Tonkyhonk wrote:actually im not sure if im doing it correctly between [i] and [u], with self-teaching and some tips gotten from mongolians, but i dont remember having a problem with that particular sound itself alone. does it have a minimal pair to compare with?
the problem with russian for me that i found was the complex combinations of all the consonants and vowels, especially ж and ш in combination.
(the very first word i tried was the polite greeting "Здравствуйте"... took me long to get used to it and made me feel like i could try any others after this.)
Well, something between [i] and [u] would make it understandable, but it's not quite the same.
Here is a minimal pair.I believe russian language can be very complicated for a foreigner, not only because of prononciation. Declension and conjugation is probably a real hell, plus all the prefixes and suffixes... For example a few forms of a verb "to do" - "делать": делала, сделал, переделать, уделать, делается, заделывается, отделал - that's around 10% of all the possible forms for jus one word.