English, Spanish and Dutch “b”, “v”, “w” and “f” pronunciation.
My mental scheme.
In Spanish, letters “b” and “v” are both pronounced identically, with an English equivalent — the “b”. However, the English “v” is different. To learn to pronounce it, I mixed a “b” and “f” and I was happy.
When I was in the Netherlands, I realized they are even more complicated. Dutch “b” and “f” are pronounced like in English, but Dutch “w” is pronounced like a mix of English “b” and “v” and Dutch “v” is pronounced like a mixed of English “v” and “f”.
The visualization is below. I see the sounds between “b” and “f” as a continuous, and you can place sounds wherever you want. Linguistics are interesting.
