Breakdown of Учитель советует не бояться экспериментировать с произношением и интонацией.
Questions & Answers about Учитель советует не бояться экспериментировать с произношением и интонацией.
In Russian, советовать commonly takes an infinitive to express what someone should do:
- Учитель советует не бояться. – The teacher advises (someone) not to be afraid.
- Врач советует больше отдыхать. – The doctor advises to rest more.
So советует не бояться экспериментировать = “advises (them) not to be afraid to experiment”.
You can also use чтобы:
- Учитель советует, чтобы ученики не боялись экспериментировать.
This sounds a bit more formal/indirect and explicitly names the subject (ученики). With an infinitive, the subject is understood from context (“the students / you”). Both are grammatically correct, but the infinitive is shorter and very natural in spoken Russian.
The ending -ся is the reflexive/“middle voice” marker. It can mean different things with different verbs. With бояться, it’s simply part of the normal verb “to be afraid”:
- боятьcя = “to be afraid, to fear”.
There is no non-reflexive verb боять in modern Russian. So you just learn бояться as a complete verb, always with -ся.
The literal grammar is: “to fear oneself / to experience fear”, but for learners it’s easier to treat it as a single verb meaning “to be afraid”.
You’re right that:
- бояться чего?
- genitive
- бояться темноты – to be afraid of the dark
- бояться ошибок – to be afraid of mistakes
- genitive
But бояться also has another common pattern:
- бояться + infinitive – “to be afraid to do something”
- бояться говорить по-русски – to be afraid to speak Russian
- бояться экспериментировать – to be afraid to experiment
In that pattern, there is no genitive noun; the infinitive itself is the complement. In the sentence:
- не бояться экспериментировать = “not to be afraid to experiment”.
So the “missing” genitive is not a mistake; it’s just a different construction of the same verb: бояться чего? or бояться делать что?
The position of не changes the meaning.
не бояться экспериментировать = “to not be afraid to experiment”.
- The negation applies to бояться (“don’t be afraid”).
бояться не экспериментировать would literally mean something like “to be afraid not to experiment”, which is logically weird and not what is intended.
So the teacher is advising against fear itself, not against the absence of experimenting.
Imperfective is used here because the advice is about behavior in general, as a rule, not about one single action:
- не бояться – don’t (in general) be afraid
- экспериментировать – to experiment (repeatedly, freely)
If we used perfective forms, it would sound like a one-time event, which doesn’t fit:
- не испугаться – not to get scared (at one moment)
- поэкспериментировать – to experiment for a while (once)
But the teacher is giving general, ongoing advice, so imperfective is the natural choice.
Both are in the instrumental case, singular:
- произношение → произношением
- интонация → интонацией
This is because of the preposition с after the verb экспериментировать:
- экспериментировать с чем? – to experiment with what?
- экспериментировать с произношением
- экспериментировать с интонацией
The preposition с often takes the instrumental when it means “with (something) as an instrument/partner/subject of action)”.
No, that would sound wrong in standard Russian.
With this meaning (“experiment with pronunciation”), the natural pattern is:
- экспериментировать с чем?
- instrumental.
Without с, it sounds like you are “experimenting pronunciation as a tool on something else”, which is not the usual construction. So:
- ✅ экспериментировать с произношением
- ❌ экспериментировать произношением (not idiomatic in this sense)
Russian often leaves the indirect object (the person receiving the advice) understood from context.
- Учитель советует не бояться…
= The teacher advises (someone, usually “students” or “you”) not to be afraid…
If you want to be explicit, you can add a dative:
- Учитель советует ученикам не бояться экспериментировать…
– The teacher advises the students not to be afraid to experiment…
In many real-life contexts (e.g., in class), it’s obvious who is being advised, so Russian doesn’t need to mention them.
Both express advice, but the structure and tone differ:
советует не бояться экспериментировать
- Uses infinitives.
- Short, direct, typical in speech and neutral style.
- The subject of the infinitives is understood from context.
советует, чтобы они не боялись экспериментировать
- Uses a чтобы-clause with a finite verb (боялись).
- Slightly more formal or bookish.
- The subject (они) is explicit.
Meaning is similar, but (1) sounds like practical advice; (2) can sound more like a report of that advice.
Grammatically, yes, but the meaning changes completely:
Учитель советует не бояться экспериментировать
– The teacher advises (you) not to be afraid to experiment.Учитель советует бояться экспериментировать
– The teacher advises (you) to be afraid to experiment.
The second sentence is logically possible (maybe in a very strict, conservative phonetics class), but in normal contexts it contradicts the idea of experimenting. So here не is essential and cannot be omitted.
The given word order is the most natural:
- не бояться экспериментировать с произношением и интонацией
Your alternative:
- не бояться с произношением и интонацией экспериментировать
is grammatically possible but sounds heavier and “split”. In Russian, we generally keep the infinitive and its complement close together:
- Verb + с чем? right after it: экспериментировать с чем-то
So the preferred order is:
- ✅ экспериментировать с произношением и интонацией
Stresses:
- Учитель – uchItelʹ
- совЕтует – sovYEtuet
- не боЯться – ne boYAtsya
- экспериментИровать – eksperimentEErovatʹ
- произношЕнием – proiznoshYEniem
- интонацИей – intonatsEEyey
Correct stress is important in Russian because it’s unpredictable and often changes the word’s sound quite a bit.