Here is the penultimate instalment in the line of our little mini-series on the pronunciation of the Spanish and Portuguese alphabets.
The next letter is V and this letter has a pronunciation that will frequently reveal the status of non-native Spanish speaker. You see the Spanish v is pronounced as a soft b sound in that it the speaker's lips don't quite touch.when saying unlike the letter b which requires the lips to touch completely. It could be thought of as an aspirate b but care must be taken by the non-Spanish speaker nto ensure this gap between the lips does not sound like a p. The best way to conceive of the differences is simply to practise making the relevant sounds.
In Spanish, particularly that spoken in Spain, v is typically pronounced "oo-veh", remembering that soft b sound. However, some other Spanish speakers and very often those from Latin American Spanish speaking countries,tend to refer to this letter as "b pequena" or "b chica". In other words, "little b". This starts to make sense once you are aware of how v is pronounced. Readers will be pleased to know that Portuguese speakers are more consistent by simply pronouncing this letter as "vay" with the v sound being that expected in English and other languages.
Moving on to w and the Portuguese alphabet will no doubt again curry favour among non-native Spanish and Portuguese speakers wishing to familiarise themselves with these languages. This is because w is simply pronounced "dawbel-yoo" or "dahbel-yoo" by Portuguese speakers. In Spanish, the soft b sound of v is again required as this letter is typically pronounced "dawbleh-oovay" with emphasis on the "oo". There are instances among Spanish speakers both from Spain and other countries where "dawbleh-vay" is heard with the pronunciation of v being as expected to the anglophone ear. Interesting that the pronunciations in both these languages of "double v" (double vee) is closer to the appearance of this letter than the English which describes it as "double u".
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A "B" sound that doesn't quite touch the lips
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