learn Russian

I really like this book—I have a Russian grammar book, but it doesn’t have anything about particables in it. I’m not anywhere near the stage¹ where I’d feel comfortable trying to use them, but having come across their use in Polish, I thought I’d have a look.

I also found this book but the fonts are completely screwed up, so it’s basically useless to me.

¹ I’m still learning to read Cyrillic. I’ve gone slightly past the 4-year-old reading level, but still occassionally mix ц and ч.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Russian:Lesson_2

“Russian letters do not sound one way always. It depends on their position in the word and on the stress. Reduced О (when not stressed) sounds like А. Like A in about. Reduced Е (when not stressed) sounds like И. Like E in piglet. But the reduction is not so strong as in the case of O. Although if you pronounce this letters not reduced you will stay understandable, but strange. Voiced consonants at the end of the word come unvoiced. Таз sounds like tas, взвод sounds like vzvot. The same if a voiced consonant is followed by an unvoiced one. Подскок sounds like patskók.”

I’ve got two books and two dictionaries, but that’s the first time I’ve seen a mention of unvoiced consonants changing at the end of a word (though I’d assumed it was the same as Polish).