The Spanish "v" sound
I am trying to develop good pronunciation habits, and I am a little confused about the "v" sound in Spanish. Rosetta Stone makes it sound like a "b", only maybe a bit softer. For instance, "llevar" sounds like "llebar". Is it just me? If not, is it a Latin American dialect thing?
4 Answers
You will hear a lot of things, and a lot of them are wrong. The single most important rule to remember is that the Spanish V and the Spanish B are pronounced exactly alike.
Once you get that rule firmly in your head, the rest sort of works out. The second rule is this: when pronouncing the V or B, leave your teeth alone. To understand this rule, say "victory" in English a few times. Notice how your lower lip flicks across your teeth to make the V sound? With the Spanish V, don't do that! leave your teeth alone.
So how do Spanish speakers make that buzz sound that sounds like our V if they don't touch their teeth with their lip? By buzzing their lips together! Try it....make a bumblebee sound with just your lips and putting some voice behind it. THAT is what makes the sound which you hear in "por favor".
I had to relearn a LOT of vocabulary to fix some stuff I've learned along the way. I hope this helps you avoid that!
When in doubt, just use a 'v' sound for both v and b. The context of what you are saying will let the listener know which word you are saying (as in your example).
It may be difficult for certain groups of hispanics to make our hard B sound, but I think that teaching English speakers to use the English V sound anyplace when pronouncing Spanish is incorrect.
Our English V sound is a "voiced fricative labiodental", a sound that does not occur in Spanish- ever. The only fricative labiodental in Spanish is the "unvoiced" - our F sound.
When in doubt, just use a 'v' sound for both v and b. The context of what you are saying will let the listener know which word you are saying (as in your example).
For instance. Meat and Meet sound exactly the same, but you will never confuse them in a sentence in english.
If you want proof to just use 'v'. I teach English to Costa Ricans, and one of the hardest things is to get them to make a hard B sound, like in book or boat. The reason being that there are not any hard B sounds in spanish words so they are just not used to making that sound..... they always use the v sound.
It is almost a combination of a v and a b sound. It is hard to explain. I find that the sound tends to be more like a b when the v is the the first letter of a word...I could be wrong. I also think it is something that differs from person to person and region to region.
