Introduction:

Reading Russian out loud is a good way to practice Russian on your own. One real barrier to this, however, is knowing the stress of new words or remembering the stress of words you already know. This is particularly hard because stress can move around on a word depending on its case and number (singular or plural). Consequently, Russian word stress seems chaotic; learners are often just told to memorize the stress of each new word. While memorization is needed for exceptions, in fact the stress of most Russian words is predictable. The aim of this program is to get you reading normal everyday Russian out loud with correct word stress and so improve your speaking fluency. This program is for speakers who are at least at the intermediate level.

Each section in this program focuses on one particular aspect of Russian stress. The default stress rule, which is formally introduced with the first paragraph of the reading, accounts for the stress of close to 75% of all words. As you continue to read the text, ways to predict the stress of another 15% are incrementally introduced. A method is also introduced to help students learn (ok, memorize) the stress of the final 10% of words encountered. By the end of the text, you should be getting stress right on close to 100% of the words.

Word Structure

An understanding of the basic structure of Russian words is needed in predicting stress. Words are composed of components: prefix, root, suffix, ending.

Prefix A segment at the beginning of a word which, when added, alters the meaning of a word:

читать 'read' перечитать 'reread'

писать 'write' подписать 'sign' (literally 'write under')

идти 'go' выйти 'go out'

Root The part of the word that carries the main meaning.

думать 'think

придумать 'think up'

подумать 'think' (perfective)

Suffix With a root forms a noun, verb, adjective or adverb:

первоклассник 'first grader'

думать 'think'

трудный 'difficult'

Adverb

громко 'loudly'

Ending

думать 'think'

думаю 'I think'

школа 'school' (nominative singular)

школу 'school (accusative singular)'

трудный 'difficult' (masc. singular)

трудная 'difficult' (fem. singualr)

The part of any word without an ending is its stem:

Подумать только, как быстро время летит!

'Just think, how fast time flies!'

Не успел я оглянуться, как каникулы кончились и пришла пора идти в школу.

I barely had time to look around when vacation ended and it came time to go to school.

Целое лето я только и делал, что бегал по улицам да играл в футбол, а о книжках даже позабыл думать.

All summer all I did was run around the streets and play soccer, and I didn't even remember to think about books.

In summary, Russian words have the following structure where parentheses indicate that segment may not be present and the underlined part is the stem:

(prefix) root (suffix) (ending)

How to do the reading:

1. Before reading each section click on the stress explanation given in parentheses in blue. Read through the explanation and examples carefully, but there's no need to memorize them. Then return to the text. Words in the section that are subject to that particular explanation have stressed vowels or syllables written in green just to point them out. These are the words in the section that further exemplify the explanation. (Words with default stress as explained in the first section of the text are not marked in green because there are so many of them.)
2. A number of words do not have stress on the default location. When these are first encountered their stress is marked in red. They are subsequently marked in red nine more times (or until they are explained by rule) to remind the reader of their exceptional stress. You are encouraged to say these words out loud: whisper, yell, sing song—in any way that will help you remember these exceptions. In doing so, the reader will learn the stress of these exceptional words naturally, especially if she is reading out loud.
3. Some words have suffixes that you might expect to be stressed, but they are never stressed. Instead, stress falls on the preceding vowel. These suffixes are colored gray ten times to help remind the reader to stress the preceding vowel. Subsequently they will be rendered normally giving the reader a chance to produce the right stress without any aids. Click on any word with a grayed out suffix to get a reminder of the relevant rule.
4. Words with partial default stress (PDS). The stress of a few high frequency words shifts from one syllable to another when inflected: in some forms of the word they have default stress, in others their stress is exceptional. For example, some nouns have default stress in the singular but exceptional stress in the plural, as след 'track', следа (gen sg), but следы (nom pl). These partial default stress (PDS) words are formally introduced in the sections. The exceptional syllables are marked in orange ten times, while the forms with default stress are not marked at all. For example, the verb мочь has default stress in some of its forms (мочь, могу, мог, могла, etc.) but not in all: можешь, может, etc.
5. As indicated above words with non-predictable stress are marked ten times throughout the text. After that they will only occasionally be marked in purple simply as a reminder.
6. At the end of each section the percentage of words in that section with predictable stress is given. You will note that as you read, the percentage of words with predictable stress continually increases.
7. The idea behind this methodology is to have the reader become proficient in knowing the stress for nearly all the 40,002 words in this Russian text.