the good old days, and that pesky letter "shee" (formerly "shch")

[Marsha Shisman]

Devin, 

There is a letter "shch" and there is another letter for "sh".  The
student in your class is correct (I am native Russian).

Thank you.  MS


-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Devin Browne
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 9:01 AM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: [SEELANGS] the good old days, and that pesky letter "shee"
(formerly "shch")

So I'd appreciate some feedback.  When I was learning Russian, back in
Gorbachev era late 1980s, we learned that the 27th letter of the Russian
alphabet was pronounced "shch" ("as in fresh cheese," the woman on the
cassette tape would say during a visit to the language lab).  But I
understand that now standard Russian teaching shows this letter's
pronunciation as "shee" and that's how I teach it.

I have an exchange student (I teach HS Russian and French) this year
from
Lithuania.  Nice boy, although a little bored since he has studied
Russian
for several years but (due to scheduling) has to sit in on the Russian 1
class.  He insists that the pronunciation is "shch" and that "all music
and
movies and video" coming out of Russia say the letter like "shch."  Now,
I
know my French is much stronger than my Russian (this move to teaching
Russian again coming after 15 years of teaching only French), but I'm
assuming that the "shch" issue with this boy is either a product of his
individual Russian teacher or a regional pronunciation of the letter.
He's
been polite about it, but fairly insistent nonetheless.

There are many who know better than I, of course.  What do you all
think?

Devin

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