Studying and practicing Russian intonation is as important as studying grammar and vocabulary! Since the Russian language has flexible word order, intonation becomes CRUCIAL! For example, some questions you form only by making a difference in intonation. You can’t ignore it. So, please, spend some time working on your intonation.

In this course, I don’t want to overwhelm you with theory. Just a couple of words. In Russian, we have 7 so-called “intonation contours” – the patterns that rise and fall at different points in a sentence. It is the only way to distinguish if it’s a question, exclamation, statement, and so on. We are going to learn only some of them because others are for advanced students (and I mean REALLY advanced).

I don’t want you to dwell too much on theory. Don’t try to memorize the contours, simply practice as much as possible.

1. How to form a STATEMENT? You find the most important word in a sentence, and the intonation falls on the stressed syllable of this word.

Это мой дом.
Моя мама менеджер.
Я работаю в школе.
Он учит русский язык.
Это моя книга.
Мой друг архитектор.
Папа читает новый журнал.

Also, you can stress the most meaningful word with your voice, depending on which piece of information you consider important.

Моя мама менеджер (не твоя, а моя)
Моя мама менеджер (мама, а не папа)
Моя мама менеджер (менеджер, а не учитель).