Beati Hispani quibus vivere bibere est

Hi

I am a native spanish speaker who cant notice any difference between b and v

Cam someone explain me or show me an example of how the pronounciation of b and v should be?

Plan Austral,

To what I know, b & v are essentially the same pronunciation which both are pronounced as -b-.

For example:
bibir (=written as vivir)
aber (=written as haber)

On the other hand, various latin-american countries distinguish
-b- from -v-. For example, -v- is distinguished with the "touching"
of the teeth. While, -b- pronunciation avoids the "touching" of the teeth.


Hope this helps.

Hola Plan Austral,

Puedes verlo como sigue:

- b suena como una p suavizada
- v suena como una f suavizada

Hey! why did you take my nickname ? Are you the same guy that always does the same thing ?

Porque no te buscas uno para ti solito ?

I really cant believe that you cannot understand the difference but i'll give you a try.

Have you ever heard english, french, italian, portuguese ?

These languages are spoken world wide and everyone knows the diference so for starting i think it would be a shame starting this thread. I'm assuming you didnt studied any of the languages i've mentioned above, but Sergio gave a good example

I'd be less surprised for anyone else trying to understand the spanish 'j' pronunciation because it's by far diferent from any other romance language, it's close to the arab pronunciation

Yes, I speak both english and spanish, and have heard all those other languages.

What I meant is that I pronounce the b in burro the same way I pronounce the v in victoria, many native spanish speakers also do the same.

By the way, I googled more info about this, and found another message board in which they were discussing this, it seems that in spain b and v are pronounced the same way, and that the Real Academia Española says both b and v should be pronounced the same way, and that pronouncing the v like the v in Victory is wrong.
It only happens naturally in contact with different langauges, or due to overzealous snobbism.


"La pronunciación de la v como labiodental no ha existido nunca en español, y solo se da de forma espontánea en hablantes valencianos o mallorquines y en los de algunas zonas del sur de Cataluña, cuando hablan castellano, por influencia de su lengua regional. También se da espontáneamente en algunos puntos de América por influjo de las lenguas amerindias. En el resto de los casos, es un error que cometen algunas personas por un equivocado prurito de corrección. "

The authorities speak:

3. No existe en español diferencia alguna en la pronunciación de las letras b y v. Las dos representan hoy el sonido bilabial sonoro /b/. La ortografía española mantuvo por tradición ambas letras, que en latín representaban sonidos distintos. En el español medieval hay abundantes muestras de confusión entre una y otra grafía, prueba de su confluencia progresiva en la representación indistinta del mismo sonido, confluencia que era ya general en el siglo xvi. La pronunciación de la v como labiodental no ha existido nunca en español, y solo se da de forma espontánea en hablantes valencianos o mallorquines y en los de algunas zonas del sur de Cataluña, cuando hablan castellano, por influencia de su lengua regional. También se da espontáneamente en algunos puntos de América por influjo de las lenguas amerindias. En el resto de los casos, es un error ...

Diccionario panhispánico de dudas ©2005
Real Academia Española © Todos los derechos reservados

-b- and -v- sound VERY similar. So, what's the big deal?

Tomato {tə máytō, tə máatō}


both sound similar^. While, -bibir- and -vivir- sound VERY similar.

"- b suena como una p suavizada
- v suena como una f suavizada"

I think this is spot on.

I see your point so this was a question to the castillian speakers and not to any other language. Let's just say that if I'm in Spain I'd pronounce the 'v' like 'b' and everything is ok, something like if I'm in Holland I'd pronounce the 'v' as 'f', Germany 'w' as 'v' northen europe 'j' as 'i' and so on.

Italy, Portugal, France and UK pronounce almost the same way those consonants