TEACHING RUSSIAN PRONUNCIATION TO CHINESE STUDENTS AT THE BEGINNER LEVEL: FEATURES, DIFFICULTIES AND WAYS TO OVERCOME THEM (WITH REGARD TO SHENZHEN MSU-BIT UNIVERSITY)

Abstract

The article addresses challenges that Chinese students face when learning Russian pronunciation at the beginner level in a Chinese-Russian cooperative university. It identifies that the most significant challenges for these students include differentiating between voiced and voiceless consonants, as well as hard and soft consonants; articulating specific Russian phonemes; mastering the nuances of Russian intonation and variable stress; and understanding the principles of vowel reduction. The primary cause of these phonetic challenges lies in the stark differences between the phonetic systems of the Chinese and Russian languages, which belong to distinct language families. These differences can be categorized into four main areas: the consonantal structure, the prosodic features, the lack of direct phonetic equivalents, and the rules of vowel reduction. The research concludes that many pronunciation errors made by Chinese learners of Russian are systematic and stem from these phonetic disparities. To address these issues, the article suggests several strategies: employing a contrastive approach to elucidate the differences between the two phonetic systems, creating targeted exercises for problematic sounds, utilizing speech visualization technologies, and others.