Russian Lessons Online:
Vowel Reduction: Unstressed Э

In Russian language unstressed vowels are shorter than stressed ones. Besides that, such vowels as А, О, Э and the vowels denoted as and ‘Е’, ‘Я’ change their pronunciation. In this lesson we will examine pronunciation of unstressed ‘э’.

In fast speech unstressed ‘э’ is not very different from ‘ы’ (articulation of the sound [ы] is explained here):
сэконо́мить – sы-kʌ-nó-mit’
к эффе́кту – kы-f’έk-too

The same is true for the ‘е’ in unstressed syllables ‘ЖЕ’, ‘ШЕ’, ‘ЦЕ’:
жела́ть – zhы-lát’
шесто́й – shыs-tóy
цена́ – tsы-ná

Please, watch the video to get more information about this phenomenon and listen to the correct pronunciation of Russian words with unstressed ‘э’.

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