There are two amazing letters in the Russian alphabet - a soft sign and a hard sign. They themselves do not represent any sounds. But they affect the neighbors.
The soft sign performs two important functions in the Russian language. It denotes the softness of the preceding consonant and is used as a dividing mark.
Sometimes a soft sign in a word is heard, but not . And vice versa... It’s difficult to remember all the rules and exceptions, but I really want to write correctly. It turns out that learning this is not at all difficult.
Soft sign after sizzling
There is no need for a soft sign after sibilants of the second declension singular (, garage), the first and second declension in the plural genitive (puddles, skis) and in short masculine adjectives answering the question “what?” For example: fresh - fresh, similar - similar. In a consonant with a consonant at the end (perishing, married, unbearable), the soft sign is also not used, but it should be written in the word wide open.
The soft sign is not written in the pronouns “our”, “your”, in the particle “alzh” and in the preposition “between”.
Soft sign to indicate the softness of consonants in writing
The soft sign is not written in the combinations: -chk- (line, crust), –chn– (bakery, laundry), -nch– (strum, bell), –nshch– (racer, bathhouse attendant), -rshch– (collector, wrangler ), –rch– (morel, ), –schn– (elegant, powerful), -st– (bridge, reed), -nt– (candy wrapper, edging).
In foreign words with a double letter l, the soft sign is not written (team, collegium, collie).
There is a rule for spelling compound numerals. If the second root in them is inclined, the soft sign should not be written. For example: eighteen - eighteen, fifteen - fifteen.
If the stem of the word from which the relative adjective is formed ends in –н, –рь, then a soft sign is not needed before the suffix -sk–. For example: beast - brutal, horse - horse. The exceptions are adjectives formed from the names of months (except January), words of Chinese origin and adjectives like day. For example: September, November, but January; Sichuan - Szechuan; day - day.
For nouns ending in -nya with a preceding consonant, a soft sign is not written. For example: tower - towers. Exception: young lady - young ladies, - kitchens, hawthorn - hawthorn.
To find out whether a soft sign is needed in a verb ending in –, ask a question about it. If there is no soft sign in the question, then there is no need to write a third person, a soft sign: “he (what is he doing?) studying,” “they (?) care.”
If you want to write correctly, do exercises to consolidate theory and read more.
Sources:
- Spelling of hard and soft characters
- Spelling a soft sign at the end of words after sibilants
Writing the particle “not” with pronouns can present a real problem - after all, the Russian language is famous for its ambiguity in such matters. However, if you know a few simple rules, it may not be so difficult.
A pronoun is a special part of speech in the Russian language, which is usually used instead of denoting an object or being, as well as its properties and other characteristics. At the same time, the pronoun is characterized by its own spelling rules, including cases of spelling with the particle “not”.
Rules for writing the particle “not” with pronouns
The generality of the particle “not” when used with a pronoun states that in this situation they should be written separately. Moreover, this method of use applies to a wide variety of types of pronouns. In particular, those that denote an object, a creature, a sign of an object and other concepts. For example, the particle “not” is used in this way in the following cases: “not that”, “not you”, “not everyone” and so on.Special cases of using the particle “not” with pronouns
A separate situation is presented by the use of the particle “not” in negative pronouns. They can denote the absence of an object, a creature, a sign of an object or another object. For example, the group of such negative pronouns includes such as “nobody”, “nothing”. In addition, negative pronouns can also denote the uncertainty of the object in question, these include pronouns such as “something” or “someone”. It is noteworthy that in most of these pronouns the particle “not” will be stressed. If you encounter a situation where a negative particle is in an unstressed position, in most cases we are talking about another particle - “neither”.In all the examples given and similar ones, the particle “not” should be written together with the pronoun. However, this rule applies only to situations where a negative pronoun is used without a preposition. If the situation in which a negative pronoun is used requires the presence of a preposition between the particle “not” and the main word, they should be written separately. For example, separate writing is required in the examples “no one”, “no one” and the like.
Finally, the special situation of using the particle “not” is associated with the phrase “no one else but.” In this case, obviously, there is the use of a negative pronoun with the partial “not” without a preposition, but it is an exception to the rule and requires separate writing of the particle and the pronoun. The same rule applies to some variations of this phrase, namely: “no one else but”, “nothing else but”, “nothing else but”. However, this rule applies only to the given variants of phrases; in other combinations, the usual rules for writing the particle “not” apply.
Video on the topic
Sources:
- Spelling "not" with pronouns
"b" (soft sign) is Slavic in origin. In the ancient Cyrillic alphabet there was the letter “er”, which conveyed a reduced (weakened) sound almost like a zero sound or like a vowel close to the sounds [o] and [e]. After the loss of reduced sounds in the Old Russian language, the need for the letter “er” disappeared, but it did not disappear from the alphabet, but was transformed into a soft sign and received her special assignment.
The letter "b" acts as a separator sign a: before the letters “e, ё, yu, ya, and” in roots, suffixes and endings of nominal parts of speech in Russian and borrowed words (weeds, sparrows, quarry, voronyo); in a small group of foreign words before the letter “o” (pavilion, broth). The letter “b” is used to indicate the softness of consonants: at the end of a word (except for hissing ones): horse, ; in the middle of a word before a solid consonant: wedding, nanny; in the middle of a word between soft consonants, if when the word changes, the second soft consonant becomes hard: take (take), na zorka (dawn); to indicate softness "l": orange, glazier. Another function of soft sign a – designation of the grammatical form of the word: a noun in the nominative and accusative case, ending in (daughter, wilderness, speech); in the instrumental case (by children, people); in various verbal forms - infinitive (bake, sit), imperative mood (cut, cut), in the second person form (, ); in adverbs that end in hissing sounds (backwards, ); in grammatical forms - at the end of words from five to forty (seven, twenty), and after forty - in the middle of cardinal numbers (fifty, five hundred). Please note that in the adverbs “uzh”, “married”, “unbearable” it is soft sign not .Also soft sign is not used in the genitive plural form of nouns that end in the combination “nya”, and in words derived from them with the suffix -k-, when in the nominative singular form this combination is preceded by a consonant: basen (), vyshen () . Exceptions include the words: young ladies, boyaryshen, kitchens, sheets. Remember that the letter “b” is written in adjectives formed from nouns - names of calendar months: June, October. An exception is the word “January”.
Video on the topic
Everyone knows perfectly well that in the Russian alphabet there are two letters that do not indicate a sound, cannot begin words and cannot be capitalized. Of course, these are soft and hard signs. It is no coincidence that these letters are called “signs”: their use helps to correctly convey the sound of words. With the help of a soft sign, in addition, grammatical forms of words belonging to different parts of speech are formed. Consider spelling options for this sign.
We use letters to represent speech sounds when writing. A letter cannot be pronounced or heard, we can only write it. One letter can represent one or more sounds, which is why there are more sounds in the Russian language than letters. There are 33 letters in the Russian alphabet, two of them do not represent sounds, they only help other letters soften the sound or make it hard.
It is worth remembering that the letters themselves have no meaning. These are just designations, one might even say symbols, invented in order to record sounds on paper. Letters are not divided into vowels, voiceless, soft, all these characteristics relate to sounds. Therefore, before teaching your child the alphabet, you should think about whether you correctly understand the meaning of sounds and letters. After all, some parents, without meaning to, teach their children incorrectly, which then causes confusion in the minds of young students.
When they arrive at school, they learn that letters by themselves mean nothing and cannot be pronounced. Many questions arise regarding what sounds are and where they came from, because letters were taught in the alphabet, but it turned out that they cannot be pronounced without sounds. After all, adults understand all these subtleties on a subconscious level, but it is so difficult for children to understand all this confusion.
Sounds
Sounds are what we say and hear. In writing, sounds are indicated using letters, and are written using a special sign - the transcription “[...]”. Sounds are distinguished: vowels and consonants, hard and soft, voiced and voiceless.
In some words, the sound completely corresponds to the written letter, i.e. t - [t], k - [k], etc. In other words, the same letter can be pronounced and heard differently. There are also words where the written letters seem to fall out when pronounced. This means that they are present in writing, but are not pronounced in speech. There are cases when a combination of two or more letters produces only one sound. And finally, there are letters that combine two sounds at once. These are letters such as: yu, ya, ё, e, y. 
Sounds are made using air. When air vibrates and the speech apparatus operates, sound is produced. When pronouncing vowel sounds, there are no obstacles for air when exhaling, which is why vowel sounds are so pure and can be sung. Consonant sounds are formed when there is an obstacle in the way of exhaled air
Main differences:
- A letter cannot be pronounced, and a sound cannot be written.
- The letter represents sound.
- The number of sounds significantly exceeds the number of letters.
Results
We can conclude that sounds cannot exist without letters, just as letters cannot exist without sounds. We need not only to hear, but also to see the text. Young children first learn to speak, i.e. pronounce sounds, and only then they are taught to write down what they said, i.e. make graphic recordings of spoken sounds. Sometimes it is difficult for children to understand the difference between a letter and a sound; to make it easier, there is a transcription in which the word is described by sounds. This means that each letter is written in accordance with the sound that we hear in speech. Then it becomes easier for children to see the fine line between a letter and a sound.
Sounds and letters cannot exist alone. There is no point in writing letters if you cannot pronounce them, and what is the point in pronouncing them if it would be impossible to write down what was said.
After all, a person cannot remember all the information that he hears throughout his life; letters come to the rescue. It is also impossible to determine what is more important, the sound or the letter, because again the thought comes to mind that their existence without each other is impossible and simply makes no sense.
Have you ever thought that there are letters in the Russian alphabet that could be completely dispensed with? Why are they needed?
b and b
Hard and soft signs do not indicate any sounds. The hard sign performs a dividing function and is used after prefixes ending in
consonants, as well as before the root of a word starting with e, e, yu or i (pre-anniversary, disheveled, weaning, sarcastic). For example, it helps us distinguish between the words “sat” and “ate.” The soft sign indicates the softness of the previous consonant: bindweed, monkey,
earlier, seven. Sometimes a soft sign helps to distinguish a masculine noun from a feminine one: for example, the word “thing” is feminine, and “horsetail” is masculine. In addition, it often contributes to the creation of different forms of the same verb: meet and meet.
But in the Old Russian language, soft and hard signs (er and er) meant very real sounds. The first meant the short sound “i”, and the second meant the same short “o”. Even before Russia adopted Christianity and the development of writing, the language had full, short and nasal vowels, and they all performed different functions. By the time of the baptism of Rus', nasal vowels had disappeared from the Russian language, but the letters to denote them remained. The former short vowels ь and ъ in some words found themselves in strong positions (for example, under stress, before a cluster of several consonants, in adjacent syllables with other short
vowels or far from stressed syllables with any vowels) and thus turned into full vowels o or e, and in others - in weak positions (at the absolute end of a word,
in adjacent syllables with stressed vowels) and gradually simply disappeared from use. Previously, the hard sign was in the word “connect” instead of “o”, the soft sign in the word “day” instead of “e”. In modern Russian there is such a thing as “fluent vowels”. This is the legacy of Old Russian. This is why texts in Old Russian are so difficult to read.
Do we need hard and soft signs? Hard to tell. In the Czech language, for example, they have long been replaced by diacritics. Language is subject to change, and it is possible that sooner or later ъ and ь will cease to exist as letters of the alphabet.
Vowels e, e, yu, i
If these letters appear after a soft or hard sign, at the beginning of a word or after a vowel, then they break up into two sounds:
For example, the word “yolka” is pronounced “yolka”.
If these vowels come after consonants, they are pronounced as follows:
e – e or i
I - and or and
For example, the word “meat” is pronounced “mistso”.
There was especially a lot of controversy about the letter e. After all, according to Soviet tradition, it was usually written as “e”. Thus, some words and surnames of foreign origin began to be pronounced incorrectly. For example, the surname Richelieu actually sounds like Richelieu, Roerich - Roerich.
The situation with the letters “ts” and shch is also interesting. The first consonant is pronounced as the combination ts, the second - as sch. Why then are these letters needed?..
But the consonants k, p, l, s, t, f, w are just a softened form of the consonants g, b, p, z, v, zh.
Theoretically, it would be possible to remove letters from the Russian alphabet that can be replaced with others. But this is not as easy as it seems at first glance. “Extra” letters appeared in the Russian language for a reason, but for convenience - to reduce the number of letters when writing words or to show the difference in pronunciation. However, the language changes over time, and both new ways of pronunciation and new letters may appear in it, while the old ones will die out.
Hard and soft signs do not indicate any sounds. The hard sign performs a dividing function and is used after prefixes ending in
consonants, as well as before the root of a word starting with e, e, yu or i (pre-anniversary, disheveled, weaning, sarcastic). For example, it helps us distinguish between the words “sat” and “ate.” The soft sign indicates the softness of the previous consonant: bindweed, monkey,
earlier, seven. Sometimes a soft sign helps to distinguish a masculine noun from a feminine one: for example, the word “thing” is feminine, and “horsetail” is masculine. In addition, it often contributes to the creation of different forms of the same verb: meet and meet.
But in the Old Russian language, soft and hard signs (er and er) meant very real sounds. The first meant the short sound “i”, and the second meant the same short “o”. Even before Russia adopted Christianity and the development of writing, the language had full, short and nasal vowels, and they all performed different functions. By the time of the baptism of Rus', nasal vowels had disappeared from the Russian language, but the letters to denote them remained. The former short vowels ь and ъ in some words found themselves in strong positions (for example, under stress, before a cluster of several consonants, in adjacent syllables with other short
vowels or far from stressed syllables with any vowels) and thus turned into full vowels o or e, and in others - in weak positions (at the absolute end of a word,
in adjacent syllables with stressed vowels) and gradually simply disappeared from use. Previously, the hard sign was in the word “connect” instead of “o”, the soft sign in the word “day” instead of “e”. In modern Russian there is such a thing as “fluent vowels”. This is the legacy of Old Russian. This is why texts in Old Russian are so difficult to read.
Do we need hard and soft signs? Hard to tell. In the Czech language, for example, they have long been replaced by diacritics. Language is subject to change, and it is possible that sooner or later ъ and ь will cease to exist as letters of the alphabet.
Have you ever thought that there are letters in the Russian alphabet that could be completely dispensed with? Why are they needed?
b and b
Hard and soft signs do not indicate any sounds. The hard sign performs a dividing function and is used after prefixes ending in
consonants, as well as before the root of a word starting with e, e, yu or i (pre-anniversary, disheveled, weaning, sarcastic). For example, it helps us distinguish between the words “sat” and “ate.” The soft sign indicates the softness of the previous consonant: bindweed, monkey,
earlier, seven. Sometimes a soft sign helps to distinguish a masculine noun from a feminine one: for example, the word “thing” is feminine, and “horsetail” is masculine. In addition, it often contributes to the creation of different forms of the same verb: meet and meet.
But in the Old Russian language, soft and hard signs (er and er) meant very real sounds. The first meant the short sound “i”, and the second meant the same short “o”. Even before Russia adopted Christianity and the development of writing, the language had full, short and nasal vowels, and they all performed different functions. By the time of the baptism of Rus', nasal vowels had disappeared from the Russian language, but the letters to denote them remained. The former short vowels ь and ъ in some words found themselves in strong positions (for example, under stress, before a cluster of several consonants, in adjacent syllables with other short
vowels or far from stressed syllables with any vowels) and thus turned into full vowels o or e, and in others - in weak positions (at the absolute end of a word,
in adjacent syllables with stressed vowels) and gradually simply disappeared from use. Previously, the hard sign was in the word “connect” instead of “o”, the soft sign in the word “day” instead of “e”. In modern Russian there is such a thing as “fluent vowels”. This is the legacy of Old Russian. This is why texts in Old Russian are so difficult to read.
Do we need hard and soft signs? Hard to tell. In the Czech language, for example, they have long been replaced by diacritics. Language is subject to change, and it is possible that sooner or later ъ and ь will cease to exist as letters of the alphabet.
Vowels e, e, yu, i
If these letters appear after a soft or hard sign, at the beginning of a word or after a vowel, then they break up into two sounds:
For example, the word “yolka” is pronounced “yolka”.
If these vowels come after consonants, they are pronounced as follows:
e – e or i
I - and or and
For example, the word “meat” is pronounced “mistso”.
There was especially a lot of controversy about the letter e. After all, according to Soviet tradition, it was usually written as “e”. Thus, some words and surnames of foreign origin began to be pronounced incorrectly. For example, the surname Richelieu actually sounds like Richelieu, Roerich - Roerich.
The situation with the letters “ts” and shch is also interesting. The first consonant is pronounced as the combination ts, the second - as sch. Why then are these letters needed?..
But the consonants k, p, l, s, t, f, w are just a softened form of the consonants g, b, p, z, v, zh.
Theoretically, it would be possible to remove letters from the Russian alphabet that can be replaced with others. But this is not as easy as it seems at first glance. “Extra” letters appeared in the Russian language for a reason, but for convenience - to reduce the number of letters when writing words or to show the difference in pronunciation. However, the language changes over time, and both new ways of pronunciation and new letters may appear in it, while the old ones will die out.