Three different types of reduction are noticed in English

1. Quantitative reduction, i.e. shortening of a vowel sound in the unstressed position, affects mainly long vowels, e.g. he [hi: - hij – hɪ] When does he come? [ →wen dəz hɪ _\kʌm].

2. Qualitative   reduction, i.e. obscuration of vowels to­wards [ə, ɪ, ʊ], affects both long and short vowels, e.g. can [kæn – kən]. You can easily do it  [ju kən →i:zɪlɪ _\du: ɪt]. Vowels in unstressed form-words in most cases undergo both quantitative and qualitative reduction, e.g. to [tu: - tu - tʊ].

3. The third type is the elision of vowels in the unstressed position, e.g. I'm up already [aɪm ʌр _\ ɔ:lredɪ]. Comparison with Russian. In Russian as well as in English reduction is both quantitative and qualitative but at the same time it depends on the place of the unstressed syllable in the word. The farther the syllable is away from the stressed one, the weaker it is, e.g. голова [гъллва]. Vowels of full value do not occur in the unstressed position, as a rule. Elision is rather common in Russian.

Recommendations

1. Reduced vowels should be made very weak. Sometimes they are even dropped in fluent speech, e.g. factory ['fæktrɪ].

2. Unknown words especially compound and borrowed should be looked up in a dictionary to check their pronunciation. Be sure not to reduce vowels of full value in the unstressed position, unless you are to do so.

3. When practicing reading as well as speaking weaken un­stressed form-words, personal and possessive pronouns, auxiliary and modal verbs whenever it is necessary.

Possible Mistakes of Russian Learners

1. Russian students of English do not shorten or obscure unstressed vowels in the cases they should be strongly reduced, e.g. forget [fə'get], of course [əv'kɔ:s].

2. Russian students of English easily reduce the vowels of full value in unstressed positions, they often substitute them by the neutral sound in the cases where there should be no reduction at all, e.g. blackboard ['blækbɔ:d]; architect ['ɑ:kɪtekt].

3. Russian learners do not always observe secondary stress in polysyllabic words and reduce the vowel of full value. Care should be taken to observe the rhythmical tendency of second­ary stresses and to pronounce the vowel of full value in the sylla­bles marked by secondary stresses, e.g. conversation [.kɒnvə'seɪʃn], revolution [.revə'lu:ʃn]. Any good dictionary can help you in the three cases mentioned above.

4. Form-words and especially personal and possessive pro­nouns, auxiliary and modal verbs are often (made) strongly stressed by the Russians, though they have no special logical prominence. Mind that those words are normally unstressed and are very weak in English speech.

Strong and weak forms

Spoken English shows a marked contrast between its stressed and unstressed syllables. Words which bear the major part of information are generally stressed and are called notional (content) words. These are: nouns, adjectives, notional verbs, adverbs, numerals, interrogative and demonstrative pro­nouns. The other words in a sentence are mostly form (structural) words which link the content words and help us in this way to form an utterance. They are: articles, prepositions, conjunctions, particles, and also auxiliary and modal verbs, per­sonal and possessive pronouns. These are not many in number but they are among the commonest words of the language. As form-words are normally unstressed in a sentence their weak reduced forms are generally used in speech, e.g. He said he’d come in the morning   [hɪ ↘sed hɪd 'kʌm ɪn ðə _\mɔ:nɪŋ]