Talk:но

Russian unstressed pronunciation

@Atitarev I am not "confusing" it with ну (nu), but the two words sound exactly the same in unstressed position (for me at least). Compare the sentences "Ну не пошел он!" and "Он сказал, что пойдет, но не пошел." (in the phrase "ну/но не пошел", the only stress is in "пошел"). It also works pretonically as well in "Но как он туда добрался?" and "Ну как он туда добрался?" (since there is a stress on "как"). --WikiTiki89 16:16, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

но doesn't carry the sentence stress but it's never reduced, it's pronounced clearly and in any case, о is never pronounced as у in any position, unlike Ukrainian. Но and ну can sometimes replace each other with a slight difference in the meaning but if you want to say ну, you write ну, not но. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 21:39, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

We've had disputes over pronunciation before. I know very well the difference in meaning between ну and но and I am not confusing the two. My theory is that precisely because the /o/ in но does not reduce to /a/, many speekers are unable in fast speech to preserve the /o/ sound in unstressed position, so it merges with the /u/ sound instead. --WikiTiki89 15:29, 30 June 2014 (UTC)