Problematic Spanish sounds and letters: /B/ and /V/ (Ep. 22)

Bienvenido o bienvenida, my dear beginner! Today we are going to talk about Problematic Spanish sounds.

We are going to begin with a serie of podcasts about varieties and particularities between pronunciation and ortography in Spanish. And we are going to begin, with an easy one: vamos a empezar con una fácil: the distinction between two letters but the same sound: «B» and «V».

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Suscription

Here we must do a variety distintion. In Spain, we call letter /B/ (be) and /V/ (uve); and in other some American countries they distinguish between (Be alta) «B» and (be baja) «V», like catalan.

However, whatever you call this two letters, Spanish speakers do not make any distintion about this two letters. We always pronounce any word that has «B» or «V» as B sound.

For example, in Spanish, «cow» (the animal) and «luggage-rack or the car rack» (that tool that you use to hold your bicycle or luggage on the top of your car) is pronounced in the same way: VACA. However, the animal is written with V (Vaca) and the roof rack is writen with B (Baca).

So, my dear Spanish beginner, in this pronunciation tip, you will have to learn by heart which words are writen with BE and which other worlds are writen with UVE. I’m very sorry, but the audio will not help you, so you will have to read a lot: Tendrás quee leer mucho en español.

Quieres saber más? Contrata una clase solo para ti, my dear Spanish beginner