You already know that there is vowel reduction in the Russian language.
In this lesson you will learn about vowel reduction after soft consonants.
The vowel [е] after a soft consonant is represented by the letter E, and the vowel [а] is represented by the letter Я. And this is how you’re going to read these letters in an unstressed position – [а] and [е] are fronted and raised to [ɪ] in pretoniс and post-tonic syllables, so, simply speaking, when Я and Е are not stressed, we pronounce them as [ɪ]. It’s a short vowel very similar to [i].

Watch the video, listen and repeat out loud.

Exercise 1

Listen and pick or tap the vowel you hear in the place of the underlined letter.