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Yeah. Let me explain with the word семья - family. If it were written семя (that is also a word but the stress is different so ignore that and pretend the stress is the same), it would be pronounced differently. In the first, the m is palatalized (ie, soft), and there is also a y sound (/j/ in IPA) afterwards, pronounced separately. If there were no soft sign the m would be palatalized but there would be no separate y sound.
There is some fricative noise going on in palatalized consonants in Russian, especially word-finally, so you're not 100% wrong. But word final ть isn't "ts". Говорить would not be pronounced the same as говориц, and you don't need the fricative noise for it to be perceived as говорить. The difference in pronunciation between говорить and говорит is that the soft т is palatalized - you're doing a secondary pronunciation in your mouth at the same place you'd pronounce a "y" sound. You are actually also doing a secondaru VELAR pronunciation (where you pronounce k and g) on hard т, if you're pronouncing it right, but they don't generally teach this in Russian classes because it isn't as noticeable to native speakers.
If you are a monolingual English speaker, or speak other non-Russian languages, hearing the difference between мя and мья is going to be hard for you. It ALMOST sounds like there is an extra syllable in the latter, but there isn't. In IPA, the difference is /mʲa/ vs /mʲja/. If you really have a hard time hearing the difference, just think of it as making the "y" sound longer - which isn't entirely right, but is pretty close.
I am not a native Russian speaker and my pronunciation is not good, but I tried to show the difference here.
Last edited by Mars06; 04-27-2017 at 01:43 PM.
"Reduce God to the attribute of nationality? … On the contrary, I elevate the nation to God…. The people is the body of God. Every nation is a nation only so long as it has its own particular God, excluding all other gods on earth without any possible reconciliation, so long as it believes that by its own God it will conquer and drive all other gods off the face of the earth." - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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I remember one lesson of Russian language when theacher prepared for us a dictation for мя́гкий знак and твёрдый знак, and whole class received 5 (the worst grade) for it, just one student received 4. We were joking about him that he is a nerd
1984 was A Warning Not A Manual
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