Trying to figure out the logic behind the cyrillic 'o' and 'a' and how to pronounce them. Then I realised how terrible English would be to learn. What is the most idiosyncratic language int?
unstressed O is pronounced as A in the most standard dialect
here, simple as that
>>52520406
What's there not to get? Russian has a standard five-vowel system with vowel reduction (like in English) in unstressed syllables.
>>52520491
the rule is simple, but why not just have o = o and a = a? then that would be perfect. (unless I'm missing something horrible here)
>>52520578
some northern varieties and lower class ukrainian works this way
it's just seen as rural
>>52520578
>anglos complaining about odd orthography
Besides, it's not even the same sound.
Unstressed "o" -> [ə]
a -> [a]
>>52520736
unless you're from Moscow
then unstressed o is annoyingly [a]
>>52520578
They do this in Belarusian.
Also some words have a shifting stress, e.g. гoлoвa is stressed on the last syllable, but its accusative гoлoвy on the first one. So if every unstressed O was spelled A, these words would be гaлaвa and гoлaвy and you'd have to know that sometimes A turns into O.
It's also easier with neuter nouns, you know мecтo is neuter is neuter because it ends in O, if it was spelled мecтa you'd have to learn its gender.
>>52520614
>it's just seen as rural to get the letters right
What a world.
>>52520406
Cyrillic is not a language, the pronunciation is different depending on what language, I'm guessing you're studying Russian?
>>52520406
o - as in war
a - as in car
simple
>>52520406
>What is the most idiosyncratic language int?
wot? You mean unique?
Porabably Basque.
> Then I realised how terrible English would be to learn.
Do you think english is hard to learn?
>>52520406
Stressed á is [a] - глaз [gɫas]
Stressed ó is [o̞] - дoм [do̞m]
Initial and pretonic a and o are [ɐ] - вoдá [vɐ'da], тpaвá [trɐ'va], aнaнác [ɐnɐ'nas]
In other positions, they are pronounced like [ə] - нéбo ['nʲɛbə], paccпpocи́ть [rəsprɐ'sʲitʲ]
The main problem here is that stress are almost never marked in spelling, and you need to use dictionaries to determine where the stress in a word is.
