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

[Leo A. Connolly]

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