What Russian words other than "дрожжи" have a soft ж in common pronunciation?

Question

Although it is sometimes taught that there is no soft ж in Russian, in fact this is not so and many Russians pronounce a soft ж in the word дрожжи.

What other Russian words contain a ж which is pronounced soft in standard or at least common pronunciation? And what are some good rules for remembering when a ж should be pronounced soft?

Answer 1

Apparently palatalization of [ж] MAY occur in cases of its phonetic gemination [жж] due to assimilation of an adjacent phoneme of the word root. In all such cases this adjacent phoneme can alternate with [ж] in other roots as well.

Other such words are:

1) дожди (rains) - which can be pronounced [дажжи] due to assimilation of [д] able to alternate with [ж] in other roots as well: сад - сажать, сидеть - сижу etc.

2) подожди (wait!) - [падажжи] for reason as in 1)

3) позже (later) - [пожже] due to assimilation of [з] able to alternate with [ж] in other roots as well: лазить - лажу, возить - вожу etc.

4) вожжи (reins) - this is conventional spelling, which can also have the form of возжи because its root is essentially воз just like in the verb возить mentioned above, so the reason for gemination [жж] is as in 3)
4а) also sing. вожжа - which can be pronounced as [вожжя]

5) жжёт (burns) - this is conventional spelling, where the gemination [жж] occurs due to assimilation of the root phoneme [г] which features in such cognates as зажиГать, ожоГ and which is able to alternate with [ж] in other roots as well: бог - божиться, могу - может, лог - ложбина, рог - рожок, друг - дружить etc.

Now the gemination [жж] in дрожжи, which is conventional spelling like жжёт, can't be explained by reference to its root or other Russian words, because the word is unique. However it can be explained by reference to its etymology and equivalents in other Slavic languages

Происходит от праслав. *drozga, от кот. в числе прочего произошли: ст.-слав. дрождиѩ мн. (Син. Пс.), укр. дрíжджi, дрíщi, болг. дро́ждие, сербохорв. дро̀жда ж., словенск. drôzga «отвар солода», чешск. droždí «дрожжи», словацк. droždie мн., польск. drożdże, в.-луж. droždźe, н.-луж. droždźeje.

Apparently it derives from the root дрожд or дрозг. Whatever the case, all д, з and г can (as shown above) assimilate into or alternate with ж to fashion gemination дроЖЖи.

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Дажжи (дожди) и падажжи (подожди) are different from the rest in this list in that palatalized pronunciation of [жж] in them is the only option. Their penultimate phoneme [д] is palatalized in the normative pronunciation due to [и], so after its assimilation into [ж] the palatalization is simply kept. The other words allow for alternative pronunciation, either with or without palatalization.

Answer 2

The Russian Wikipedia lists the following words:

• до[ж’ж’]и (дожди)
• дро[ж’ж’]и (дрожжи)
• по[ж’ж’]е (позже)
• е[ж’ж’]у (езжу)
• ви[ж’ж’]ять (визжать)
• дребе[ж’ж’]ять (дребезжать)
• бре[ж’ж’]ить (брезжить)

We don't hear much of the soft Ж these days. You are more likely to hear a hard Ж in the words above and [жд] in дожди.

Answer 3

The most common of such words that is also commonly mispronounced is дождь. Often even native speakers pronounce it with a soft д at the end which is not supposed to be. Here’s how it’s pronounced in a famous song from 1990s, here’s a standard pronunciation

A less common word is вожжи, a horse tack.