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The reference material I've been reading is somewhat confusing. Some sources say that "й" is equivalent to "j", while others say it's equivalent to "y". Which is it? For example, is it pronounced "j" as in jar, "y" as in yes, or something else?

CocoPop
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ctype.h
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    An example to remember: New York = Нью-Йорк. (A more accurate transliteration might be Ну-Йорк, but that's not how it goes.) – KCd Nov 29 '12 at 01:46
  • So, edit the question to make it clearer. As you can see, Jonathan Christensen is considering spelling as well. Also, й stands for palatal approximant /j/, which you are calling y. This letter is used for the same sound in other slavic languages. As for /dʒ/-phoneme, which you call 'j' - there is no such sound in Russian at all. – shabunc Nov 29 '12 at 05:37
  • I do not know anything about spelling yet. I am sorry if I cannot go from knowing half of the alphabet (and having to type every key on my keyboard to get one letter), to understanding the complex phonetic structures of a language in a few minutes. – ctype.h Nov 29 '12 at 06:00
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    @shabunc why do you say we don't have a sound for dʒ? This is not a single sound, as this very phonetic transcription indicates, but two, and exactly in Russian we have letters for both of them: д & ж. Admittedly our д is not exactly as in English, but in this case very close. – texnic Nov 29 '12 at 08:27
  • @texnic, please, provide some examples. – shabunc Nov 29 '12 at 08:35
  • @texnic, oh, I see why you are confused. It's just that combinations of letters д and ж does not provide automatically phoneme /dʒ/ - джаст is not just, for example. – shabunc Nov 29 '12 at 08:48
  • @texnic: "j" in "joule" is an affricate, дж in джоуль is a stop-fricative combination. The difference is the same as between English "cat shit" and "catch it". – Quassnoi Nov 29 '12 at 11:19
  • At the level at which ctype.h is asking the question, I think the sound j in English is functionally the same as дж. Compare George and Джордж, or Hodge and Ходж. – KCd Nov 29 '12 at 23:10
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    @KCd "j" in English is like voiced "ч". – Anixx Nov 30 '12 at 00:27
  • @ctype.h, you've mentioned that you are having trouble typing in Russian. You can make it much easier for yourself by installing a phonetic Russian keyboard layout which would map A to А, B to Б, etc. The instructions are here: http://winrus.com/kbd_e.htm – Dima Nov 30 '12 at 13:44
  • 'й' is how Ukrainians pronounce 'гь' :) – Leonid Dec 31 '12 at 06:29
  • I think you are being confused by two different uses of (Roman) letters to represent Russian pronunciation: one is "English respelling", using the letters as in English, the other is using IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet: see the Wikipedia article). By comparison with almost all other languages which traditionally use the Roman alphabet, English spelling is seriously weird, which causes the problem. – Brian Chandler Apr 17 '16 at 04:54

6 Answers6

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Й is always pronounced like Y in "Yes". The reason it is often tansliterated as J is that in many languages (German, Polish) J is also pronounced like Y in "Yes".

Dima
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    as far as I know, in all Slavic languages with latin-based alphabet, J stands for Й. – shabunc Nov 29 '12 at 05:38
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    That is difference of alphabets not of the pronunciation. Й is a sound similar to y in "yes" or in "bay" - with the differences given below. The situation is displayed correctly. – Viridianus Feb 15 '14 at 19:23
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As a letter "Й" is used to make sound like Y in Yes, but its accurate to say that combination "Ye" from Yes sounds like russian "E". There are several russian letters that sounds like "Й" + another letter, for example E = Й + Э, Ю = Й + У, Ё = Й + О. Thus, the main purpose of "Й" is the formation of new letters. :) Sorry for english

russianboy
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Y in "Yes" is pronounced in a much more light way than the Russian Й, the distance between the tongue and the palate in English is wider.
Try to say it as Y in Yes, but the air should pass between the tongue and palate with much more strength. The hole between tongue and palate should be as narrow as it possible and also longer.

As for J as in jar, it has nothing in common with Й or any other Russian sound.

Gangnus
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1

Letter "й" is pronounced like the sound /j/.

CocoPop
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Polina
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    Welcome to Russian Language and Usage Beta! While probably being legit, your answer does not seem to add to the answers given by the other users. If you want to support one of the answers given earlier, please up-vote it rather then repost. – Quassnoi Dec 04 '12 at 21:02
  • This is probably more confusing than helpful. It is accurate that the IPA symbol j is used to represent sounds like the Russian й or the English y in "yes", but you should perhaps spell this out. To a visitor who is not familiar with IPA, it would look like you are contradicting the other answers here. – tripleee Apr 13 '19 at 07:23
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I think your confusion stems from the fact that most textbooks use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in their transcriptions, and the IPA symbol for the y in yes is /j/. Why did they choose j? Because in most European languages, j is pronounced like y. So in the IPA, our yes is transcribed as /jɛs/.

It might interest you to know that /y/ is also used in the IPA, but as a vowel — for instance, the German ü in über and the French u in tu. These are transcribed as /ty/ and /yːbɐ/ in the IPA. And again, that's because in some European languages, y is used as a vowel.

CocoPop
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Й doesn't really have an independent pronunciation--other than a few foreign loan words, it only occurs after vowels and changes the vowel pronunciation. It's sometimes transliterated as J, but it's definitely not like J in Jar--more like a German J, which is like an English Y. So it's better to think of it like Y in Yes.

Jonathan Christensen
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    Й has as much independent pronunciation as any other consonant. – Dima Nov 29 '12 at 01:06
  • Who told you this garbage? "й" occurs everywhere and pronounced independently of anything. – Anixx Dec 04 '12 at 00:15
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    Sorry, I stuck an extra word in there the first time: Can you give me an example of a Russian word that is not a loan word (like йогурт) where й occurs anywhere other than after a vowel? – Jonathan Christensen Dec 04 '12 at 03:11
  • It would be nice to see examples in your answer. – Olga Dec 05 '12 at 14:25
  • ... I'm the one asking for examples here. In particular, I'm still waiting for @Anixx to back up his claim that my answer is "garbage." – Jonathan Christensen Dec 05 '12 at 16:57
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    @Jonathan Christensen ''й'' does not anyhow significantly change the vowel's pronunciation. It is pronounced as an independent separate consonant. For example, in word "бой" "о" is pronounced the same way as in "бог", "бор", "бот". – Anixx Dec 05 '12 at 17:03
  • @Anixx I asked for examples of words (other than loanwords) that have й anywhere other than after a vowel, which you asserted is possible. I'm still waiting... – Jonathan Christensen Dec 05 '12 at 17:04
  • @Jonathan Christensen I missed that you excluded the loanwords. In that case yes, it does not occur everywhere. Still it has independent pronunciation and does not affect the vowels in a way different from other consonants. – Anixx Dec 05 '12 at 17:11
  • heh. You "missed" it. – Jonathan Christensen Dec 05 '12 at 17:13
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    @Jonathan Christensen, no questions remains, why your answer was downvoted? – Anixx Dec 06 '12 at 00:24
  • @Anixx I assume it's because people like you believe that й occurs everywhere. I'm not very worried about it, to be honest. – Jonathan Christensen Dec 06 '12 at 01:01
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    It should be down-voted because it does have an independent pronunciation REGARDLESS of its limits of positioning. It does occur only after vowels in Russian words, but it is definitely a specific distinctive sound, not a letter that is only to show changing of the vowel before. So, maybe you meant that, but the words you used made people think that you do not believe it to have its own pronunciation. – Viridianus Feb 15 '14 at 19:29
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    The sound Й [j] can occur everywhere in non-borrowed Russian words, it can begin words, it can follow consonants. The point is, the Russian orthography is tricky, it has such letters as Е=Й+Е, Ё=Й+О, Ю=Й+У, Я=Й+А, so если, 'if', is pronounced йесли, пьёт, 'drinks' as пьйот, юг, 'south' as йук, and я, 'I' as йа. Also, йи after consonants is written as ЬИ, муравьи, 'ants', is pronounced as муравйи. – Yellow Sky Dec 09 '15 at 23:03