Lesson 1 · Stress: the loud syllable, and the quiet о

For the parent — 15 minutes

Goal this week. Your child finds the loud syllable in a Russian word and knows that a quiet о sounds like а. Level 1 taught the letters; this week is the first step from spelling a word out to saying it the way a Russian says it: молоко [ma-la-KO], not “mo-lo-ko”.

What to do.

1. Print Worksheet 1 (the attachment below). Write your child’s name and today’s date at the top right.
2. Open Listen and look below and play each word once. Say it together, twice, tapping the table on the loud syllable.
3. Do Learn and Practise on the screen — 6 minutes.
4. Your child completes the worksheet by hand — 5 minutes.
5. Press Check my answers in Check yourself, then compare the worksheet with the Answer key at the bottom of this page.

What “done” looks like. Your child can say собака [sa-BA-ka] and молоко [ma-la-KO] with one loud syllable, and can tell you which о in хорошо [kha-ra-SHO] is the real о (the last one). Speed does not matter.

You do not need to speak Russian. Every Russian word in these instructions has its pronunciation in brackets, like this: мама [MAH-ma]. Capital letters show the loud syllable — the stress. There are no stress marks in Russian print; a Russian child learns the stress with the word, and so will yours.

Listen and look

Two words about words, and eight new words that all have a quiet о. Tap a word to hear a Russian speaker say it; listen for the loud syllable.

Learn

One loud syllable. Every Russian word with two or more syllables has one syllable that is said louder and a little longer than the others. Russians call it ударение [u-da-RYE-ni-ye] — “the hit”. In мама [MAH-ma] the first syllable is loud; in вода [va-DA] the second one is. A syllable is one vowel with the consonants around it, so count the vowels to count the syllables: со-ба-ка has three.

It is not always in the same place. In кошка [KOSH-ka] the loud syllable is the first. In собака [sa-BA-ka] it is the middle one. In молоко [ma-la-KO] it is the last. There is no rule that tells you where — you learn the stress together with the word, and that is why every word in these lessons carries its capitals in the brackets.

The quiet о. Here is the big idea of the week. When о is not in the loud syllable, it is not said as о at all — it sounds like a short а. Look at молоко: three о’s, but only the last one is loud, so the first two sound like а: [ma-la-KO]. Хорошо [kha-ra-SHO] is the same. Она is [a-NA], окно is [ak-NO], собака is [sa-BA-ka]. We write о and say а.

A loud о stays о. In a one-syllable word the only syllable is the loud one, so о is a real о: кот, дом, стол, нос, сон. In кошка [KOSH-ka] and облако [OB-la-ka] the first о is loud and stays о; the second о in облако is quiet and turns into а.

Ё is always loud. You met this in Level 1: ёж, ёлка, мёд, идёт — wherever ё is, that is the loud syllable. It never turns quiet.

How to read a new word. First split it into syllables and read them slowly, all the same: мо-ло-ко. Then listen to the word (tap it), find the loud syllable, and say the word again as one piece with that syllable loud: [ma-la-KO]. The quiet о’s will turn into а’s by themselves.

Practise

Read each line aloud. Say the syllable in capitals louder. The words in lines 1–3 are grouped by where the loud syllable is.

1. Loud first: мама [MAH-ma] · папа [PA-pa] · кошка [KOSH-ka] · ложка [LOSH-ka] · облако [OB-la-ka] · ягода [YA-ga-da]
2. Loud last: вода [va-DA] · окно [ak-NO] · она [a-NA] · пока [pa-KA] · молоко [ma-la-KO] · хорошо [kha-ra-SHO] · голова [ga-la-VA]
3. Loud middle: собака [sa-BA-ka] · дорога [da-RO-ga] · погода [pa-GO-da] · ворона [va-RO-na] · сорока [sa-RO-ka] · корова [ka-RO-va] · спасибо [spa-SEE-ba]
4. Вот город. Дорога большая. (Here is a town. The road is big.) Сегодня тепло. Облако белое. (Today it is warm. The cloud is white.)
5. Ворона чёрная. Сорока белая и чёрная. (The crow is black. The magpie is white and black.) Кот пьёт молоко. Хорошо! (The cat drinks milk. Good!)
6. Это моя голова, это мой нос. (This is my head, this is my nose.) Собака гуляет. Кошка спит дома. (The dog is out walking. The cat is sleeping at home.)

Now say the eight new words from the table without looking at the brackets. Then the two hardest ones again.

Check yourself

Worksheet

Download Worksheet 1 from the attachments below and print it. It has six words split into syllables where your child circles the loud one, six words to count syllables in, eight words to sort by whether they hide a quiet о, and a box for you to tick when the new words are said aloud.

Answer key (for the parent)

• Circle the loud syllable: мама → ма [MAH-ma]; вода → да [va-DA]; собака → ба [sa-BA-ka]; молоко → ко [ma-la-KO]; кошка → кош [KOSH-ka]; дорога → ро [da-RO-ga]. Play the word from Listen and look or the Practise line if you are not sure — the loud syllable is the one you hear.
• How many syllables: кот — 1; мама — 2; молоко — 3; собака — 3; облако — 3; ёж — 1.
• Circle the words with a quiet о: окно, вода, молоко, хорошо, собака (five words). Not circled: кот, дом, нос — their о is loud.
• Say it: tick the first box if your child said the eight new words with the loud syllable in the right place (any that match the brackets in the table count), and the second if молоко and хорошо came out with а-sounds at the start.