Pronounce horse in Russian ?

Question

ЛОШАДЬ

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Image:Ru-%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%88%D0%B0%D0%B4%D1%8C.ogg

I thought O's made a AH sound.. ONLY alone making a OW sound.

And I thought A's made an AH sound, not an eye sound.

I'm just learning Russian and with this word it sounds like it is pronounced: law-sh-eye-t or something, is there something I'm missing?

Answer 1

лошадь

Answer 2

Use English rules to pronounce it LAW-shett; don’t drawl AW - this will sound quite distinct!  

Answer 3

Hello there,

That's true, one of the rules are "O" make an "Ah" sound. All "O" before the accent is pronounce as "Ah" and after the accented "O" will be pronounce as "Oh" (like English).

лошадь = LOshad' (Caps lock are accents) not LAshad'

The accents for Russian are "mobile" they can be anywhere (in front, middle, end etc.). That's why you need to learn all the words, to enable you to know where the accent is/are. Accents are important because they can tell whether the speaker is speaking a plural or a singular.

Eg. адреса (Looks simple. But, ADryesa means "Address" which is a  noun/singular but "adryeSA" means "Addresses" which is a plural)

So, to know the accents is very essential in learning Russian.

By the way, I'm also a beginner in Russian.

удача! (UdaCHA means good luck)

Answer 4

loshad'

d' - soft sound