Russian Accent...Please Help...?

Question

So, I'm really into theatre and acting. I'm trying out new accents. I have new york down pretty good. And I'm trying to work on my russian accent. It sounds like it's coming along. But I was wondering if anybody has any tips for me. I know you're supposed to really emphasize the R's, have a hach kind of sound with the H's, replace W's with V's (like, "vater" instead of "water"), and I even heard that sometimes you can replace V's with W's (like "wodka instead of "vodka"), and the "ing" sound should sound hard or more like "ink". I'm trying that and I'm having a bit of difficulty. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Especially since I'm majoring in theatre. Also, if you all can think of some words I can practice that will really help me with the accent more, that would be really great.

Thanks!

Answer 1

When children start learning English at school the main trouble they stumble upon is with the words that have “th” in them like “this” or “three” for example. There are no such sounds in Russian as ð and θ therefore they resort to clumsy substitutes like Z instead of ð and S instead of θ as in “three”. The latter modified accordingly used to make the whole classroom blush because it reminded very closely the Russian word not generally uttered in public, to sh***t  to be precise. I’d put pronunciation of H on second place but I don’t know how to illustrate this. Our H is more rigid maybe, it issues the moment you open your mouth whereas your H is delayed a little. The next is T. Again it’s hard to explain without being able to say it aloud. Is there any difference to the English speaking ear between the Ts in TUMBLE, TUCK and TAKE, TRY? If there is the TUMBLE’s T is ours. The V instead of W matter is much relevant. Now that you’ve mentioned it I would not deny that Communist becomes "comooneest". You are right about R. Everything else is rather vague.

  You’ve got to see movies that touch upon a Russian theme, Red Heat for instance with Schwarzenegger.

Answer 2

You are right. A few more things came to mind, when there is an open vowel "o" at the end we just say "ah". For example 'san fransiska' in San Francisco, or similar in Costco, Petco, Tahoe. Also people say "back" instead of "bag" and similar (in russian language the "g" at the end of a word is always pronounced as "k", and similarly "z" as "s", "b" as "p", etc).

Also it is hard to distinguish the vowel sounds in the words like 'live' and 'leave', also "track" and "truck", "bug" and "bag", "hub" and "hab", "pat" and "pet".

"The" goes often as "ze". I hope it helps.

Answer 3

DON'T FORGET Z INSTEAD OF TH. ZIS WAY. AND "W" LIKE"V"  

Answer 4

The tips about E don't seem right and most other tips just seem way to confusing. The last tip about O makes no sense at all.

Here is the thing. Russian doesn't have W or Y so you have to adjust accordingly V for W and OO for Y.

Also one very important factor, in Russian we pronounce every letter unlike English, so when speaking in English try to pronounce more of the letters then you would usually.