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I have heard two different ways of pronouncing the very common word-ending ый (as in, e.g., чёрный or кра́сный).

The first variant has a barely audible [j] sound after [ɨ].
The second variant has a clearly audible "sh" sound after [ɨ], quite similar to German "ch" [ç] (but certainly different to the English "sh" and also different to a ж, ш or щ sound).

This question came up because I frequently hear the [ç] ending in a "Basic Russian course" on Memrise.
Here's a video picked on Youtube where you can hear both pronunciation. She pronounces, for example, кра́сный with that [ç] ending. Most of the colors, however, are neatly pronounced, i.e. with that subtle [j] ending only.
And here's another video with a mixture of both pronunciations.

I assume that the first variant is the 'standard' pronunciation (if that exists?!) and the second one is kind of sloppy pronunciation; but probably the most common.

  • Is that true?
  • Which pronunciation should a language learner pick up?
  • And would that also be applied to the ending ий (e.g. англи́йский)?1

This question is not about the standard pronunciation and difference between и, ий, ы and ый. I am aware of the other question linked in comments and there are a lot of questions about this on the Internet. However, none of these questions does address what I'm asking here.

1 I haven't heard the second variant for ий (yet), but I guess the assumption is not too far-fetched.

Em1
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  • Please provide us with an example of the second variant. – Dmitry Oct 23 '14 at 11:48
  • Related: How is the ending “-ий” pronounced? – jwalker Oct 23 '14 at 12:03
  • Do you mean you're hesitating whether to pick up the standard pronunciation or not? – Yellow Sky Oct 23 '14 at 12:44
  • @YellowSky Not exactly. Because I heard both variations quite frequently, I was thinking that the "sh" ending possibly is gaining more and more frequency over the standard variation and could maybe even sound more natural. – Em1 Oct 23 '14 at 12:47
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    There are no "both variations", believe me. I also hear "both variations" of English: the one when people are speaking while eating a burger and having their mouths full, and the other when they're speaking without food in their mouths. So which variety of English should I pick up? Your question sounds exactly like this. Naturally, if you want to speak whispering the ends of words, you're welcome, but usually people don't do that, one is supposed to speak distinctly. – Yellow Sky Oct 23 '14 at 13:01
  • @YellowSky In the first video she indeed speaks quietly. But I also hear this difference when people not whisper. And while I think that you're right that [j] and [ç] are similar and probably this similarity is the reason for that issue, for me (as a German) there's even when whispering a very clear difference. To my ears there are two significantly different pronunciation of "ый" and I'm trying to make out that difference for weeks now. – Disregarding that your "burger" example is like comparing apples and oranges, saying that sounds quite pretentious, don't you think so? – Em1 Oct 23 '14 at 13:40
  • What I meant by my example is what you hear as [ç] is actually [j], and it's the supralinguistic reasons that make you hear [ç] there, that is the tempo of speech, or the person can be out of breath, or just flirting, but in normal speech it's always [j]. Besides, most Russians don't realize that sometimes they say it like [ç], there's no such phoneme in Russian, the closest sound, [xʲ] is a variety of [x], not of [j]. – Yellow Sky Oct 23 '14 at 13:54
  • @YellowSky Fair enough. Considering the comments and answers make me believe that this is barely distinguishable for Russian people because [ç] doesn't exist. – Em1 Oct 23 '14 at 13:59
  • @YellowSky Yep, she pronounces it closer to [ʝ] rather than [j], and a German may decipher it as their native [ç], while to a Russian there is no such alternative. – jwalker Oct 23 '14 at 14:17
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    The reason you hear [ç] is that while learning Russian you frequently listen to words spoken in isolation, meaning, there is nothing before or after. Thus, a speaker may slightly accentuate the "Й" while simultaneously already turning their voice off. You get a glide which indeed sounds not unlike German ch in ich or russian soft Х (devoiced Й gives you exactly that). That's just a normal deviation that appears by itself. Acceptable in normal speech, too, though in reality people do not much accentuate the pronunciation of endings — there rarely any reason to. – Shady_arc Oct 23 '14 at 16:18
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    @Shady_arc I'd say this is an answer worth ;) – Em1 Oct 23 '14 at 16:23
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    @Em1 Sorry for a hasty reply. I then re-read the answers and found the same in the answer by YellowSky. Though, the explanation with "devoicing" instead of "whispering" would be much closer to the exact explanation I provided. Meaning, yeah, usually in Russian you tend to slightly devoice "Й" at the end of the utterance. Of course, only if you chose to pronounce it clearly as a consonant, which may be frequent in (amateurish?) teaching materials showing you the pronounciation of a single word (to make the ending extremely clear) but not much IRL both with native speakers and foreigners. – Shady_arc Oct 23 '14 at 16:48
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    It never ceases to amaze me on this site how rude and insolent intelligent people can be when answering a perfectly reasonable question on this site. Honestly, a mouth full of burger? – CocoPop Oct 24 '14 at 00:14
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    Maybe the woman in the recording had a liver full of vodka? – CocoPop Oct 28 '14 at 16:33

7 Answers7

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Both suffixes are always pronounced as they are written, that is -ый as [ɨj] and -ий as [ij]. No kind of sh/ch is there. In some dialects the final [j] can be barely heard or disappear altogether, but that's rare.

The only explanation for your issue I can think of is that [ç] (the German 'ch' in 'ich') is the voiceless counterpart of the voiced [j]. You know, when speaking in whisper, all the consonants are pronounced voiceless, so one cannot pronounce [j] in whisper, one will inevitably say [ç]. The same happens in those adjectives ending in -ый [ɨj], at the end of a word [j] gets partially devoiced and acquires some [ç] coloring. But that happens because in your first video the girl is speaking very slowly, in normal speech that does not happen.

Yellow Sky
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Em1, I've looked at the Youtube video and if I understand your question correctly – yes, she pronounces the name of the colors twice and each time the ending sounds differently.

It's an effect of emphasizing and not emphasizing accent "крАААсный" и "красный".

I am a native speaker and I don't really notice "sh" there or much difference, but I think it's totally normal for you to hear it, as for a foreign ear these two endings are different.

There is no right, wrong or standard way to pronounce it, not any rule; one is just pronounced with aspiration and it depends on articulation of this concrete person and way she talks. If you listen carefully to the words, you will notice that in general she produces a lot of "hiss", a kind of defect of articulation and pronunciation.

My only advice – try to listen the course where a lector has perfect diction (sorry I don't know right word in English for training to articulate words) and pronounce it as best as you can (anyway it will not sound immediately the same as native speakers do).

Em1
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daria mikhaylova
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  • Это не "sh" :). Имеется в виду звук в немецком в словах типа "ich", и, "Bücher". Он напоминает русское "хь", но чуть менее глубокий, т.е. нечто среднее между "хь" и "щ". А так как слишком дотошный носитель, выделяющий "красныЙ" в конце может при этом оглушить его, неудивительно, что немцу слышится "ch". – Shady_arc Oct 23 '14 at 18:12
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    @Shady_arc спасибо, теперь поняла, там есть какой-то похожий звук на хь, я бы просто назвала его предыханием или свистом, похоже на соседний вопрос про "горячий". – daria mikhaylova Oct 24 '14 at 06:09
  • I've heard something similar and thought of it as an occasional devoicing of that final й. I knew one guy in Moscow who had this pronunciation pretty consistently, but he seemed to be an exception – none of his friends (same age, same dept at МГУ even) had it. There's another quick example in the beginning of Служебный роман – listen for how the narrator pronounces мой (without the devoicing) and хороший (to my ear, with the devoicing). https://youtu.be/hR-1QGMK75c?t=6m39s – Curt Dec 02 '17 at 13:49
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The sound [ç] is actually not sh, but a voiceless pair to [j]. Consonants tend to become voiceless in the end of Russian words. However, for [j] it is not correct, although it can sometimes happen.

Viridianus
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  • Voiceless pair of й is хь. – Anixx Nov 28 '14 at 17:06
  • @Anixx not precisely. Very close, but just a little different, more approximant. Moreover, [х'] is the closest Russian sound to [ç]. – Viridianus Nov 28 '14 at 22:24
  • prove it is different – Anixx Nov 28 '14 at 22:29
  • @Anixx well, you can go to ipachart.com and find that there is voiced pair for [х'] different from [j], therefore, there also is a voiceless pair for [j]different from [х'] – Viridianus Nov 28 '14 at 23:26
  • how does ipachart prove anything? IPA uses different characters for the same sounds (multiple examples) and similar characters for different sounds (multiple examples). IPA is not suitable for Russian. – Anixx Nov 30 '14 at 01:48
  • I shall explain. [j] is not the same sound as [ʝ] (which is voiced pair for [ç]) used in the ipachart.com, it is [j] of the IPA. Therefore, voiceless pairs are also different. – Viridianus Nov 30 '14 at 14:59
  • Prove it is not the same sound, and even if so, prove they are not allophones in Russian. – Anixx Nov 30 '14 at 18:00
  • Allophones are versions of phonemes, and devoicing of [j] does not change the phoneme, which remains /j/, and [х'] corresponds to phoneme /х'/ (or, in some descriptions, /х/, but I do not like these). So they would not be allophones even if they were the same sound, which they are not. – Viridianus Nov 30 '14 at 18:50
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If i understand you properly, the sound you interpreted as a [ç] is just an air relieved after we stop pronouncing final [j]. Just a side effect.

user882813
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As you can see on the first video you posted, there is no transcriptions ending with anything similar to the sh. As a native speaker I do know - there is no sh endings for adjectives in Russian.
Unfortunately, you just misheard.

Dmitry
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  • Well, if I heard it once, I would agree this could be a mishearing. I, however, distinctly hear this ç over and over again; thus, I don't consider it a mishearing. – Em1 Oct 23 '14 at 12:42
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    @Em1 I have heared her pronounciation and I can hear nothing like anything other than [j]. – Anixx Oct 23 '14 at 13:03
  • @Em1 If you think you've heard something, this does not imply that it was pronounced. It is mishearing. Have you ever heard such pronunciation not related to the quality of the sound recording? – Dmitry Oct 23 '14 at 13:04
  • @Dmitry The next time I meet a Russian person, I'll ask them to pronounce those words but right now I can only rely on sound recordings. – Em1 Oct 23 '14 at 13:42
  • @Em1 You can also rely on our answers. Trust us. We have no reasons to lie. – Dmitry Oct 23 '14 at 13:58
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    I wasn't saying that I don't trust you guys :D. However, as I extract from my discussion with Yellow Sky, I think the point here is that I hear a difference due to my native language and a sound that exists in German but not in Russian. And to a Russian ear both sounds appear identical. – Em1 Oct 23 '14 at 14:02
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They are pronounced exactly the same way, both with the [j] sound on the end.

Anixx
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I've sometimes noticed, when listening to recordings of myself speaking, that I occasionally pronounce it as [ç], and particularly in those cases when I'm paying extra attention to my articulation. That doesn't mean that there's a "correct" form and a "sloppy" one. As the answers above have shown, native Russian speakers tend not to even be aware of the difference, and some don't quite understand what "German ch" you're talking about (I did immediately, but that's because I'm very fond of these small phonetical observations), so we might call it free variation. I'd say go with the [j].

Nikolay Ershov
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