Default Stress

Default stress is the expected stress. It occurs in about 75% of all Russian words. By adding a few simple rules stress can be predicted in about 90% of all words. The final 10% must be learned.

First off, words with no vowels are not stressed.

в in, to

к toward

с with

Sometimes an "о" is added to these prepostions to make pronunciation easier. They are still not stressed:

во вторую неделю in the second week

во втором классе in second grade

ко мне towards me

Words with only one vowel have stress on that vowel.

как how

я I didn't have time

то есть that is

а так чтоб however to...

Exceptions: the prepositions о and по are not stressed. The negative particle не is never stressed except in the phrase не было 'there wasn't'.

о книжках about books

по арифметике in arithmetic

не учебные книжки not school books

Words with more than one syllable:

nouns and adjectives: stress falls on the final stressable vowel before the ending:

Витя Vitya

школа school

дома at home

время time

целое whole

More about "stressable vowels" later.

verbs: stress falls on the first stressable vowel after the root (the root is underlined in the following examples):

летит

успел

оглянуться

пришла

идти

играл

More about verb roots later.

Discussion

Default stress for nouns and adjectives is the last stressable vowel right before the ending. The key word here is stressable. Some noun and adjective suffixes are never or almost never stressed, they are basically unstressable. (An example is the suffix -ость. It is never stressed.) Once you know which suffixes are unstressable, then with the default rule you will be able to predict correctly the stress of most Russian words. Being able to predict stress correctly can be an aid in practicing Russian by reading. As you continue to read we will point out and practice unstressable suffixes.

Default stress for verbs is very similar to nouns and adjectives: the first vowel after the root. The difference is that some verbs have no suffix at all and they are stressed on the ending, as in иду. When a noun or adjective has no suffix, stress still falls on the vowel right before the ending, as in бумага and старый. However, just like nouns and adjectives, there are some verbs whose suffix is never stressed. (An example is the suffix -ыва.) In these verbs, stress falls on the root. This program will help you learn to recognize suffixes (verbal and nominal) that are not stressed.

Finally, there are exceptions to default stress as defined above, and these must be learned. To point these out, we will mark exceptions to the general default rule in red, for example:

думать think

каникулы holidays

кончились were over

бегал I ran around

To aid in remembering the stress of exceptions, we will mark them in red the first 10 times they are encountered in the text and then sporadically in purple thereafter as a reminder.

Now, return to the text and read the first section out loud.