Ребёнок жуёт хлеб.

The child is chewing bread.

Breakdown of Ребёнок жуёт хлеб.

• хлеб: the bread
• ребёнок: the child
• жевать: to chew

Questions & Answers about Ребёнок жуёт хлеб.

How do I pronounce Ребёнок жуёт хлеб?

A good approximate pronunciation is:

rye-BYOH-nak zhoo-YOT khlyep

A few key points:

• ё is pronounced yo and is always stressed.
• ж sounds like the s in measure.
• х is a throaty sound, like the ch in German Bach or Scottish loch.
• е in хлеб is pronounced more like ye after a soft consonant.

So the stress is:

• ребёнок
• жуёт
• хлеб

Why does this sentence use ё? I often see ребенок жует instead.

In Russian, ё is a separate letter, not just a variant of е.

So:

• ребёнок = child
• жуёт = chews / is chewing

However, in many books, websites, and newspapers, Russians often write е instead of ё. That means you may see:

• ребенок
• жует

but they are still pronounced as ребёнок and жуёт.

For learners, this can be confusing, so it is helpful to pay special attention to words that normally contain ё.