Sound Changes!

PLACEMENT:

One of the biggest differences between Ukraine and Russian language is placement in the mouth. In Ukraine, placement is very far in back of throat and it had a bit of nasal quality to it. The people of Russian beliefs this makes us Ukrainians sound silly, but they are deranged.

The [I] sounds does not exist in Ukraine language!

So most of these times [I] becomes à [i]

EXAMPLE. Listen! Hit me up at the gym for a little swim.

In Ukraine we no like the diphthongs!

[ɛI] à [ɛ:] or [e:]

EXAMPLE: Danger Danger! A wave of May Day party girls with supremely low waistlines are headed this way.

[oʊ] à open back vowel [ɔ]

EXAMPLE: That hopeless moaning woman keeps ringing my mobile.

The light [l] sound is most difficult for us to make so we do this instead [ɫ]

Is much darker, kind of like swallowing the sounds.

EXAMPLE: Is slim chance military will ever master the Kremlin’s slick dance moves.

We will replace unrounded back vowel of cup sound [ʌ] with rounded back vowel that is worm with backpack [ɒ]

EXAMPLE: We will culminate this discussion with interruption from inebriated monks.

Hokay, now we also replace [ʊ] with the more rounded [u]

That prude woman should have shown me with bosom with more haste.

And replace that splat [æ] with [ɑ] if it is suiting for you.

EXAMPLE: Bad News! That man at the bar has stolen your rad jacket.

The [h] is replaced with the [x] which makes us sound like we have something stuck in the back of our throats. But don’t go too crazy with it because you will sound impaired.

EXAMPLE: The rehearsal inhabitants are most premium, but I am hungry, hokay?

As with many people of foreign [θ] and [ ] are difficult to speak so they are replaced with plosives [t̺] or [d] and also [s] or [z]

That kind of thinking could send me to the thoughtful theatre.

Now although there is an intrusive [j] in Ukraine accent I do not want you to go crazy with it because it does not happen as often as in Russian accent.

EXAMPLE: I will have a meeting with that man about her beauty.

One last thing. We will be replacing the hard [ɡ] with [h]. This only happen in Ukraine because we are not fans of the [ɡ] in our country.

My garage is full of gardening goods.

RHYTHM AND STRESS.

Most of the time the stress will be on the penultimate syllable of a word.

We tend to get rid of unnecessary articles such as “the, a, an etc.”

We do not aspirate [p, t, k] or if we do we tend to over-exaggerate to make up for all those times we didn’t aspirate them.

EXAMPLE: We picked up ticks at Peter’s place.