Pronunciation: broad Eastern Armenian reading aids

Read the Armenian first; use the cue when you need help. These are approximate, spelling-based aids, not IPA, recordings, or native-speaker validation. Fine voicing changes and variable reduced vowels need real listening practice; do not treat these cues as a narrow phonetic transcription.

How to read the cues

• CAPITALS mark the stressed syllable, not shouting. Stress often falls on the last full vowel, but not normally on a final reduced ə: վաղը → VA-ghə, հաշիվը → ha-SHEE-və. Short auxiliaries such as em, es, e are usually unstressed. Sentence emphasis can change.
• a is a pure a as in father; e is like e in bet; ee like ee in see; oo like oo in food; o is a short pure o without an English ow glide. ə is a brief neutral uh, sometimes very weak in connected speech.
• y is the consonant in yes. j is as in jam; zh as in measure; sh as in ship.
• kh is the rough sound in German Bach or Scots loch, not an English k. gh represents the voiced back fricative ղ, not an English g followed by h. Plain g is as in go.
• r represents the light tap ր; rr represents the trill ռ. For example առավոտ → a-rra-VOT.
• An apostrophe after p, t, k, ts, ch means a puff of air: p', t', k', ts', ch' represent փ, թ, ք, ց, չ. It is not a glottal stop or an extra vowel. In particular t' is not English th, and k' is not kh. Plain պ/տ/կ/ծ/ճ have less aspiration.
• Examples: քեզ → k'ez; շաքարի → sha-k'a-REE; խմել → khə-MEL. Their k'/kh sounds are different.

Important reading distinctions

• Initial ե is often ye (երեկ → ye-REK); initial ո is often vo (որտեղ → vor-TEGH). Initial ու is oo, not voo.
• Pronoun ես, meaning “I,” is yes: Ես լավ եմ → yes lav em.
• Auxiliary ես, meaning “are,” is es: Դու լավ ես → doo lav es. It is the same spelling with a different grammatical job and pronunciation.
• եմ → em and է → e are other auxiliary forms. Do not insert a y before em/es merely because the first letter is ե.
• գնացի → gə-na-TSEE retains the ն; կողմում → kogh-MOOM has no extra hoo syllable; սուրճը → SOOR-chə keeps the stress off the final reduced vowel.

Practice

Read a useful phrase aloud, then use it with one changed detail. Work on one contrast at a time. Text alone cannot assess your pronunciation. This package contains no audio; compare with reliable Eastern Armenian recordings when available.