Berkay
pronunciation of b and v in spanish I know that between vowels b and v become less pronounced and at the beggining of a word they're more labial but do these two always make the same sound or are there cases where v is pronounced more dentolabially? if so, is there a way to know when to pronounce them differently? gracias! ^^
May 12, 2016 12:06 PM
Answers · 9
3
Hola! En realidad en español no existe diferencia para pronunciar la V y B. Pero, sí existe reglas gramaticales para su escritura. Para el uso de la "B". 1.En las combinaciones bl, br y mb como, por ejemplo, en las palabras: oblea, blanco, ebrio, broma, combate y embajada. 2. En la partícula aba con la que se construye el pretérito imperfecto de los verbos regulares de 1ª conjugación, terminados en AR. Por ejemplo, de amar, amabas; de conversar, conversábamos. 3. En los verbos terminado en bir, aber y eber, como, por ejemplo, recibir, caber y deber; y en sus conjugaciones correspondientes, por ejemplo, recibo, cabía y debemos. Son excepción a esta regla los verbos hervir, servir, vivir y precaver. 4. En las palabras que comienzan por bu, bur, bus, como, por ejemplo, bueno, burdo y búsqueda. 5. En las palabras que comienzan por ab, sub, y ob, seguidas de consonante, como absurdo, subsidio y obtener. 6. En las palabras terminadas en bilidad, bundo y bunda. Por ejemplo, responsabilidad, abunda y vagabundo. Se exceptúan las palabras civilidad y movilidad. 7. Antes de la combinación ui, como en las palabras atribuir y buitre. 8. En las mayoría de los sustantivos que llevan el sonido abo, como abogado, abono y nabo. Se exceptúan, entre otras, pavo, clavo y esclavo. Para el uso de la v. 1.En los adjetivos que finalizan en ava - ave - avo - eva - eve - evo - ivo - iva, como por ejemplo: eslava, grave, bravo, suave, leve, longevo, positivo, y cautiva. 2. En las palabras terminadas en vira, viro, ívora e ívoro, como Elvira y carnívoro. Se exceptúa la palabra víbora. 3. En las combinaciones bv - dv - nv, como en las palabras obvio, adviento e invierno. 4. En las formas verbales cuya primera persona singular termine en uve y en todas las conjugaciones siguientes, como estuve, estuvimos, estuvieran; anduve, anduviese, anduvieron.
May 12, 2016
3
Well, in Spanish V is pronounced B so for example the word for value, "Valor" is pronounced like "Balor" but a little muffled so for the most part it is pronounced B with a slight twinge of a V sound in there
May 12, 2016
1
¡Hola! This question you asked was actually the topic of a big discussion on a course I took of Phonetics and Phonology of Spanish a few semesters ago, and it's a controversial topic between phoneticians, linguists and a big bunch of Spanish native speakers xD. So... This answer may get longer than you expected. I'll try to answer in a suitable and "short" way. Generally speaking, we could say that the graphemes "v" and "b" are both pronounced /b/, no matter the context, nor the country of the speaker. As Carmen Azuaje kindly pointed out, there are orthographic rules that determine when we write one or the other. However, some native speakers insist on making the difference very clear when they talk (this is usually perceived as pretentious and somewhat snobby, though); in many choirs, when singing choral music they tend to "exaggerate" the pronunciation of "v" and "b" by making both sounds labiodental (they argue that this way it's more clear that they're in fact pronouncing it); and when we're teaching children to read and when we want to specify the way a word is written, we say "Ve (and we make it labiodental), como ve de vaca". Some people think it's far nicer to pronounce always /v/ instead of /b/, although it's not the majority of Spanish speakers. Regarding this topic, there are some other things that you might be interested in knowing. For example, /b/ doesn't always sound like the "b"s of "baby", but there are some other pronunciations (in phonetics, they're called allophones), that we'll produce instead. This exact same phenomenon occurs with /g/ and /d/. If you pronounce always them like you do in English, you'll sound a bit weird to Spanish hears. You can read a little bit more here: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al%C3%B3fono "alofonía en español". I'm sorry for any grammatical or orthographical error I might have commited. ¡Espero haberte ayudado! :).
May 12, 2016
Some educated people pronounce them as same as in English respectively, but, they are a minority.
May 13, 2016
As far as I know, b and v are pronounced in the same way. I've checked what does the Real Academia de La Lengua say about this, and they say the same. The idea of being v pronounced in a diferent way, a bit like f, comes from ancient teachers who pronounced in difference way when they dictate to the kisd in order to avoid ortografy fault in their pupils work.
May 12, 2016
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