Every alternation the course has met, in one place: akanne, jakanne, the five consonant changes, and the о that becomes а only when the stress moves off it.
I can predict how a word changes when its ending or stress moves, and work backwards from an unfamiliar form to its root.
Look at these examples. Can you spot the grammar pattern?
Горад вялікі, а гарады розныя.
The city is big, and cities vary.
У лесе цёмна, а лясы навокал старыя.
It is dark in the forest, and the woods around are old.
Кніга ў руцэ, а другая ў кнізе закладзена.
One book is in my hand, and another is tucked into the book.
Я магу, а ты можаш - гэта адзін дзеяслоў.
I can and you can - it is one verb.
Pay attention to the highlighted parts. What do they have in common?
The alternations have turned up module by module - in the plural, in the locative, in the second conjugation, in the prefixes. They are not separate rules. They are three sound laws applied wherever the shape of a word changes.
Belarusian writes what is said, so a vowel that loses the stress changes on paper:
This is why a Belarusian word can look different from its own root: горад and гарады are the same word with the stress in two places.
It applies only in the syllable immediately before the stress. Further back, the vowel stays е.
| г → з | кніга → у кнізе | before the locative and dative endings |
| к → ц | рука → у руцэ | same |
| х → с | страха → на страсе | same |
| д → дз | горад → у горадзе | dzekanne |
| т → ц | хата → у хаце | tsekanne |
| г → ж | магу → можаш | in verbs |
| к → ч | пячы → пячэш | in verbs |
The last two rows are the same laws applied inside the verb rather than the noun.
Both the preposition and the word-initial vowel: быў у Мінску but была ў Мінску; універсітэт but ва ўніверсітэце.
Once these are one system rather than a dozen exceptions, an unfamiliar form stops being opaque: work backwards from the sound law and the root appears.
Apply this grammar in B1 course exercises
Practice ExercisesTypical errors: treating each alternation as an exception to be memorised separately, instead of working backwards from the sound law.
Missing д→дз and т→ц in case forms
У горадзе, у хаце, у садзе - these laws have no Russian counterpart.
Keeping an unstressed о
Akanne is written: гарады, галава, малако.
Keeping е in the syllable before the stress
Лясы, сямнаццаць, вятры.
Not alternating у and ў
ў after a vowel, у after a consonant.
Горад вялікі, а гарады розныя.
The city is big, and cities vary.
Akanne visible in one line: the stress moves and the о is written а.
У лесе цёмна, а лясы навокал старыя.
It is dark in the forest, and the woods around are old.
Jakanne: <em>лес</em> gives <em>лясы</em> when the stress moves to the ending.
Кніга ў руцэ, а другая ў кнізе закладзена.
One book is in my hand, and another is tucked into the book.
Two consonant alternations in one sentence: <em>к → ц</em> and <em>г → з</em>.
Я магу, а ты можаш - гэта адзін дзеяслоў.
I can and you can - it is one verb.
<em>Г → ж</em> inside the verb: the same law as in the nouns.
Ён быў у Мінску, а яна была ў Гродне.
He was in Minsk and she was in Hrodna.
The у / ў rule twice: after a consonant sound, then after a vowel.
Practice in course
Apply this grammar in B1 course exercises
The state orthographic norm in force since 1 September 2010, cited as the law itself. It is what makes the written forms of akanne and jakanne, the obligatory ё, ў after a vowel and the apostrophe in place of a hard sign normative rather than conventional. No URL is given deliberately: the rules text is not published at a stable public address - the pages that carry the law show only its enacting articles - so a link here would imply a verification a reader cannot perform.
The current academic reference grammar; the linked edition serves the full text. Its morphology part is the source for the paradigms used here. On the neuter noun it states the nominative singular endings as -а (-о) and -е (-ё), and gives the nominative plural as -ы after a hard consonant (сёлы, вёдры) against -і after a soft consonant and after к, х (палі, воблакі).
The academic reference grammar behind the phonology, orthoepy and morphology sections: the 32-letter inventory, дж and дз as digraphs rather than letters, and the normative description of akanne and jakanne. A print work; no URL is given, because the only one available is a library catalogue record that carries none of the text.