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Gary does a great job of announcing, but trying to pronounce all those foreign names is a hopeless task without a guide. I assume no such guide is provided the announcers. Gary sometimes goes back and forth on his pronunciation of Russian family names, like:
a-bak-U-mo-va
a-bak-u-MO-va
I got into a discussion with a Brit in front of me about some women's names. He didn't think there was ever a stress on the O-va, but there is, sometimes. Unfortunately, there is no rule for where the stress falls in Russian; it bounces all over the place, including in different forms of the same root word. This is a nightmare for learners of Russian; hence, in textbooks the stress is always marked.
I found a video of an interview with Anna Chicherova on Russian TV, and the interviewer pronounced her name CHI-cher-a-va (those last two vowels are actually "shwa", a neutral, unstressed "grunt". I assume this is correct, as interviewers are not prone to mispronounce interviewee's names. (Nor did she correct him.)
Although I studied Russian for seven years and spoke relatively fluently, that was over 40 years ago, so I am not much better off than non-Russian speakers in this area.
So, I sent an e-mail (in Russian) to [email protected] asking them if there exists a list of the Russian "sbornaya" (national combined team) with stress indicated. It seems doubtful, but maybe, in the interests of international communication, they will provide something. If I do get anything in return, I will share it will T&F N and anyone else who is anal enough to be interested. >:-)
I am also trying to contact the Moscow LOC to find out whether they are going to relax visa restrictions for spectators coming to Moscow in 2013. One of the news items said that they had a "simplified" visa system for athletes and officials, but nothing about spectators. You'd think they'd want to remove a disincentive.
Cheers,
Alan Shank
Woodland, CA, USA
a-bak-U-mo-va
a-bak-u-MO-va
I got into a discussion with a Brit in front of me about some women's names. He didn't think there was ever a stress on the O-va, but there is, sometimes. Unfortunately, there is no rule for where the stress falls in Russian; it bounces all over the place, including in different forms of the same root word. This is a nightmare for learners of Russian; hence, in textbooks the stress is always marked.
I found a video of an interview with Anna Chicherova on Russian TV, and the interviewer pronounced her name CHI-cher-a-va (those last two vowels are actually "shwa", a neutral, unstressed "grunt". I assume this is correct, as interviewers are not prone to mispronounce interviewee's names. (Nor did she correct him.)
Although I studied Russian for seven years and spoke relatively fluently, that was over 40 years ago, so I am not much better off than non-Russian speakers in this area.
So, I sent an e-mail (in Russian) to [email protected] asking them if there exists a list of the Russian "sbornaya" (national combined team) with stress indicated. It seems doubtful, but maybe, in the interests of international communication, they will provide something. If I do get anything in return, I will share it will T&F N and anyone else who is anal enough to be interested. >:-)
I am also trying to contact the Moscow LOC to find out whether they are going to relax visa restrictions for spectators coming to Moscow in 2013. One of the news items said that they had a "simplified" visa system for athletes and officials, but nothing about spectators. You'd think they'd want to remove a disincentive.
Cheers,
Alan Shank
Woodland, CA, USA
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