Palatalization tells you which consonant you are aiming at. Assimilation tells you what happens when consonants meet. In running speech, Russian does not pronounce words in isolation: clusters fuse, voicing spreads backward and forward, final consonants devoice, vowels in hiatus compress or stay apart, and colloquial forms drop syllables you will hear everywhere but rarely see spelled out.
This series is the second part of the phonology track. It assumes you have at least a sketch of the hard/soft contrast from the palatalization series, but you do not need every drill memorized before you start here. Assimilation is where textbook spelling and spoken form diverge most visibly—and where many persistent accent habits come from mis-parsing a cluster or voicing environment.
Who this is for. Beginners can treat the word lists as ear training: hover glosses, say the word aloud, and move on. Intermediate and advanced learners should use the sentences and contrast sets to rebuild habits—especially voicing before obstruents, сч/щ-style fusion, and the difference between careful and reduced speech. The early installments cover vowel-letter sequences and diphthong-like spellings; the later ones cover consonant processes that textbooks often summarize in a single paragraph.
What to expect. Articles move from spelling-driven vowel sequences through voicing and devoicing, coalescence and gemination, then elision and substitution in clusters and colloquial forms. Each installment is practice-heavy: numbered word lists with tooltips today, more sentence context over time. Read for the rule, drill for the reflex, and return when a new word surprises you in conversation.