Your accent is not what lowers the score
Speaking tests measure how easily a listener understands you, not how native you sound. A clear Russian accent is compatible with the top bands.
The main issue: hardening the end of a word
Russian devoices a voiced consonant at the end of a word — друг is said with a k. English keeps the voicing, and the difference carries meaning.
| You may say | You mean | Result |
|---|---|---|
| bet | bed | a different word |
| dock | dog | a different word |
| half | have | a different word |
| pick | pig | a different word |
It also removes grammar. The English -ed and -s endings are voiced after a voiced sound, so hardening them deletes the ending a listener is waiting for:
- played → playt
- dogs → docks
- lives → life
Soft consonants
Russian consonants come in hard and soft pairs, and a consonant before a front vowel is softened — the tongue rises towards the roof of the mouth. English does not do this, so English consonants can pick up a y-like quality that sounds wet to an English ear.
- tea → tyea, see → syee, need → nyeed
This rarely changes a word outright, but it accumulates, and it is one of the things that makes a Russian accent hard to follow at speed. Keep the tongue flat and the consonant hard before ee and i sounds.
The sounds worth fixing
| Sound | Why it's hard | What a listener may hear |
|---|---|---|
| /w/ | Not in Russian; becomes /v/. | west → vest, wine → vine |
| /θ/ and /ð/ (th) | Not in Russian; become /s/, /z/, /t/ or /d/. | think → sink, this → zis |
| /h/ | Russian х is harsher and further back. | hello picks up a scraping quality |
| /ɪ/ vs /i:/ | The contrast is unfamiliar. | ship / sheep, live / leave |
| /æ/ | No close equivalent. | bad / bed, cat / cut |
| dark /l/ | Russian л is heavier than English l before vowels. | light, look sound thick |
For /w/, round your lips as if to whistle and keep your teeth off your lip. If the top teeth touch the bottom lip, you have produced a v.
One grammar note that sounds like pronunciation
Russian has no articles, so a and the are easy to leave out. Because they are tiny and unstressed, a missing article can feel like a pronunciation slip — but the examiner marks it as grammar.
It is worth practising deliberately: read a paragraph aloud and make yourself say every a and the, quickly and quietly, without stressing them. English weakens them almost to nothing, but it does not omit them.
How to practise
- Record yourself. As you speak you hear what you intended, not what came out.
- Start with final voicing. Read aloud with a hand on your throat and keep the buzz through the ends of words. Watch every -ed and -s.
- Then /w/ versus /v/, then the th sounds, in full sentences.
- Read aloud with every article in place, weak but present.
Aflo scores your speech sound by sound and shows you which sounds were hardest to catch.
For the test, and for real life
For the exam: keep your word endings voiced, separate w from v, and keep your consonants hard before front vowels.
Outside the exam you may want to sound more English or more American, for work or for yourself. That is a reasonable goal and a separate one from scoring well. Clarity is what the test pays for; the accent can stay.
Frequently asked questions
Will my Russian accent lower my speaking score?
No. These tests score intelligibility rather than native-likeness, and Aflo's pronunciation scoring has a floor so that differences which are only accent stop affecting the score. What lowers a score is devoiced word endings and the few sounds Russian does not have.
What should I fix first?
Final voicing. Russian devoices a consonant at the end of a word, so bed becomes bet and dog becomes dock — different words. It also flattens the -ed and -s endings, which carry tense and number, so the examiner hears a grammar mistake as well. It lowers two scores at once.
Why do people say my English sounds 'soft'?
Russian consonants soften before front vowels — the tongue rises towards the roof of the mouth — so tea can come out as tyea. English does not do this. It rarely changes a word outright, but it accumulates and makes you harder to follow at speed.
Do missing articles count as pronunciation?
No — the examiner marks them as grammar. But because a and the are tiny and unstressed, they are easy to drop while speaking. English weakens them almost to nothing, but never omits them, so practise saying them quickly and quietly rather than leaving them out.