German <w> (was:Dubya and before that, minimal pairs)

[Oebel]

You should have asked your German colleague to say "Vase" or "Vitrine" as
there you may, of course, find the "v" as in "village" whereas in most
cases it is pronounced - as e.g. in "Vater" - as "f".

Best regards from a German currently teaching in Japan - Guido Oebel

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> ^M7^Oo^Pl : Leo A. Connolly <connolly at memphis.edu>
> ^H6^Pf : Indo-European at xkl.com
> ^L^O^V< : Re: German <w> (was:Dubya and before that, minimal pairs)
> ^Q^W^PM^Sz^N^^ : 2001^TN6^L^N27^Sz 13:01

> Robert Whiting wrote:

>> ... I had a German-speaking
>> colleage who pronounced English <v> as [w] (as in "willage").  When I
>> pointed out to her that she could easily pronounce the [v] sound in
>> <village> she said, "Oh, no, German doesn't have that sound -- we use
>> <v> for [f] like in <Vater>.  Well, what can you say?  Now if 'village'
>> were written *<willage>, she would have had no trouble pronouncing it.

> Sure she would have.  The fact is, some Germans pronounce <w> as
> labiodental [v], while others use a bilabial fricative.  When speaking
> English, the latter use the bilabial fricative in lieu of the English
> bilabial glide /w/ and the labiodental fricative /v/.  Since this is
> obviously wrong in each instance, but English has no bilabial fricative,
> English speakers usually believe these Germans have said [v] instead of
> /w/ and [w] instead of /v/, when in fact they said neither.  Spelling
> had nothing to do with her pronunciation problems.

> Leo Connolly