Чита́ем по-ру́сски 1.5 Где? Здесь и́ли там?

Англи́йские зву́ки и ру́сская орфогра́фия

A few sound combinations that are common in English words cannot be spelled in the Russian alphabet using only one letter. A good example is the spelling of one of our new characters, Joshua Stein (Джо́шуа Стайн). You will need to get used to how English words (proper names and some cognates) are spelled--they may seem odd at first. Often they are written in Russian as approximations of the English pronunciation rather than of the spelling, so they may look very different from how the word appears in English. As you read through the explanation, listen to the words in English and Russian and note the spellings of the highlighted parts of each word.

Joshua	Джо́шуа
George	Джордж

The English soft [g], which we spell either -g or -j (as in the names Joshua and George), Russian spells using the letters «дж».

Stein, Stine	Стайн
hey!	эй!
Winehouse	У́айнхаус
Caitlin	Ке́йтлин
baseball	бейсбо́л

In words where an English syllable would end in a y-sound, as in  “hey!” or “hi!”), there is often the letter -й at the end of that syllable in Russian*, though not always. Be ready to see the combinations -ай, -ей or -эй. You will see these letter combinations in Russian non-cognate words and names as well: Ната́лья Миха́йловна За́йцева is a good example.

Brown	Бра́ун
Dr. Gregory House	До́ктор Гре́гори Ха́ус
Middletown	Ми́длтаун

English names containing the sound heard in the middle of the word “loud” will be spelled in Russian «ау». This is generally true regardless of whether the English name is spelled “ow” or “ou.” There is not an -о in the Russian version, since it is spelled as it is pronounced.

Images courtesy of Library of Congress, NBC Universal, Montclair Film, chotda, Raph_PH, Velvet, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Marie-Lan Nguyen, Sachyn Mital, The Come Up Show, Paolo Villanueva, pexels, Raphael Pour-Hashemi.