posted 01-10-2007 06:59 AM               

In particular, I have difficulty with surnames that end with “ov”. For example, these two cosmonauts:

Sergei Konstantiovich Krikalyov
Yuri Vladimirovich Usachyov

I have sometimes seen their surnames written as “ev” at the end instead of “ov”.

And for Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, again I have seen “yov” at the end.

But knowing that Russian Cyrillic letters are not always sounded the way that the English letters are sounded, is the pronunciation of the above cosmonauts “ev” or “ov”?

posted 01-10-2007 07:12 AM               

To spell it phonetically in english it would look like this: "Kreek al yoff". Most people pronounce it as if it were spelled
"Krik a lev".
You'll notice he has to dots above the "e" This changes the pronounciation from "lev" to "yoff"

Hope that helps.