Today, almost all children know the letters and the alphabet already in early childhood. However, it is recommended that you learn letters without naming the letters as they sound in the alphabet. Letters must be taught with sounds. Speaking about the letter "B", it is necessary to call it [b], not "bh". This is necessary so that later it would be easier for the child to combine letters into syllables and words.

However, the world of sounds is not limited to this. And when the baby grows up, he will have to master such concepts as vowel sounds, hard, soft, paired, voiceless and voiced consonants. I invite you to talk today about such different sounds. We will talk about this in a fabulous form, in the form that is closest to children's perception. I invite you to phonetic tale . This is an expanded version of the tale of sounds presented in.

So, friendly letters live in hospitable. And the sounds created a large Kingdom called Phonetics.

Kingdom of Sounds - Phonetics

In the kingdom of sounds of the Russian language Phonetics lived together - lived vowels and consonants sounds. Each sound had its own house. For vowel sounds, the houses were painted red, and for consonants, blue. But the roofs of all the houses were white and changed on their own when sounds came to visit each other.

In total in the kingdom 42 inhabitants: 6 vowels [a], [e], [o], [y], [i], [s] and 36 consonants. They lived together and often visited each other. And every time they stayed with each other, magic happened: as soon as they held hands, they made new sounds for new words.

The vowels loved to sing. Therefore, music was always played in their houses. But the consonants could not sing at all. But they were very flexible and always and in everything "agreed" with the vowels. At the same time, they could become hard or soft ... For example, the sound [n]. In the word "saw" sounds soft, but in the word "dust"- firmly. And all because the sound [and] softened [n], and the sound [s], on the contrary, gave firmness.

This is how consonants, when they join hands with vowels, become soft or hard at their request.

However, there were also "naughty" sounds in the kingdom. And although they lived in blue houses and were called consonants, they did not want to change in any way. And it happened on a day when sitting idly on the benches, they argued over who is more important: vowels or consonants. And the sounds [f],[NS] and [c] decided to become independent and not obey anyone, especially the vowel sounds. They proclaimed themselves hard sounds that will never, under any circumstances, become soft! And as proof of their firm decision, they painted the white roofs of their houses in dark blue.

But compliant and non-conflicting sounds [SCH],[th] and [h] they were very upset and afraid that the balance of the ratio of sounds would be disturbed in the kingdom and decided to remain soft forever. And so that all residents of Phonetics knew about this, they painted the roofs of their houses in green.

However, soon 2 more inhabitants appeared in the kingdom of Phonetics - soft and hard signs. But they did not violate the unity of the sound world. The soft sign helped the consonants to become soft, and the hard one - hard. They built themselves white houses and they all healed peacefully and amicably.

But the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Phonetics were famous not only for their hard and soft characters. Many of them had and still have their own special preferences. Some of the sounds loved the sound of falling leaves, while others loved the sound of rain. They even built separate quarters for themselves so that in one - the bell always rings loudly, and in the other - as under a dome - dull and noisy ... voiced and voiceless consonants ... And a river flows between the quarters.

So the sounds [p], [l], [m], [n], [y], [b], [d], [c], [d], [g], [h] settled in the quarter with a bell ... And in a quiet neighborhood - [n], [f], [t], [w], [s], [k], [x], [q], [h], [u]. And some of the letters became so friends that they connected their houses with bridges. So there is a bridge between the sounds p-b, f-v, t-d, w-w, s-z and k-g. it paired consonants .

This is how the amazing Kingdom of Phonetics lives. Sounds visit each other, change, adjust, make noise, shout, sing ... They have fun. And in this fun words are born, from them sentences that make up our speech. By the way, it happens ... But by the way, we'll talk about it another time.

How to learn soft and hard consonants

These are the complex relationships between sounds. To make it easier for my son to draw phonetic schemes of words, we made very convenient clouds with him. It is very easy to determine the hardness or softness of consonants based on them.

Read about how we learned hard and soft consonants with the help of clouds.

How to distinguish voiced and voiceless consonants

And a very simple technique helped us to make it easier for the child to distinguish between voiced and voiceless consonants. Place your palm against your neck as you name the sound. If the sound is ringing, then vibration (trembling) of the vocal cords is felt. If the sound is dull, there will be no vibration.

For the same purposes, we used the picture with houses and bridges over the river, which you saw above.

Enjoy your acquaintance with the world of Phonetics!

All the best!

The most important part of speech is words, we pronounce them, write and read them, we add phrases and sentences from them. They consist of letters and sounds that have become so firmly embedded in our lives that we hardly notice them.

Letters and sounds are not the same, although they are closely related concepts. We write letters, see and read, and we pronounce and hear sounds. Letters are graphic written symbols, while sounds are the acoustic component of words and human speech in general. In different words, the same letter sometimes corresponds to different sounds.

“In the beginning there was a word. Then words, words, words ... " (author Vladimir Kolechitsky).

"The word was given to a person not for self-satisfaction, but for the embodiment and transmission of that thought, that feeling, that share of truth and inspiration that he possesses to other people." (author V. Korolenko).

Various sections of linguistic science are engaged in the study of letters and sounds. Sounds studying phonetics and alphabetic characters are graphics... Spelling letters is a prerogative spelling .

The set of letters of any language makes up its alphabet. The letters of the Russian language are divided into consonants, vowels and auxiliary sounds. The auxiliary ones include those that do not carry sound information - a hard and soft sign.

Consonants and sounds of the Russian alphabet

Consonant sounds and letters are characterized by the fact that during their pronunciation, a certain obstacle arises in the path of air in the oral cavity. As a result, noise is always present in the acoustic sounding of consonants. They got the name "consonants" because they almost always stand next to vowels or in the same word with them.

There are 21 consonant letters in Russian:

Another characteristic feature of consonants is that they cannot be chanted. You can stretch the pronunciation of hissing consonants (for example: with , f , NS , SCH), but "singing" will not work.

As noted above, consonants in words are almost always adjacent to vowels. However, there are a limited number of words that only consist of consonants. Along with prepositions To , with or particle b, these are some foreign proper names ( Krch- the area of ​​Prague; Armenian name Mkrtch, which in Russian is sometimes written with a vowel - for euphony), as well as interjections such as brr or shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhby .

The classification of consonants and sounds in the Russian language is based on acoustic criteria.

Voiced and voiceless consonants

Those consonants whose pronunciation consists only of noise are called voiceless. In contrast, consonants formed by sound and noise are called voiced.

The letter stands alone th(and short). According to its acoustic sound, it is classified as a voiced consonant, however, it is impossible to pronounce it in isolation. Letter th can be pronounced only together with the preceding or following vowel sound, for example [yy], [iy], etc.

Paired and unpaired consonants

Most voiced consonants correspond to certain voiceless ones. Such letters in tune with each other are called paired... There are also consonants that do not have a pair. Among them there are also deaf and voiced, and they are called unpaired .

Soft and hard consonants

The pronunciation of consonants in words can be hard or soft. If the sound is pronounced softly, then the tongue is slightly pushed forward, approaching or touching the upper palate. When pronouncing solid sounds, the tongue does not protrude forward (but the tongue can touch the upper palate due to the upward movement).

Most consonants produce both hard and soft sounds, but there are some exceptions. In particular, the letters f , c , NS always have a solid sound, and the letters th , h , SCH- soft.

In other cases, the hardness or softness of the consonants is determined by which letter comes after them.

If a consonant is accompanied by letters a , O , at , NS , NS , b- then you get a solid sound. The same is true if the consonant is at the end of a word or there is another consonant after it.

If the consonant is accompanied by letters e , e , and , NS , I am , b- then its sound will be soft.
Video tutorial

Sibilant and sibilant consonants

Some of the consonants in Russian are pronounced like a hiss. These are the sounds f , NS , SCH , h which are called sibilant consonants.

Another group of consonant sounds when leaving the oral cavity forms acoustic vibrations resembling a whistle. These are the sounds s , with , c- whistling.

The properties of sibilant and sibilant consonants are especially noticeable during their prolonged pronunciation.

One of the important features of these sounds is that most of the speech defects are associated with their pronunciation. For this reason, working with sibilant and sibilant consonants should be given special attention when teaching children. It is important to note that speech deficits associated with these sounds can be amenable to speech therapy.

Russian vowels and sounds

Unlike consonants and letters, a characteristic feature of vowels is that the air, when pronounced, passes through the oral cavity freely. As a result, vowel sounds can not only be easily stretched, but also chanted. Another distinctive feature is that they can be pronounced as loudly as you like, with the full force of your voice.

By means of vowels and sounds, consonants are combined into syllables. There is only one vowel in each syllable. The number of other letters - consonants, hard and soft signs - can be different. Words can consist of one or more syllables: ros-letter, breaking , yard , painting .

The number of vowels in Russian is 10:

And there are only 6 vowels: [a], [and], [o], [y], [s], [e]. The corresponding vowels are one-sounding. The other 4 vowels are - e , e , NS , I am- two-sounding, and separately pronounced as [ye], [yo], [yu], [ya]. At the same time, in words, these letters mean one sound (examples: squirrel, ball, go, key).

As in the case of consonants, there are a number of Russian words consisting only of vowels. These are pronouns - I am , her; unions - and , a; prepositions - at , O; interjections - NS , ay .

Stressed and unstressed vowels

In words, vowel sounds can be stressed and unstressed.

• If a vowel is stressed in a word, it is read more clearly, with a greater accent and a little more drawn out.
• In the absence of stress, vowels in words are read less clearly. Accordingly, the unstressed position is a weak position for them, and the position in the stressed syllable is a strong position.

As a rule, words are not stressed in traditional writing. If necessary, they are denoted by the sign "acute" - a small "/" stroke above the vowel.

Video tutorial

Designations of sounds in phonetic parsing of a word

Phonetic or sound parsing of a word serves the purpose of displaying and understanding its correct pronunciation. Both words and individual letters can be phonetically designated.

Sound designations, unlike letters, are enclosed in square brackets. The graphic recording of the pronunciation of a word is called transcription.

The basic rules, in accordance with which sounds are indicated in the phonetic parsing of a word, are as follows:

• The hardness of the consonants does not have any designation, but the softness is indicated by an apostrophe. For example, if [b] is a hard sound, then [b ’] is soft.
• Long sounding in transcription is indicated by a colon, for example: cashbox- [cas: a].
• Not always, but often stress is put in the transcription of words. For example: wave- [valna].
• The soft mark and the hard mark do not have sound pronunciation, therefore there is no display during phonetic parsing.

Video tutorial

How to teach children to distinguish between hard and soft sounds

Sometimes children may have difficulty distinguishing between hard and soft consonants. In this case, there are some techniques that make it easier to master the topic.

First of all, you need to explain to the child that the concepts of hardness and softness do not refer to consonants, but to their sounds. And that the same letter can sound both hard and soft. Let me give you an example: “ b"- the words ram - white," R"- work - belt," l"- a horse - a swan.

Explaining the letters-exceptions, for better memorization, it is recommended to write them down like this:

• th , h , SCH
• f , NS , c

It is necessary to make it clear to the child that the underlined letters seem to "sit on the pads" - the pads are soft and the letters are also soft.

In order for the child to remember well before which vowels the letter becomes hard or soft, you can use the following technique: first, with a serious expression on your face, read a syllable with a hard consonant - and then, with a smile on your face, read another syllable where this consonant is soft. Then, do the same with other letters and syllables. For example: la — la , mu — mi , zo — zya, bo — by , ry — ryo etc. A child associates a soft pronunciation well with a smile, and a hard one with seriousness and severity, which makes it possible to remember the material associatively.

Gradually, you need to improve your skills, and do the same exercises with simple words, such as: Mother , dads a - uncle , aunt etc. As you memorize, you should move from simple words to more complex ones. Explanations and exercises should be gradually alternated with tasks: write words, and then ask which consonants are hard and which are soft.

Another exercise can be proposed: make tablets with words in which soft consonants are written in one color, and hard ones in another. For example:

• N O S I K
• CARPET
• NUMBER
• WARM

There are many options, but it is advisable to choose among them those that the child likes best. This contributes to a better perception of the material, its memorization and practical assimilation.

Video tutorial

Some interesting and useful information

• Sounds and words can be formed without human intervention. A well-known example is the utterance of words by birds of the parrot family. As for individual sounds, they can also appear in inanimate nature - with the rustle of foliage, gusts of wind, splashing waves. This cannot be said about letters - after all, only their meaningful spelling can be recognized as a letter designation, and this is characteristic only of people.
• Despite the small number of words consisting only of vowels, it is possible to make a sentence from them: "Eh, what about me?"
• Almost all words of the Russian language containing the letter " f”, Have a foreign language origin. Only in relation to rare words (for example: eagle owl) is Russian origin assumed, but this has not been proven for sure.
• All words starting with the letter " th», Also foreign language. For example: iodine, yogurt, iota, Yemen, Yokohama, Yorkshire, etc.
• The letter " e»In words almost always bears stress on itself. There are very few exceptions to this rule - these are words of foreign origin ( königsberg surfing ), as well as compound words, which contain numbers of three or four - ( twenty-three-digit , four-door , three thousandth ). It should also be noted those rare situations when in one word there are two letters " e», One of which becomes shock, and the other - unstressed ( three-star , four-wheeled , airplane lift , three-ruble ).
• There are many words in the Russian language with unusual letter combinations. For example, words in which the same vowel is repeated three times in a row: snake-eater , zoo association , long-necked... A word with 7 consonants in a row: counter-meeting (Maybe, occasionalism ). Words with three soft signs: seductiveness , diminutiveness , multifunctionality , seductiveness etc. A word with two soft and one hard signs: courier ... A monosyllabic word of 8 letters: in passing... Many other interesting examples can be cited.
• Any letter has a certain repetition rate, the most used letters in Russian are O , e , a , and , T , n , with , R... This phenomenon is used to recognize cipher codes.

Knowledge of letters and sounds, their spelling and pronunciation is the basis of language literacy. In turn, a good command of the spoken and written language is one of the indicators of a person's erudition, and the skills of reading and understanding the text are the basis for learning other sciences. After all, the lion's share of information in the modern world is comprehended by reading or listening, and only a small part of it - through personal experience.

Every first grader knows that sound is a unit of speech that we utter and hear, and we read and write letters. In Russian, they are divided into vowels and consonants. Of the 33 letters of the Russian alphabet, 21 are called consonants. They are divided by voicedness and deafness, softness and hardness. They begin to study the classification of letters from grade 1, but the student will have to use it before leaving school. When studying phonetics, each student must learn to distinguish between muffled sounds from voiced ones. During writing, they are indicated by the transcription - [b]. The table will help to distinguish and memorize paired consonant sounds.

Paired consonants for voiced-voicelessness

All consonants in Russian form pairs, a voiced consonant is opposed to a voiceless one. There are 12 paired letters, 6 pairs are obtained:

Paired and unpaired consonants need to be known to be successful in spelling. Many orthograms of the Russian language are based on the selection of one-root words according to this classification, for example:

• soft - soft
• tooth teeth.

The first pair contains the letter g, which, when pronounced, is indistinctly heard and its spelling brings difficulty. The second words are test words when the spelling is pronounced clearly. Younger students often make mistakes in these works.

You will notice that not all letters of the alphabet form pairs. This happens due to the fact that there are rules in phonetics that must be remembered. They are based on the fact that sounds can be only voiced or only deaf. It is easy to remember them, since they have a small number. As a rule, students by the end of grade 1 know them by heart. These include r, n, l, m, d - sonorous, always voiced, c, h, w, x - always deaf.

Paired consonants for softness-hardness

It is customary to divide consonants into hard and soft. In phonetics, the softening process occurs in several situations:

• when after the consonant there is a vowel: yu, i, e, yo, i (blizzard, buttercup);
• or there is a soft sign (blizzard, I drink).

If there is a vowel after the consonant, except for e, e, yu, i, and, then it does not allow softening. For example, in the words peony, earth, after the consonant, there is a vowel, which provokes a softening process. In such words as lamp, water, there are no letters e, e, yu, i, and, therefore, when pronounced, all sounds are solid.

There are also letters that, when reproduced verbally, will always be soft or hard. These include: u, h, y, c, w, zh. The classification of letters and sounds is necessary for every student to know for successful learning.

A special table will help you remember paired voiced and deaf people. It is easy to navigate by it.

Such a table or similar can sometimes be found in the office of primary classes. It has been proven that younger schoolchildren have more visual-figurative thinking, therefore, they need to provide new information in the form of illustrations or pictures, then it will be effective.

Each parent can create such a table on the first grader's desktop. Do not be afraid that this hint will lead to student laziness. On the contrary, if he often looks at the image, he will quickly remember everything he needs.

There are more consonants in Russian, so remembering their classification is more difficult. If you list all the voiceless and voiced, then you get the number 12. The letters h, w, d, sch, c, zh, p, n, l, m are not taken into account, they refer to unpaired ones.

There are tips for children on how to quickly learn to recognize voiced and voiceless consonants when parsing a word. To do this, you need to press your palm to your throat and pronounce a distinctly separate sound. Voiceless and voiced consonants will be pronounced differently and, accordingly, reflected differently in the palm of your hand. If vibration gives off to the hand, it is voiced, if not, it is deaf. Many guys use this hint when studying phonetics.

There is another exercise that helps to accurately determine which consonant is in front of the student. To do this, you need to cover your ears with your hands, but at the same time, there should be silence. Say an exciting letter, listen to it with your ears closed. If it is not heard, then it is a dull sound, if, on the contrary, it is clearly voiced.

If you try, today any parent can find many interesting, exciting and informative exercises and rules that will help the baby to easily master new knowledge. This will make the learning process more interesting and entertaining, which in turn will affect academic performance.

Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy said that there is nothing sedimentary or crystalline in the Russian language; everything excites, breathes, lives. Such "liveliness" of our native language is the merit of its constituent words. But, before you can learn to use them, you need to learn the letters and sounds. They will be discussed in this article.

When studying a language with a child, you need to clearly make him understand the differences between oral and written speech. For this, it is important to give him an idea of ​​what a sound is and what is a letter.

Sounds are what we perceive with our hearing. Our brain easily separates what is related to speech from other sounds and interprets them into images. We can write the sounds of speech in letters, forming words from them.

A letter is a graphic symbol of the alphabet, thanks to which we can display on paper what we hear by ear. But, there is a very big difficulty for the child. After all, the number of sounds and letters that reproduce them on paper in different words can differ in one or the other direction.

How many letters and sounds in the Russian language and the alphabet and their ratio

IMPORTANT: We hear and can produce sounds with our speech apparatus. We can see and write letters! Sounds are in all languages. Even in those where there is no written language.

In a word like "chair" letters correspond to sounds. But, in the word "sun", the letter "L" not pronounced. Also, no letters are pronounced "B" and "B"... They only slightly change the pronunciation of the words in which they are used.

There is also such a "school" word as "Compass"... In which instead of sound [AND] a sound is pronounced [NS].

There are still a lot of words in Russian that are not pronounced the way they are written in letters. Therefore, it is very important for a child to learn how to correctly understand this difference.

Alphabet

Language is the main invention of mankind. Moreover, every nation that has created its own language, it is distinguished by the features inherent in this nation. At a certain stage in the development of a community that uses a particular people, there is a need to record the sounds of speech, combined into words and sentences. This is how writing appeared, and at the same time the alphabet. That is, a set of all letters used in writing, in strict order.

The alphabet of the Russian language numbers 33 letters and looks like this:

The alphabet is the base of any language that everyone who learns it needs to know. Can you learn to speak without knowing the alphabet? Of course. But, in addition to being able to express your thoughts, you need to learn how to write and read. And it is impossible to do this without knowing the alphabet.

Today children have a lot of different aids for learning the alphabet. You can buy special flash cards, magnets, a small primer that the child can take with him for walks or trips.

In our computerized era, electronic gadgets can also be called upon to help you learn the alphabet. Type letters in text applications and name the sounds that teach them. You can connect your imagination and use graphic editors, change fonts and add fills. Create your own alphabet that will be of interest to your child. Then the training will go faster and more efficiently.

INTERESTING: Educators have come up with a very interesting and fun way to learn the alphabet. Dedicate each new day in your family to one of the letters of the alphabet. Of course, you shouldn't forget about the others. Bake buns in the shape of letters, make letters from plasticine with your child, draw them, collect from counting sticks. Be sure to talk about the letter that the day is dedicated to and give examples of its use.

Vowel sounds and letters

Introducing a child to the alphabet is a very exciting experience. But, this is only one of the first steps in mastering the language. To continue studying its elementary units, you need to learn how to divide them according to their characteristics.

Those letters that are pronounced lingeringly are called vowels in a chant.

• There are 10 vowels in Russian "A", "E", "E", "I", "O", "U", "Y", "E", "U", "I"
• 6 vowels [a], [o], [y], [e], [u], [s]. Usually vowel sounds in the school curriculum should be highlighted in red.

We have already clarified the difference between the elementary particles of language.

Letters I, E, Yu, E - iotated. They involve one or two sounds.

From this table - this difference can be seen again:

INTERESTING: By the way, about the letter "E". Today it is mistakenly believed that it was introduced into our alphabet by Karamzin. But this is not the case. This was done by the director of the St. Petersburg Academy, Princess Yekaterina Dashkova on November 18, 1783 at a meeting on the occasion of the creation of the first explanatory dictionary in Russia. She suggested changing the letters "IO" to one "E".

Percussive and unstressed vowel sounds

• Impact vowel sound pronounced with great force and does not undergo changes.

For example: cn е́ r, st ý l, shk a f

• Unstressed vowel sound pronounced with little force and undergoes changes.

For example: To O rzina (heard instead of O, sound A), m E two dj (In the first unstressed vowel sound instead of E, heard AND), pl E cho (vowel sound AND is heard instead of E).

IMPORTANT: Stress is not used in words with one syllable and in words with a letter Yo.

The vowels Iotized letters I, Yu, E, E soften the consonant in front of them, and create one sound: e → [e] or [and], e → [o], u → [y], I → [a ].

For example:

• At the beginning of a word: hedgehog [y'ozhik]
• In the middle of a word: shelter [at y'ut]
• At the end of a word: gun [gun y'o]

Hard and soft vowels directly affect consonants. For example, consonant letter "NS", maybe as solid (in the word "plastic bag") and soft (in the word "biscuits").

Consonants and letters

Consonant letters are called such because of the consonant sounds included in their composition. There are 36 consonants in Russian:

The apostrophe marks soft sounds.
And 21 consonants:

Consonants and sounds soft and hard: table

Consonants, like vowels, can be either hard or soft. For example, in the word "River", beech "R" soft, but the word "Hand"- solid. In general, several factors affect the softness and hardness of sounds in a word. For example, the location of a sound in a word. The iota vowels soften the sounds ( "E", "Yo", "NS" and "I AM") and diphthongs after consonants. For example:

• "White"
• "Love"
• "Friday"

Also softens the sounds of the letter "AND", and its antipode "NS" on the contrary, it makes the sound solid. An important role is played by the presence of a soft sign at the end of a word:

• "Linen" and "laziness"

A soft mark can soften a sound, even if it is inside a word:

• "Skates"

Voiceless and voiced consonants in Russian: table

Consonants can be voiced or voiceless. Voiced are obtained with the participation of the voice in the formation of sound. Whereas in the formation of a dull sound, the voice practically does not play its creative role.

Voiced consonants are formed when an air stream passes through the oral cavity and vibrates the vocal cords. Thanks to this, such consonants are formed as:

To make it easy to remember voiceless consonants, remember the expression: DO YOU WANT A STEP? - FI!

If you delete all vowels from this expression, only voiceless consonants remain.

Paired and unpaired hard and soft consonants: table

By hardness-softness, most sounds form pairs:

Paired and unpaired voiced and voiceless consonants: table

In Russian, it is customary to single out pairs of voiceless-voiced consonants:

The rest of the consonants are unpaired:

Sometimes there is a "forced" deafness or voiced consonant sound. This is due to the position of the sound in the word. A common example of such a forced state is the words: pond [rod] and booth [butka].

Sonorous- voiced unpaired consonants. There are only 9 of them: [th ’], [l], [l’], [m], [m ’], [n], [n’], [p], [p ’]

Noisy consonants - voiced and deaf exist:

1. Noisy dull consonants(16): [k], [k '], [n], [n'], [s], [s'], [t], [t '], [f], [f'], [ x], [x '], [c], [h'], [w], [u '];
2. Noisy voiced consonants(11): [b], [b '], [c], [c'], [g], [g '], [d], [d'], [g], [h], [h '].

Summary table of common soft and hard letters and sounds in Russian:

Sizzling consonants

Consonants "F", "NS", "H" and "SCH" called sibilants. These letters add some flavor to our language. That being said, they make it very difficult. The child, while studying these letters, should know the rules:

• "ZhI" — "SHI" write with "AND"
• "CHA" — "SHA" with letter "A"
• "CHU" — "SCHU" with letter "U"

Letters "F" and "H" are voiced, and the other two ( "NS" and "SCH") are deaf. An important feature of these sounds is that it is impossible to pronounce from without opening your mouth. Compare their pronunciation with pronunciation "M" or "N"... For the pronunciation of hissing consonants, there must be a gap between the lips through which air will escape, creating an acoustic accompaniment to these sounds.

The letter "and short" denotes the consonant sound th

Letter "Y" or "And short" found in almost all Slavic alphabets, as well as in those non-Slavic alphabets where the Cyrillic alphabet is used. In the Russian alphabet, this letter takes 11th place. It was formed from a vowel "AND" and a voiced consonant "J".

It is interesting that in the 18th century, when the civil script was introduced (as opposed to the church one), all superscript characters disappeared from it. And the letter "Y" an important part of it disappeared. At the same time, from such reforms, the sound that was designated by this letter "did not suffer". Return "Y" into the letter succeeded under Peter I. But, at the same time, it was not returned to the alphabet. This was done only in the 20th century.

Today more and more philologists attribute sound "Y" to sonorous consonants. That is, to such sounds that are located between vowels and consonants, but still apply to a consonant. Moreover, it is always considered mild.

Which letters have multiple sounds?

Primary School Letters and Sounds Ribbon

Very good help in learning Russian in various textbooks. One of these benefits is "Letters of Summer"... It helps to understand the difference between letters, to quickly develop reading skills in children and to facilitate phonetic parsing of a word.

At least at first glance "Ribbon of letters" carries a minimum of information, this is far from the case. This guide can be used not only at school but also at home. Parents can teach their child literacy on their own using this tool.

Phonetics is a capricious lady, albeit an interesting one. It's no secret that all sounds in Russian are subdivided into consonants and vowels. The first, in turn, are divided into voiced and voiceless, soft and hard. This classification is based on the way of pronouncing sounds and the peculiarities of the work of our articulatory apparatus. So how can you tell them all apart?

And what, in fact, is the matter?

Grade 1 begins to study soft and hard consonants at the very beginning of the Russian language course. But in order to distinguish some phonemes from others, you first need to understand what is the difference between them and vowels.

Vowel sounds are pronounced only with the help of the voice. They can be sung, held out - this is how teachers explain to kids at school. When the air leaving the lungs passes through the trachea, larynx, oral cavity, it does not meet any obstacles. When we talk about consonants, then for their pronunciation you need to use the lips, teeth and tongue - all of them are involved in the process, so to speak.

Comparing consonants and vowels by their sound, we notice the following tendency: when vowels, as mentioned above, sound only with the help of one voice, then there is still noise in the consonants, created by the hindrances that the air has to meet when pronouncing them. This is their main difference. Deaf sounds are pronounced only with this very noise, while in voiced sounds, a voice is also added to it. Compare, for example, the pronunciation of the words "grotto" and "mole" or "house" and "tom". In both cases, the first are letters of solid consonants, voiced and voiceless, respectively.

"Let's go back to our rams!"

Now that we already know a little about the differences in consonants, let's move on to our main topic.

The best way to learn is by example, right? Let's go back to the comparison: let's say the following pairs of words:

Racket-rake, bureau-bureau, mother - ball, vine - ice, tower - view.

There is some difference in how we pronounce consonants. Is not it? It is determined by the vowel sounds that follow the consonants. The words are specially selected so that the sounds we need are in the same position in all examples. In this case, they show all their diversity. Say it again, slowly. Do you feel how the tongue, in those words where the consonants sound softer, does not rest against the palate, but as if relaxes, becomes flat? This can be considered the main feature that our solid consonants have during articulation.

Theory

Well, now let's move on to a specific theory. Hard consonants - a table that will consist of two parts. The first step is to remember that the hardness or softness of a sound is due to its vowel-neighbor. When after the letter is a, oh, y, s , then the sound that it denotes will definitely be solid (mitten, stomp, lips, played), and if there are e, e, y, i, and , the consonant will sound softer (blizzard, doggie, mint, Kiev). Thus, we can say that there is no point in memorizing all solid consonants. Almost all of them are paired. This property was shown in the first row of words, where we learned to distinguish between hard and soft sounds. Therefore, everything depends on this very vowel.

Unpaired consonants

Another question is how to deal with unpaired consonants. There are very few of them in the Russian language: w, w, c ... No matter how hard you try, you won't be able to pronounce them softly. Even if those vowels are written after them, which are usually used with soft consonants: ramrod - rustle - chic, eerie - liquid - tin, price - circus - king. These consonants are contrasted with unpaired h, u, d , which in all cases will sound soft: chock - thicket - cleaning, cheeks - squinting - rubble, iot - yogurt.

Break the system!

In this situation, you need to understand that the rule of the following vowel with them does not apply to unpaired solid consonants. The table, which can be compiled for better assimilation of the material, in any case will consist of two parts - paired, the equivalent of which can always be found by changing the vowel, and unpaired, living according to their own rules.

We remember

Now let's move on to the methods of learning and memorization. Grade 1 remembers hard consonants reluctantly - too boring. But there is always a way to increase efficiency by making the student interested in an unusual form of work, even with such theoretical and seemingly unnecessary material. Various pictures, diagrams, drawings and word choice games will come to our aid.

Let's make cards, perhaps. You will need two sheets of colored paper or colored cardboard. The main thing is that they are contrasting. We cut out the same clouds, balls, figures - whatever comes into your head. Then we connect the two figures with glue so that these contrasting sides are outside. And then, with the participation of your little helper, on one side we write vowels that are friends with soft, and on the other - with hard consonants. In order not to forget anything at all, you can also place unpaired and paired ones next to each other, respectively. When everything is at hand, it is much easier.

Next, draw something that can help create an association - a brick on a piece of cardboard where hard sounds are written, and a feather with soft phonemes. Or something like that. Having a concrete example in front of his eyes, the student will certainly assimilate the information better. Later, for consolidation, you can ask your student to highlight hard and soft sounds in the written words with different colors - red and blue, for example, so that you can easily check his homework.

Handy material

To prepare the tablets, which were mentioned a little above, you still need to have some kind of material. Solid consonants are a table that you can lean on so as not to get confused. For convenience, it contains sounds that are paired and unpaired in hardness and softness. By the way, if we want to indicate the softness of a sound, in phonetic transcription, for example, an apostrophe is placed after it.

In this table, all phonemes at the top are solid. Below are their soft counterparts. True, we have three cases when the sound has no pair. This means it is never soft.

We remember further

Shall we continue to practice? Let's give some more examples of words where the same consonant sound appears in a hard or soft position. One more nuance. In addition to the very vowels that affect the consonant, it can be softened or hardened by a soft and hard sign, respectively. Let's not forget about this in our next assignment.

Beaver - white, blizzard - goalkeeper, city - helium, entrance - clerk, giraffe, winter - teeth, whale-cat, horse - lemonade, seafood, Neptune-rhinoceros, steamer - break, decision-novel, owl - family, cake - theme, film-photography, halva - diagram, chicken, hat.

Identify words from the presented pair that are demonstrated by soft or hard consonants. As you can see, the letters for their designation are still used the same. Please note that in some words, hardness and softness are influenced not only by vowels, but also by consonants that stand next to our sound. In addition, you can also ask the child to come up with examples for unpaired consonants, so that he himself is convinced that they are only solid. Yet my own experience is far more vivid confirmation than any learned theory.

Another game

To study the topic of soft and hard consonants, you can offer the student another game like this. It's very simple. Before him is a series of words, from which only hard consonants need to be written. And then, having inserted vowels into them, come up with some word. For example, there are a number of words: pickles - footman - knives... We write out, therefore, consonants: s, l, n, add vowels. And the first thing that comes to mind is the short but capacious word "elephant". Shall we continue?

1. Edit - will - scrap(discharged pr, v, l ).
2. Tomato - role - swamp(discharged t, p, t ).
3. Bittern - sleepyhead - hay(discharged in, s, n ).

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to remind you that in no case should you say "hard consonants". Only sounds are such. And for their designation, they are absolutely the same as in the case of soft ones (this was seen from the table above). Now that you have all the material in your hands, you just have to practice. On the net you can find a huge number of different games and exercises to determine the type of consonants. And, of course, you can reread the material on the topic "Hard consonants" several more times - the table presented in the article will help to systematize all our knowledge. It will be much easier to repeat with her.

Do not forget to give new examples for each paired and unpaired sound, so that our student himself learns to compare the different sounds of consonant phonemes. It sometimes depends not only on the subsequent vowel or a soft and hard sign, but also on adjacent consonants, which, depending on their hardness or softness, can also affect the original sound. It's not as complicated as it seems. More games and more practice - and everything will definitely work out.