Belarusian stress is free and mobile, and because the spelling follows the sound, getting the stress wrong changes the spelling too.
I can place the stress correctly in common words and use the spelling to work out where it falls.
Подивіться на ці приклади. Чи можете ви помітити граматичну закономірність?
На стале ляжаць адзінаццаць кніг.
There are eleven books on the table.
Вакно вялікае, а вокны ў суседа малыя.
The window is big, but the neighbour's windows are small.
Яна ўзяла кошык і пайшла ў лес.
She took the basket and went into the forest.
Каля плота расце крапіва.
Nettles grow by the fence.
Зверніть увагу на виділені частини. Що у них спільного?
In Russian, misplacing the stress sounds wrong. In Belarusian it also spells wrong, because akanne and jakanne are written. If you think the stress in вада is on the first syllable, you will write вода. Stress is therefore not a finishing touch but part of learning the word.
Free: it can fall on any syllable, and there is no rule that predicts it from the shape of the word. Mobile: it can move within the paradigm of a single word.
| Pattern | Example |
|---|---|
| Fixed on the stem | кні́га - кні́гі - кні́зе |
| Fixed on the ending | стала́ - сталу́ |
| Moving to the ending in the plural | во́зера - азё́ры |
| Moving to the stem in the plural | вакно́ - во́кны |
Many cognate words carry the stress on different syllables, and these are worth learning as a list rather than deriving:
The past tense often shifts to the ending in the feminine: быў - была́ - бы́ло - бы́лі, узя́ў - узяла́, даў - дала́. This is the single most productive pattern to learn, because it affects the commonest verbs.
The acute accent is used only in dictionaries, textbooks and where a word would otherwise be ambiguous. In ordinary writing it is not marked, so the spelling is your evidence: any о or э you see is stressed, without exception in native words. That is a genuinely useful reading rule.
Застосуйте цю граматику у вправах курсу C1
Вправи для практикиTypical errors: carrying the Russian stress across to a cognate, and writing о in an unstressed syllable as a result.
Carrying the Russian stress to a cognate
Learn адзінаццаць, крапіва and стары as a list.
Writing о in an unstressed syllable
The stress decides the letter.
Not shifting the stress in the feminine past
Была, узяла, дала.
Keeping the stress fixed through a mobile paradigm
Возера gives азёры; вакно gives вокны.
На стале ляжаць адзінаццаць кніг.
There are eleven books on the table.
<em>Адзінаццаць</em> is stressed on the third syllable, unlike its Russian cognate.
Вакно вялікае, а вокны ў суседа малыя.
The window is big, but the neighbour's windows are small.
The stress moves to the stem in the plural, and the spelling moves with it.
Яна ўзяла кошык і пайшла ў лес.
She took the basket and went into the forest.
<em>Узяла</em> stresses the ending in the feminine past.
Каля плота расце крапіва.
Nettles grow by the fence.
<em>Крапіва</em> stresses the last syllable.
Возера замерзла, а азёры на поўначы яшчэ не.
The lake has frozen, but the northern lakes have not yet.
The stress moves to the ending in the plural, so о becomes ё.
Практикувати в курсі
Застосуйте цю граматику у вправах курсу C1