Мой учитель говорит, что моё произношение хорошее.

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Breakdown of Мой учитель говорит, что моё произношение хорошее.

• говорить: to say
• учитель: the teacher
• хороший: good
• что: that
• произношение: the pronunciation

Questions & Answers about Мой учитель говорит, что моё произношение хорошее.

Why is it Мой учитель and not Моя учитель, when “teacher” can be male or female?

In Russian, adjectives and possessive pronouns agree with grammatical gender, not with what you personally imagine.

• Учитель is grammatically masculine, even if the real person is a woman.
• So you must use the masculine form мой, not the feminine моя.

If you specifically mean a female teacher and want to show that, Russian usually uses a different word:

• Мой учитель – my teacher (grammatically masculine; could be male or female)
• Моя учительница – my (female) teacher

Because учитель is masculine, the correct phrase is Мой учитель.

Why is it моё произношение, not мой произношение?

The word произношение (pronunciation) is grammatically neuter, so all agreeing words must be neuter too.

The possessive мой changes its form depending on the gender of the noun:

• masculine: мой стол (my table)
• feminine: моя книга (my book)
• neuter: моё окно (my window)
• plural: мои друзья (my friends)

Since произношение is neuter, you must say моё произношение, not мой произношение.

A good rule of thumb: many abstract nouns ending in -ие (знание, решение, произношение) are neuter.

What is the difference between мой, моя, моё, and мои?

These are all forms of “my”, agreeing with the noun’s gender and number in the nominative singular/plural:

• мой – masculine singular

  • мой учитель – my (male/masc.) teacher
  • мой дом – my house

• моя – feminine singular

  • моя мама – my mother
  • моя машина – my car

• моё – neuter singular

  • моё произношение – my pronunciation
  • моё окно – my window

• мои – plural (for any gender)

  • мои учителя – my teachers
  • мои книги – my books

In this sentence, учитель is masculine → мой учитель,
произношение is neuter → моё произношение.

Why is there no word for “is” in моё произношение хорошее?

Russian normally drops the verb “to be” in the present tense when simply saying “X is Y”.

• English: My pronunciation is good.
• Russian: Моё произношение хорошее.
  (Literally: My pronunciation good.)

The verb быть (to be) appears in the past and future:

• Моё произношение было хорошим. – My pronunciation was good.
• Моё произношение будет хорошим. – My pronunciation will be good.

But in the present, you just put the two parts next to each other:
[subject in nominative] + [adjective in nominative], no “is” word.

Why does хорошее end in -ее and not in -ий, like хороший?

The base dictionary form of the adjective is хороший (masculine). Adjectives change their ending to agree with the noun’s gender and number:

• masculine: хороший учитель
• feminine: хорошая работа
• neuter: хорошее произношение
• plural: хорошие учителя

So neuter nominative singular is normally -ое (or written -ее after certain consonants).

Why -ее and not -ое here?

There is a Russian spelling rule: after ж, ч, ш, щ, ц, you write е, not о, in unstressed endings.
The stem is хорош-, ending in ш, so instead of хорошое (logical form), you must write хорошее.

Pronunciation is very close to ha-RO-sha-ye, but spelling follows that rule.

What case are учитель, произношение, and хорошее in this sentence?

All of them are in the nominative case.

The sentence actually contains two clauses:

1. Мой учитель говорит

   • учитель – subject in the nominative.

2. что моё произношение хорошее

   • произношение – subject in the nominative.
   • хорошее – predicate adjective in the nominative, agreeing with произношение.

In present-tense sentences of the type “X is Y”, Russian typically uses nominative + nominative:

• Моё произношение хорошее.
• Учитель строгий. – The teacher is strict.

What does что do here? Is it the same as English “that”?

Yes, in this sentence что works like English “that” introducing a subordinate clause (reported speech / indirect statement).

Structure:

• Мой учитель говорит, что…
  – My teacher says (that)…

The whole clause что моё произношение хорошее is the object of the verb говорит:

• говорит (что?) – что моё произношение хорошее

Important: что here is not the question word “what”. It’s a conjunction meaning “that”.

Why is there a comma before что?

Russian punctuation rules require a comma before most conjunctions that introduce a subordinate clause, including что.

Here:

• Main clause: Мой учитель говорит
• Subordinate clause: (что) моё произношение хорошее

They are separated by a comma:

• Мой учитель говорит, что моё произношение хорошее.

Compare:

• Я знаю, что он дома. – I know (that) he is at home.
• Он сказал, что придёт. – He said (that) he will come.

So the comma is obligatory in standard written Russian.

Can I omit что, like in English “My teacher says my pronunciation is good”?

In standard Russian, in this kind of sentence, что is normally not omitted.
You should say:

• Мой учитель говорит, что моё произношение хорошее.

If you drop что:

• Мой учитель говорит, моё произношение хорошее.

this sounds odd and ungrammatical in normal speech; native speakers will expect что.

In fast colloquial speech, people sometimes omit что in some patterns, but in your example it’s not natural. For learners, the safe rule is:

After verbs like говорить, сказать, думать, знать, понимать, etc.,
keep что when you mean English “that”.

Why is it говорит and not a form that means “is saying”? Does it mean “says” or “is saying”?

Russian does not have a separate “-ing” (continuous/progressive) tense like English. The present tense говорит can mean both:

• He says (in general / repeatedly)
• He is saying (right now)

Context decides which reading is correct.

So:

• Мой учитель говорит, что моё произношение хорошее.
  can be:
  • My teacher says that my pronunciation is good (in general; he often says that), or
  • My teacher is saying that my pronunciation is good (right now).

Russian expresses the type of action more by aspect than by continuous vs simple. Here говорить is imperfective, focusing on the process or repeated action.

Why use говорит (present) and not сказал (past), if my teacher already said this?

You can use both; they mean slightly different things.

1. Мой учитель говорит, что моё произношение хорошее.

   • Present tense, imperfective.
   • Suggests something he says in general or repeatedly, or a statement that is still valid now.

2. Мой учитель сказал, что моё произношение хорошее.

   • Past tense, perfective.
   • Refers to one specific event in the past: “My teacher said that my pronunciation is/was good.”

So:

• If you’re reporting a typical comment your teacher makes, use говорит.
• If you’re reporting one specific time he told you this, use сказал (for a male teacher) or сказала (for a female teacher).

Can I change the word order, like что хорошее моё произношение or что моё хорошее произношение?

Russian word order is more flexible than English, but not all orders sound natural.

1. что моё произношение хорошее – neutral, most natural.
2. что хорошее моё произношение – possible, but sounds unusual and marked; it might sound poetic or like you’re strongly emphasizing хорошее first.
3. что моё хорошее произношение – here хорошее sounds like a normal descriptive adjective in front of the noun (“my good pronunciation”), not like “is good”.
   
   • This changes the meaning toward: “that my good pronunciation (does something / is something)” and expects something else after it.

So for the meaning “my pronunciation is good”, you should keep:

• что моё произношение хорошее

How do you pronounce произношение, and where is the stress?

Произношение is pronounced approximately:

• [pra-eez-nah-SHEN-ee-ye]

More precisely:

• Stress is on -шЕ-: произношЕние
• The sequence произ- is usually pronounced smoothly, more like [прыз-] or [прэз-] in fast speech.
• The -шн- is like shn in English “fashion” + n.

Syllable breakdown: про-из-но-ше-ни-е
Stressed syllable: -шо- (written -ше-, pronounced like she in sheep but shorter).