Contrasting of Russian consonants in terms of hardness / softness against a foreign language background: the linguodidactic aspect

The main purpose of this article is to describe Russian hardness-softness category on foreign languages background in the context of linguodidactics. A certain amount of foreign students’ mistakes in Russian speech is caused by difficulties in mastering, firstly, the opposition of Russian soft and hard consonants, and secondly, the implementation of hard and soft consonants in Russian speech. The article provides some recommendations aimed at phonetic accent elimination in the pronunciation of Russian hard and soft consonants in various positions. The use of the features of the phonetic system of the native language can play an important role in the development of method of working on the pronunciation of hard and soft consonants. Reliance on the native language increases the efficiency of work related to teaching Russian phonetics in a foreign language audience. Particular attention in this article is paid to the role of the opposition of consonants in terms of hardness/softness in Turkish language in the practice of teaching Russian phonetics to Turks.