My best vest - /b/ and /v/ in English

Welcome back to season 4 of English Sound Building! Today, we're picking back up on /b/ from last week, but contrasting it with the fricative /v/. We’ll look at the sounds individually, in common words, and in sentences. 

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Transcript

So, this week we’re coming back to the voiced /b/ sound from last week, but this week we’re contrasting it with another voiced sound, /v/, which we looked at a few times back in season 2. So, here we’re contrasting two sounds which are both made with the lips, but we’re contrasting the plosive /b/ (where both lips are pressed together to stop and then release the flow of air), with the fricative /v/ where the top teeth meet the bottom lip to crate friction. Depending on your other languages, for some of you this may be an easy contrast to master, but for others it will be tricky to hear and to train your mouth to reproduce. You may notice, for example, that you’re making a bilabial fricative for either sound, or that you’re not getting enough friction in the /v/. As always, as you listen and repeat, pay attention to the combinations of sounds you find easier, and those you find more difficult.

Recap- /v/

Let’s recap the some of common words with /v/, from English Sound Building “A Wet Vet” and “Twelve Giveaways”. 

First, /v/ at the beginnings of words

1.       various

2.       vegetable

3.       via

4.       video

5.       view

6.       village

7.       vital

8.       vitamin

9.       volunteer

And a few sentences with some of those words.

• Various vital vitamins
• The village volunteers viewed vegetables via video.

Next,  /v/ in the middle of words

1.       advice

2.       conversation

3.       develop

4.       drive

5.       environment

6.       favourite

7.       have

8.       over

9.       several

Let’s try some sentences with those words.

• They have several favourite environments.
• They developed the advice over several conversations while driving.

/b/

Now let’s look at some words with /b/ at the beginning of the word.

1. beach
2. beautiful
3. believe
4. best
5. birthday
6. boring
7. breakfast
8. bring

…Now for some sentences with those words:

• I believe this will be your best birthday!
• We brought a boring breakfast to a beautiful beach

Now for some words with /b/ in the middle or at the end

1. club
2. football
3. hobby
4. husband
5. neighbour
6. nobody
7. object
8. remember
9. table
10. website

…And some sentences with them:

• My husband’s hobby is a football club website.
• Nobody remembered the objects on the neighbour’s table.

Minimal pairs.

Ok, time for some minimal pairs. We’ll start with minimal pairs with /v/ and /b/ at the beginnings of words.

We’ll read the first five words together:

1.       van                      - ban

2.       vat                       - bat

3.       veer                    - beer

4.       veil                       - bail

5.       vent                    - bent

For the next five, I’ll read the /v/ word: can you read both? We’ll do the first one together as an example.

6.       very                     - berry

So, you should have read “very, berry”. If you did it the other way round and read “berry, very”, that’s fine too!

Let’s do the next four.

7.       vest                     - best

8.       vet                       - bet

9.       vile                       - bile

10.   vole                     - bowl

Now listen, repeat again, and check how you did.

And for the last four, I’ll read the /b/ word: can you read both? Again, we’ll do the first one together as an example:

11.   volt                      - bolt

So, you should have said “volt, bolt”, or if you said “volt, bolt”, obviously that’s fine too! Let’s do the last three.

12.   vote                    - boat

13.   vow                     - bow

14.   vowels                - bowels

 Now listen, repeat again, and check how you did.

Now for some minimal pairs with /v/ and /b/ in the middle or at the end of words. There aren’t so many of these, so we’ll read them all together.

1. curve             curb
2. dove              dub
3. drivel             dribble
4. fiver              fibre
5. given             gibbon
6. loaves            lobes

Finally, let’s try four sentences with words from those minimal pairs.

• Bile tastes vile!
• They banned vans from the curved curb. 
• I’m wearing my best vest to vote on the boat.
• I bet the vet had too much beer. He was talking drivel and dribbling.