Boy of Voy
Sorry to plaster the board with posts, sorry - it will be my last - just that this is my only resource.
Now Pinesular tells that "boy" means I am going
My son tells me that to go is Voy - we looked it up and clearly voy is the spelling. But Pimsleur is saying B as clear as day. His teacher say V for voy.
My son's guess was that Voy is 'correct' Spanish and B is central / south america - that the "Spanish" say are lazy.
Please help.
Also when he was in Costa Rica last week at at an orpganage and they were running down to the river the children were all yellings 'benga' 'benga'
any idea what that means.
Thanks
Roger
15 Answers
(Specifically in Castillian Spanish [but, in my experience, throughout Latin America, too]), 'b' and 'v' are pronounced identically (but see below). For this reason, when asked to spell a word, native speakers always distinguish them by saying "be"/"u-ve? or "be grande"/"be chica" or "/"be de burro"/'be de vaca'. However, this shared sound depends on the context (phonetic environment). When b/v is inter-vocalic (comes between two vowels) the sound is "soft" (technically, a voiced bilabial fricative) and in other contexts it is "hard? (a voiced bilabial plosive). Thus the sound in "voy"/"Barcelona" is hard while in "uva"/"Cuba" it is soft. The 'hard? sound is found in many languaages (including English) while the 'soft? sound is much less common (Spanish is the only language that I know of personally but I'm sure there must be others).
Of course, if the b/v occurs at the beginning of a sentence, it can't be inter-vocalic so the "rule" that someone told you is (sort of) correct (as far as it goes) but the explanation is misleading.
P.S. I've occasionally heard a few actresses (always seems to be women but I assume that that's coincidence) in telenovelas use a labiodental fricative (like the 'v? sound in English) for b/v in some words. They don't do it consistently and I've never figured out what 'rules? determine when they do. At any rate, it sounds very weird.
HTH
I know this is an old posting but I hope, Roger, that you have 'gotten over' wishing b/v were as different in spoken Spanish as in English, and that you've lost the idea that there is such thing as a lazy tongue. (I live in the South of North America, and there are a lot of phoneme shifts here!)
Ya just hafta get over differences in dialect. Hard b, soft b -- in Spanish there is not such a big difference in meaning when v/b is pronounced or spelled. You don't have as many base / vase or very / berry words, where there is an obvious meaning shift completely dependent on one sound. There's no word 'benga' to be confused about. (Anyway, context takes care of most of that potential mistunderstanding, dunnit')
Our trouble as language learners is that we don't get much from context, we're actually hanging on to word-by-word comprehension.
Also among Spanish speakers, in my experience, they're not as mean as the English about spelling. Us'ns what have been brought up with dented skulls from Websters think spelling is a mark of ... something very important, maybe being Smart or Educated. Think about it. 'Tis mostly just conformity. Without John Webster, we'd be in the happy state of the Elizabethans, making it up as we go along. I wish....
When you start to 'get it' even with variant spellig, you will feel so so smart! Even smug! So proud!
Roger, sometimes we can find out what it is , just by guessing. Why not post the word here (as it sounds to you) and we will try'
As others have pointed out, there will be regional differences in pronunciation. However, the following is the basic rule as I was taught in school:
b and v are pronounced identically in Spanish. You cannot tell from the pronunciation whether to use a b or a v in spelling, and vice versa.
b or v at the beginning of a phrase is generally pronounced more like the English, harder "b", as in your example. To an English speaker, Voy a la tienda sounds like it begins with a b.
b or v between two vowels is pronounced like a softer English "v", in fact sometimes sounding like something between a v and an f (I think the word is fricative, but I defer to the linguists). For example, "haber" (to have) sounds like it has a "v" in the middle to an English speaker.
The best thing that you can do is listen to good quality recordings of native speakers from the country whose accent you want to learn, and mimic them. Hope this helps.
noooooooo!!
it is "Voy" and "Venga" everywhere, it is just that children make spelling mistakes.
Spanish is the same in southamerica and spain, but there are some words that are usually used in spain that latinamericans do not use.
And there is another thing I would also like to add, 90% of native spanish speakers reside in america, so you would expect a lot of differences between them, it is not american spanish and european spanish. Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Cuba, Peru, etc they are all different but just in slang and accent.
Ah there is another interesting thing
the sound /v/ and /b/ in english are different, but in spanish are the same.
If you've got specific questions about grammar, studyspanish.com is great. Click "Just show me the free stuff". Some of their grammar lessons/explanations are better than my $180 college bookset. Por/para is a good example - my book had about 5 pages worth of explanations for it, and it just gave me a headache. Studyspanish.com has a much shorter explanation. Same for preterite/imperfect differences, at first they didn't make any sense, until I saw their explanation - but now it's old hat (mostly)!
Oh yea. that is the least of my problems. either on this post or somewhere else someone told me it is more b if the word is at the beginning of a sentence and more v if it is not the first word of a sentence. But if that could ever be my biggest problem I would be 'appy.
Yesterday I finished the 30th and last lesson in my Pimsleur Spanish 1 CD course. It has taken me probably 70 to 90 days rather than 30 but with having to repeat lessons because I did not understand or could not remember to having visitors , going on business trips etc 30 days becomes 90.
What I would really like now is to find some web based institution that will supplement the CDs with on line teaching but I had a good look today and could not find anything.
Today I have hit a word (s) in lesson 2 of Pimsleur's Spanish 2 and for the life of me I can not tell what they say.
So back to searching for Pimsleur support to see what these two bleedin words are.
Roger,
Explanations offered sound like they are from people more knowledgeable than I. But I might be able to shed some light on your particular experience. Depending on the version of Pimsleur you are using, the "problem" is likely there. They used to teach everything using Castilian Spanish. Like British English, or the "mother" tongue. If it is still the same, they likely use "hablo Castellano" instead of "hablo Espanol." Thus the pronunciations are Castilian. One example is the hard "b" you are hearing. But it really is more of a soft "b" as Cherry explains. Your perception of the hard B is likely a function of hearing mostly non-native speakers over the years. E.G. "yo voy a jugar el beisbol." Most Americans would pronounce a hard V for voy and hard B for beisbol.
The next difference you might notice is in the pronunciation of "d." Instead of "perdon" you will hear almost a "perthon" or "cuithatho" instead of "cuidado." I was in Costa Rica for a few weeks in January, and a reporter came on who sounded completely different from what I had been hearing for days. My host explained that it was a Spanish channel, originating in Madrid or Barcelona. The reporter used the "th" sound instead of "d" the whole time.
Anyway, hope this helps clear up some of your confusion on why the sounds are seemingly different.
venga!! = come on!!
The Collins dictionary says that a V at the beginning of a sentence , and after a m, and n is sounded as a B in English
Dave - no offense was intended. Sorry.
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Wow, I wouldn't go around repeating nasty stereotypes when asking for help, even if it is just repeating what the "Spanish" say. Especially when you consider some us are "lazy" Latin Americans.
Assuming you meant no harm.........
It is definitely spelled "Voy", although the V is pronounced somewhat like a B.
Just noticed that Cherry has already posted an excellent reply, so I'll leave it at that.
Probably just a pronunciation mistake, or some odd accent (there are a couple out there).
Thanks. I honestly heard it a a hard B this morning in the car - tricky - but so far - I'm learning.
The v has the sound of a soft b. When saying it, the lips don't come together as tightly as when saying the b If I were going to try to find a word in English that would show the differences in the sounds I would use baby. The first b is hard and the lips come together tightly, the second one is soft, meaning that the lips don't close so tightly.
what you are hearing as boy is really voy, meaning I go and
benga is really venga, which is a command meansing come.
I hope this helps with the confusion.
in spanish the b and v are pronounced almost identically (generally when someone is spelling something vocally they will say v de vaca or b de burro). voy is actually a conjucation of the verb ir which does mean "to go" as far as "benga" goes it actually is venga a tu command for of the verb venir "to come"
