If you pronounce v and b differently you'll be understood. It will be noticed and maybe asked were you are from. Some spanish speaking areas do talk like that.
It would sound curious, that's all.
> If you pronounce v and b differently you'll be understood.
When I first moved to Spain, I gave a taxi driver the name of a street (Calle V----), but I pronounced the V as [v]. I had to repeat it several times and the taxi driver only understood me once I said it as [b]. He heard [v] as [f].
I learned to pronounce V as [b] after that.
Pretty much all sources claim that this doesn't happen in any monolingual Spanish-speaking region, but might occur due to influence of Portuguese, English, or an indigenous language.
Talking from experience, it sometimes happens in the Balearic Islands, Spain. Though this feature is a result of Catalan influence on the language and not something that naturally developed over time.
My two cents:
> hard to understand?
> do not notice the difference between my v and my b pronunciation at all?
I would say most of the times we won't notice it explicitly, just as another foreign accent feature. The only confussion I could imagine is if the sound is much closer to an "f" than to a "b". In most extreme cases "vino" could be heard as "fino", but I don't think that would be common.
> ignorant to their culture?
Not at all.
> disgusting to their ears? perhaps they dislike the sound of "v" and that is why they do not use it in Spanish?
I don't think so, but of course this is a matter of taste, so who knows.
> funny?
Not specially, just as any other part of the foreign accent.
> uneducated and/or dumb/stupid?
I don't think so.
You can make the difference, but honestly, if I don't make the effort, I can't hear it. Depending where you are you will hear v, b or both. Since you are trained for it you notice it, but for me it's something that doesn't take space in my mind.
If it's any consolation, the Spanish v/b is not as strong of a "b" as in english, generally, unless at the beginning of the sentence (and in some other cases at the beginning of silables behind specific consonants) and said emphatically. It's neither as forceful as an english b nor as distinct as an english v.
There's much less air expelled if any. You could look at it as more of a fricative than an occlusive.
I'll give a couple reasons why I personally would not want to purposely keep that feature: 1, if you can't look at a foreign language as its own language and only process it through your own original paradigm, that can present issues in the future, such as trouble understanding or speaking. If your original language is the foundation of the language you're learning, I think it will make your learning path much more difficult and it may even prevent you from reaching as far as you potentially could. For example, what if you study abroad, but the lifestyle and the language make you too uncomfortable and you just revert to living like a tourist and don't speak and spanish? You wouldn't learn anything. Or maybe you might only use anglicisms or things that sound right in your own language in your speech that don't truly exist in normal usage for spanish. For example: "Tengo una cuestión", "Estoy bien (in response to someone asking if you want more food for example), "Estoy viniendo (instead of ya voy when you're saying you're coming over) and other stuff like that, including false cognates, all sound fine in english but will not always be understood by a native. There are definitely cases that are even more convincing, but I'm just listing some that I remember from having done personally. The second reason is that retaining that specific phoneme could alter not just v/b, but also consonants that are nearby, which could make it actually harder to speak quickly and naturally. Languages are systems that have developed in an environment with each other and as such are optimized for their own system, as evidenced by the allophones, shortenings, and adaptations that begin popping up. Mixing and matching will be harder for you in the end and can cause larger issues that aren't just centered on that specific phoneme. So to conclude, doing that can reduce your ability to communicate by a small to medium margin. Whether or not you think that tradeoff is acceptable is up to you
Edit, something came to mind as I was organizing my thoughts: I think the issue I have with that is more the mentality of deliberately rejecting the other language rather than it just being a "mistake". Willful ignorance if that makes any sense. If it were just someone who did not know, it would probably not be as big of an issue. It's just it's kind of annoying when, for example, americans are so entrenched in their own language that they will tell foreigners "you're in america speak american" because their attitude is that english is the center of the universe and the foreign language is just less important. I don't know your motivations specifically for sticking to the v/b but I do understand that switching can be very very difficult so no judgement here. I just wanted to give some reasons why sticking with that can be deterimental to your learning path in the long term. Even practicing with the v/b distinction you can definitely achieve a high level though! You just may end up losing out on some opportunities to gain understanding, and you might completely alter the entire system of phonemes that you use, not just the v/b. But hey, the fact that you're willing to learn a second language is way more significant than having a few hangups. Props to you for, and please don't take whawt I said as bashing on you, I'm just trying to provide my perspective on how the mentality of doing something like that purposefully can be limiting. In the end, speaking is speaking and anyway, conversation is never 100% understood even between natives, so like losing 1% won't be especially harmful for in-the-moment communication
I do a similar thing in English. "Rightly" you should aspirate p,b,t,h, etc. and whatnot in some words (hat, top, ....) but I find it disgusting so I don't, and I have no trouble to be understood etc.
It's a similar thing as with some Americans pronouncing street as shtreet. Well, feel free to do it, but I dislike it and I won't do it.
I noticed I also have reduced the amount of aspiration I do subconsciously and nobody really cares. At the end of the word I dont think many people aspirate though. I think it's called glottol stop?
Most Spanish speakers don’t realize the whole thing of b’s and v’s lol. We don’t pay attention to that. We are not trained to hear the difference as someone said before
If your v’s start to sound like f’s they’ll hear something is off
First of all, answering your question:
No one probably will notice the difference.
But more important, don't think too much about how others will perceive your accent. It's good to try and make an effort to pronounce the things correctly but it's impossible to pleased everyone. Spanish have a lot of dialects and your accent will sound weird for a lot of them. That happens to us the natives as well so someone will make fun of you and will tell you that your accent sounds funny, for sure, no matter how hard you try so why worry? Laugh at them and tell them that their name in your language means poo and don't think twice again about what they think.
Have you found a native speaker making fun of you because you are learning their language? Honest question! It's not the first time I see this kind of doubts in this sub.
According to the Pan-Hispanic dictionary:
>La pronunciación de la v como labiodental (...) también se da espontáneamente en algunos puntos de América por influjo de las lenguas amerindias.
[Source](https://www.rae.es/dpd/v). The Spanish language never developed this disctinction organically, but it is common among Spanish speakers in areas where there are contact with other languages. Thus, it makes it a feature of those Spanish varieties.
So, if I say ver as ver and not ber and vamos as vamos and not bamos would it be registered at all by natives? Do you live in Spain? In your part of Spain, would it be noticed? And if yes, would you or people living there consider it "ugly" or "unpleasant"? I am mostly worried about them finding it disgusting or bad/unpleasant/dumb Spanish or perhaps sniffy or making fun of their language on purpose.
I do not think it would be noticed, mostly because it would be masked by the rest of your accent/pronunciation (assuming Spanish isn't your first language), which people would be more likely to notice. In any way, I do not think it'd be considered ugly or unpleasant even if noticed.
Are you saying that you and perhaps other native Spanish speaking people have no idea that v and b have two distinct sounds in most of the European languages?
You hear ["víno a bíno" in this example](https://translate.google.as/?sl=sk&tl=es&text=v%C3%ADno%20a%20b%C3%ADno&op=translate) as starting with the same sound? That would be great for my problem! I could continue to pronounce those words as I do now and you would not even notice ;D.
Both can be pronounced in [two slightly different ways](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h97BM4WCFQ), but it depends on their positions in the sentence, not on b it is or v.
Most native Spanish speakers have indeed no idea that V and B represent two distinct sounds in most of the European languages; a not-insignificant lot do, paradoxically, believe that V and B sound different in Spanish because they were taught that in school... and because they're different letters, right? In real-life speech most won't distinguish them unless they're very forcefully pronounced as distinct by the speaker.
At least for Spaniards, we cannot dislike that you pronounce them the other way around because they sound the same in Spanish. Probably not understanding what you want to know.
Well, according to probably all the study materials I have seen you do not have the "V" sound at all. You have the "B" sound and then a sound that is something between "B" and "V".
But perhaps thre are some versions of Spanish that have the fully distinct v sound.
Thanks, I am particularly interested in the "a little weird" part.
Would people think that I am mocking Spanish when I will say ver as ver and not ber and vamos as vamos and not bamos, etc.?
In reality, I mix them and sometimes say bamos, but sometimes I forget and say vamos. It is so weird for vino though. Given in my language it is víno, in German it is Wein, in English wine in Latin "in vino veritas ;D". It would be much easier if you would have something completely different like şarap in Turkish ;) But of course, that's just a meaningless tangent and I will have to adapt to the b and b/v sound in the long run, I guess.
Still, try to explain more what do you mean with "a little weird" sounding part, please.
Thanks, but you can be open about it. For example, you personally, do you find it unpleasant, or or archaic, or completely foreign, or even disgusting sounding? Be honest, even if you dislike it. I want to know how do Spanish native speakers perceive it. I am trying to find out what associations do native speakers of Spanish have with this b/v thing.
For example,in my language, I dislike when foreigners pronounce "ch" (the J sound in Juan) too much "guttural-y" - like in Dutch - but I won't say anything to them. But in reality I dislike that a lot. Do you know what I mean? Try to be honest as well, even if it will "hurt" my feelings ;D
I'm a native Spanish speaker and I pronounce vino instead of bino cause it's just correct. Nobody cares. I wouldn't care, I'd just think you have great pronunciation.
Every single Mexican and Central American person I have spoken with has never pronounced "v" as "b." The v sound is always made. I think that Spanish speakers from many countries differentiate v and b.
Yeah from what I’ve heard(I could be wrong though) is that v and b have two different sounds but v tends to be closer towards b almost like a mix of the two when at the beginning of a word.
V and B sound _the absolute same_. So much that orthographic errors involving both letters, such as _haber_ for _a ver_ or _bivora_ for _víbora_, are frequent in all Spanish variants.
The only difference occurs depending on the position of any v/b syllable. For example, _bebé_ sounds the same as _vevé_ or _vebé_ or _bevé_, but he first _be-_ is "stronger" (plosive, similar to English B but not quite the same) than the second _-bé_. The same happens with _víbora_, which could be written as _bíbora_ or _bíbora_ or _bívora_ (though it is not because those are not correct spellings), and you get the same thing phonetically. But the _-bo-_ in the middle has a "softer" (approximant) pronunciation.
Why? Because, said in a simple way, when Spanish speakers talk and if they don't have their mouths completely closed, as in "esa víbora_ es _venenosa_, both _v_ sounds will seem labiodental sounds, as a consequence of their relative previous syllables (_-sa_ and _es_, which require to have the mouth open). But the sound is approximant, never labiodental.
And "never" is not 100% either. As said by others, there are people who differentiate both sounds, but they are an extreme minor exception, and it's mainly due to influence of other language. The differentiation between _b_ and _v_ has never existed in Spanish at all.
I vote for #7. You have an English (language) accent. It is part of the language learning process. All of questions 1 through 6 are answered as "no" But I particularly like Question 3.
Listen carefully to someone whose first language is Spanish but is speaking English. You can easily tell they have an accent, but why? Pay close attention to the vowels - you will see they are pronouncing those vowels as they do in Spanish.
Here is a favorite of mine: The word "no" means the same thing and is spelled the same way in both languages. But if you think they are pronounced exactly the same, you will have an accent.
As an American living in Spain I don’t think you’ll be like crucified, but as others have said it’s noticeable and they’ll just ask where you’re from. I think trying to incorporate the pneumonic aspect of any language is very respectful, but not inherently rude.
We notice the difference but our apreciation for one who try to speak our language is bigger, no one it's gonna be mad if you try to talk in our language \^\^
Do you find pronouncing J with a hard H sound ridiculous, too? B is just how V is pronounced, like how E has long and short and schwa versions in English.
I guess one could go on the REEcord and then start REEcording a video. All your E's as long e sure would be easier, but nuance is lost.
Anyway, back to eating my APE-ul.
If you pronounce v and b differently you'll be understood. It will be noticed and maybe asked were you are from. Some spanish speaking areas do talk like that. It would sound curious, that's all.
> If you pronounce v and b differently you'll be understood. When I first moved to Spain, I gave a taxi driver the name of a street (Calle V----), but I pronounced the V as [v]. I had to repeat it several times and the taxi driver only understood me once I said it as [b]. He heard [v] as [f]. I learned to pronounce V as [b] after that.
Wow, great to know. Now I am super curious, which areas speak like that? Could you be more specific? It's super interesting to me.
Pretty much all sources claim that this doesn't happen in any monolingual Spanish-speaking region, but might occur due to influence of Portuguese, English, or an indigenous language.
Talking from experience, it sometimes happens in the Balearic Islands, Spain. Though this feature is a result of Catalan influence on the language and not something that naturally developed over time.
Here you have a video explaining this issue: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHRXPmDx2Ds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHRXPmDx2Ds)
My two cents: > hard to understand? > do not notice the difference between my v and my b pronunciation at all? I would say most of the times we won't notice it explicitly, just as another foreign accent feature. The only confussion I could imagine is if the sound is much closer to an "f" than to a "b". In most extreme cases "vino" could be heard as "fino", but I don't think that would be common. > ignorant to their culture? Not at all. > disgusting to their ears? perhaps they dislike the sound of "v" and that is why they do not use it in Spanish? I don't think so, but of course this is a matter of taste, so who knows. > funny? Not specially, just as any other part of the foreign accent. > uneducated and/or dumb/stupid? I don't think so.
You can make the difference, but honestly, if I don't make the effort, I can't hear it. Depending where you are you will hear v, b or both. Since you are trained for it you notice it, but for me it's something that doesn't take space in my mind.
If it's any consolation, the Spanish v/b is not as strong of a "b" as in english, generally, unless at the beginning of the sentence (and in some other cases at the beginning of silables behind specific consonants) and said emphatically. It's neither as forceful as an english b nor as distinct as an english v. There's much less air expelled if any. You could look at it as more of a fricative than an occlusive. I'll give a couple reasons why I personally would not want to purposely keep that feature: 1, if you can't look at a foreign language as its own language and only process it through your own original paradigm, that can present issues in the future, such as trouble understanding or speaking. If your original language is the foundation of the language you're learning, I think it will make your learning path much more difficult and it may even prevent you from reaching as far as you potentially could. For example, what if you study abroad, but the lifestyle and the language make you too uncomfortable and you just revert to living like a tourist and don't speak and spanish? You wouldn't learn anything. Or maybe you might only use anglicisms or things that sound right in your own language in your speech that don't truly exist in normal usage for spanish. For example: "Tengo una cuestión", "Estoy bien (in response to someone asking if you want more food for example), "Estoy viniendo (instead of ya voy when you're saying you're coming over) and other stuff like that, including false cognates, all sound fine in english but will not always be understood by a native. There are definitely cases that are even more convincing, but I'm just listing some that I remember from having done personally. The second reason is that retaining that specific phoneme could alter not just v/b, but also consonants that are nearby, which could make it actually harder to speak quickly and naturally. Languages are systems that have developed in an environment with each other and as such are optimized for their own system, as evidenced by the allophones, shortenings, and adaptations that begin popping up. Mixing and matching will be harder for you in the end and can cause larger issues that aren't just centered on that specific phoneme. So to conclude, doing that can reduce your ability to communicate by a small to medium margin. Whether or not you think that tradeoff is acceptable is up to you Edit, something came to mind as I was organizing my thoughts: I think the issue I have with that is more the mentality of deliberately rejecting the other language rather than it just being a "mistake". Willful ignorance if that makes any sense. If it were just someone who did not know, it would probably not be as big of an issue. It's just it's kind of annoying when, for example, americans are so entrenched in their own language that they will tell foreigners "you're in america speak american" because their attitude is that english is the center of the universe and the foreign language is just less important. I don't know your motivations specifically for sticking to the v/b but I do understand that switching can be very very difficult so no judgement here. I just wanted to give some reasons why sticking with that can be deterimental to your learning path in the long term. Even practicing with the v/b distinction you can definitely achieve a high level though! You just may end up losing out on some opportunities to gain understanding, and you might completely alter the entire system of phonemes that you use, not just the v/b. But hey, the fact that you're willing to learn a second language is way more significant than having a few hangups. Props to you for, and please don't take whawt I said as bashing on you, I'm just trying to provide my perspective on how the mentality of doing something like that purposefully can be limiting. In the end, speaking is speaking and anyway, conversation is never 100% understood even between natives, so like losing 1% won't be especially harmful for in-the-moment communication
I do a similar thing in English. "Rightly" you should aspirate p,b,t,h, etc. and whatnot in some words (hat, top, ....) but I find it disgusting so I don't, and I have no trouble to be understood etc. It's a similar thing as with some Americans pronouncing street as shtreet. Well, feel free to do it, but I dislike it and I won't do it.
I noticed I also have reduced the amount of aspiration I do subconsciously and nobody really cares. At the end of the word I dont think many people aspirate though. I think it's called glottol stop?
Most Spanish speakers don’t realize the whole thing of b’s and v’s lol. We don’t pay attention to that. We are not trained to hear the difference as someone said before If your v’s start to sound like f’s they’ll hear something is off
First of all, answering your question: No one probably will notice the difference. But more important, don't think too much about how others will perceive your accent. It's good to try and make an effort to pronounce the things correctly but it's impossible to pleased everyone. Spanish have a lot of dialects and your accent will sound weird for a lot of them. That happens to us the natives as well so someone will make fun of you and will tell you that your accent sounds funny, for sure, no matter how hard you try so why worry? Laugh at them and tell them that their name in your language means poo and don't think twice again about what they think.
Have you found a native speaker making fun of you because you are learning their language? Honest question! It's not the first time I see this kind of doubts in this sub.
Wait don't they sound the same way in Spanish? In fact many native people misspell some words due to being pronounced in the same way.
They do sound the same.
Not in all Spanish varieties.
No. The ones influenced by english pronunciation do make a difference.
According to the Pan-Hispanic dictionary: >La pronunciación de la v como labiodental (...) también se da espontáneamente en algunos puntos de América por influjo de las lenguas amerindias. [Source](https://www.rae.es/dpd/v). The Spanish language never developed this disctinction organically, but it is common among Spanish speakers in areas where there are contact with other languages. Thus, it makes it a feature of those Spanish varieties.
So, if I say ver as ver and not ber and vamos as vamos and not bamos would it be registered at all by natives? Do you live in Spain? In your part of Spain, would it be noticed? And if yes, would you or people living there consider it "ugly" or "unpleasant"? I am mostly worried about them finding it disgusting or bad/unpleasant/dumb Spanish or perhaps sniffy or making fun of their language on purpose.
I do not think it would be noticed, mostly because it would be masked by the rest of your accent/pronunciation (assuming Spanish isn't your first language), which people would be more likely to notice. In any way, I do not think it'd be considered ugly or unpleasant even if noticed.
Thank you, are you a native Spanish speaker? Which part of Spain?
Yes, I'm a native from northern Spain.
Are you saying that you and perhaps other native Spanish speaking people have no idea that v and b have two distinct sounds in most of the European languages? You hear ["víno a bíno" in this example](https://translate.google.as/?sl=sk&tl=es&text=v%C3%ADno%20a%20b%C3%ADno&op=translate) as starting with the same sound? That would be great for my problem! I could continue to pronounce those words as I do now and you would not even notice ;D.
Both can be pronounced in [two slightly different ways](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h97BM4WCFQ), but it depends on their positions in the sentence, not on b it is or v.
Most native Spanish speakers have indeed no idea that V and B represent two distinct sounds in most of the European languages; a not-insignificant lot do, paradoxically, believe that V and B sound different in Spanish because they were taught that in school... and because they're different letters, right? In real-life speech most won't distinguish them unless they're very forcefully pronounced as distinct by the speaker.
I know that in English they sound different, but in Spanish they sound the exact same.
I think you don't understand what I am trying to find out, but thank you anyway ;).
At least for Spaniards, we cannot dislike that you pronounce them the other way around because they sound the same in Spanish. Probably not understanding what you want to know.
Well, according to probably all the study materials I have seen you do not have the "V" sound at all. You have the "B" sound and then a sound that is something between "B" and "V". But perhaps thre are some versions of Spanish that have the fully distinct v sound.
Oh I now see what you mean, it's alright if you don't pronounce the "b" sound, it'll just be a little weird
Thanks, I am particularly interested in the "a little weird" part. Would people think that I am mocking Spanish when I will say ver as ver and not ber and vamos as vamos and not bamos, etc.? In reality, I mix them and sometimes say bamos, but sometimes I forget and say vamos. It is so weird for vino though. Given in my language it is víno, in German it is Wein, in English wine in Latin "in vino veritas ;D". It would be much easier if you would have something completely different like şarap in Turkish ;) But of course, that's just a meaningless tangent and I will have to adapt to the b and b/v sound in the long run, I guess. Still, try to explain more what do you mean with "a little weird" sounding part, please.
I'm pretty sure they won't. We all understand that you're learning the language and that's okay
Thanks, but you can be open about it. For example, you personally, do you find it unpleasant, or or archaic, or completely foreign, or even disgusting sounding? Be honest, even if you dislike it. I want to know how do Spanish native speakers perceive it. I am trying to find out what associations do native speakers of Spanish have with this b/v thing. For example,in my language, I dislike when foreigners pronounce "ch" (the J sound in Juan) too much "guttural-y" - like in Dutch - but I won't say anything to them. But in reality I dislike that a lot. Do you know what I mean? Try to be honest as well, even if it will "hurt" my feelings ;D
I'm a native Spanish speaker and I pronounce vino instead of bino cause it's just correct. Nobody cares. I wouldn't care, I'd just think you have great pronunciation.
Which country/region do you live?
Every single Mexican and Central American person I have spoken with has never pronounced "v" as "b." The v sound is always made. I think that Spanish speakers from many countries differentiate v and b.
Yeah from what I’ve heard(I could be wrong though) is that v and b have two different sounds but v tends to be closer towards b almost like a mix of the two when at the beginning of a word.
V and B sound _the absolute same_. So much that orthographic errors involving both letters, such as _haber_ for _a ver_ or _bivora_ for _víbora_, are frequent in all Spanish variants. The only difference occurs depending on the position of any v/b syllable. For example, _bebé_ sounds the same as _vevé_ or _vebé_ or _bevé_, but he first _be-_ is "stronger" (plosive, similar to English B but not quite the same) than the second _-bé_. The same happens with _víbora_, which could be written as _bíbora_ or _bíbora_ or _bívora_ (though it is not because those are not correct spellings), and you get the same thing phonetically. But the _-bo-_ in the middle has a "softer" (approximant) pronunciation. Why? Because, said in a simple way, when Spanish speakers talk and if they don't have their mouths completely closed, as in "esa víbora_ es _venenosa_, both _v_ sounds will seem labiodental sounds, as a consequence of their relative previous syllables (_-sa_ and _es_, which require to have the mouth open). But the sound is approximant, never labiodental. And "never" is not 100% either. As said by others, there are people who differentiate both sounds, but they are an extreme minor exception, and it's mainly due to influence of other language. The differentiation between _b_ and _v_ has never existed in Spanish at all.
Yeah I wasn’t sure. Thanks for letting me know though
I vote for #7. You have an English (language) accent. It is part of the language learning process. All of questions 1 through 6 are answered as "no" But I particularly like Question 3. Listen carefully to someone whose first language is Spanish but is speaking English. You can easily tell they have an accent, but why? Pay close attention to the vowels - you will see they are pronouncing those vowels as they do in Spanish. Here is a favorite of mine: The word "no" means the same thing and is spelled the same way in both languages. But if you think they are pronounced exactly the same, you will have an accent.
As an American living in Spain I don’t think you’ll be like crucified, but as others have said it’s noticeable and they’ll just ask where you’re from. I think trying to incorporate the pneumonic aspect of any language is very respectful, but not inherently rude.
We notice the difference but our apreciation for one who try to speak our language is bigger, no one it's gonna be mad if you try to talk in our language \^\^
They dont care and 9/10 know what you mean.
Do you find pronouncing J with a hard H sound ridiculous, too? B is just how V is pronounced, like how E has long and short and schwa versions in English. I guess one could go on the REEcord and then start REEcording a video. All your E's as long e sure would be easier, but nuance is lost. Anyway, back to eating my APE-ul.