ёжик (“little hedgehog”) | Russian Pronunciation Demystified!

0:00Hey guys, I'm Kira, and today you'll learn how to pronounce the word Yorzyk, or little hedgehog, a very beloved animal in Russian culture. The Yorzyk is sometimes written without the two dots. The dots are usually used in books for children and foreigners who are learning the language. The first syllable is a diphthong that consists of a Yussand and an O sound. Yor, Yor. We have a Y sound in English, as in the word yes, but the Yuss sound is much stronger at the beginning of the word Yorzyk. We can make it sound Russian by narrowing the space between our tongue and the roof of our mouth, and putting more air through. Yuh, Yuh. In English, the letter O closes to an O sound. Oh, oh. But Russian does the opposite. It opens either from an O to an O sound or from an O to an O sound.

1:00Oh, oh. Let's put the Yuh and the O together with good Russian default mouth position, jaw slightly forward, tip of the tongue behind the bottom teeth, lips rounded and protruded. Yuh, Yuh. But Yuh, but jaw tongue leaps, Yuh, Yuh. Je is pronounced with the tip of the tongue curved upward, but with the rest of the tongue low, with a sort of cup shape, making lots of space in the mouth. Zh, Zh. The E here sounds like the vowel Y. To learn how to pronounce Y, we first start with a real Russian U. The jaw is slightly forward. The lips are out way further than in English, and the tongue is very low in the mouth, making the same sort of cup shape we used before. U, U. Then we relax only the lips, leaving the tongue where it was.

2:03U, Yuh, Yuh. Is your tongue staying where it was? If not, then try it again. If you practice this exercise on your own a lot, you'll eventually be able to pronounce the Yuh vowel on its own, because your tongue will remember where to go. Finally, make sure your tongue is quite low when you release the K. It's not K, but K. Let's do the second syllable. Zhuh, Zh, Zh, Zh. Now the whole thing, Zhuh, Zh, Zh, Zh, Zh, Zh, Zh, Zh, Zh, Zh, Zh, Zh, Zh, Zh, Zh, Zh. That's it guys. Be sure to subscribe on YouTube, share these videos, suggest a word, join me on Patreon,

3:08and check out my video course at unlockingrussianpronunciation.org, where I explain why some letters sound different in certain situations, and how you can learn to predict and pronounce all of the subtleties. And if you teach Russian and you like my videos, please consider tagging me on Instagram, so your students can see them too. She's Liva!