Word Stress in Russian!

Information about word stress in Russian at russianstress.info




Word stress in Russian

You've heard it a lot of times, and you have experienced it too: it isn't too easy to get stress right in Russian. Unless you are a native speaker, or you have the chance of using spoken Russian frequently (and even if this is the case), word stress is something you have to work on. There is no such thing as predictable stress, so you have to learn which syllable is stressed along with each word you learn. Hopefully, this should happen naturally, that is: you should hear the word before reading it, and be presented with it's meaning too, instead of having to look it up in the dictionary, since using the dictionary repeatedly just isn't a nice thing to do while you are learning a language.

However, many don't have the luck of being helped by a fluent speaker. Maybe you are one of them, but you still want to pronounce words correctly when you read them. Maybe you do have the help of fluent speakers, but still can't get used to things such as shifting stress.

I have built this page in order to share some useful material and knowledge regarding stress in Russian. I hope it helps you understand stress in nouns, adjectives and verbs: what you will find, which patterns there are, what you should care about. I hope this site will help you pronounce Russian confidently.

Finally, be warned: I make no claim of the accuracy of the information above. I'm not a college student or a scholar, I simply learn Russian for fun in my spare time.

Some advice

First of all, I should insist that the best method of learning the correct stress of words is to hear the language. If possible, you should have the help of a fluent speaker.

Whichever your situation is, you should try as hard as possible to feel the sounds of the language before thoroughly and consciously studying the information above. There is much that you can discover by yourself. Hopefully, you should read this page only to confirm and complete what you already know.

Finally, the most important piece of advice: don't get obsessed with stress. Relax! Don't think you must know the stress of every single word you read or pronounce. And don't treat stress as if it were some sort of exact science.

Basic facts

These basic facts sum up all there is to stress in Russian:

More facts and useful tips

You should be able to correctly read many Russian words by just learning these facts: