theta slash linguists recommend placing the tongue between the teeth and uttering the Russian letter T and for the sound F say the Russian D keep in mind that you should feel a slight vibration of the air in the throat meeting voiced consonants in the endings speaking in Russian we usually replace the voiced consonants at the end of the word voiceless non-sonorous consonants this is a feature of the Russian language but in English such a replacement can completely change the meaning of the word because of the wrong pronunciation the adjective bad becomes an on bat replacing long vowels with short vowels there are no long and short vowels in Russian so for many students it is not clear how important it is to make this distinction the length of vowels in the English language has a distinguishing function that is because of the length of the sound you will understand they told you about the ship or about the sheep in some cases this error is very dangerous because instead of the word you need you can accidentally pronounce a swear word or frankly obscene word only because of an incorrectly pronounced vowel sound replacement of different English sounds hence the constant confusion between thing sing think sink three free this with what that first first Zen then as well as the universal replacement of English W with Russian V Vadins Todd of what or on the contrary the use of sound W where there should be V vodka instead of vodka newer instead of never or instead of over etc using Russian intonation models instead of English ones many people believe that pronunciation refers exclusively to the sounds of speech but the most important aspects of pronunciation are rhythm pauses stress and intonation we convey only 7% of the meaning in words 38% in pair linguistic means that is intonation rhythm pauses and 55% facial expressions and gestures the same phrase uttered with different intonation can mean completely different things intonation patterns of Russian and English differ in many ways thus the use of Russian intonation models when communicating in English can cause misunderstanding because intonation will not convey the meaning that the speaker wanted to express native English speakers say that the Russian intonation sounds rough to them as if the interlocutors are arguing these are not the only problems with pronunciation that Russian speaking students face but some of the most common there are a number of special textbooks created to help those who want to get rid of problems in pronunciation and Russian accent tree or three an elementary pronunciation course by n Baker English pronunciation in use Jonathan Marks new head Ray pronunciation course Oxford 2000 to 2002 and so on nowadays on the internet you can find a lot of free videos from native English speakers in which they give practical advice on improving pronunciation and acquiring an American or British accent of course acquiring the correct pronunciation at the initial stages of learning is crucial correcting mistakes later will be much more difficult learn how to improve your students pronunciation with a TEFL course speak with an ITTT advisor today to put together your personal plan for teaching English abroad send us an email or call us toll free at 1-800-490-0531 to speak with an IDTT advisor today