What is the difference between the sound of V and W in the English language?

There is clearly a difference as you can tell by saying victory and warble. The v gives a sharp sound while the w gives a more rounded sound.

That makes sense. What a revelation – thank you!

In phonetic terms, the /v/ is a labiodental fricative and requires the teeth to press against the lower lip (a voiced “f” in other words); the /w/ is a labio-velar approximant, where the lips narrow (as if you’re saying “oo”) but don’t touch the teeth or anything.

@tups What is your native language?

All the answers above are good. My elementary description would be w (said double u in English) is soft like a u. V is a much harder sound, much like the German W and V, if that means anything to you? In fact at the end of this short Volkwagen commercial in English you can hear the word Volkswagen being said and it captures the pronounciation of both letters in English.

@JLeslie My native language is Danish. The letter W only exists in words that are “borrowed” from foreign languages.

I thought the German letter V was pronounced as an F?

@DominicX Thank you for the fine explanation.

@tups Actually, good point. Some words the V in German sounds like F and sometimes like the German W. I guess the best explanation is V in English is pronounced like the German W. If we are going to go ahead and use German as an explanation for similar sounds. It was the only other language I could think of to describe the English V. The other language I know well is Spanish and they don’t have a sound like the English V.

@JLeslie So what would you say the difference is between the Spanish V and the English V? I know some Spanish.

One big difference between v and w, which @DominicX could probably give the technical name for, is that the v sound can be held indefinitely, like m or s, but w is more of a popping sound, like t or p.

The Spanish V is usually softer and easily confused with a B. But, it might vary by country, and your Spanish is probably Spain Spanish, while mine is Latin American. The B and V are almost interchangeable. For instance if a Spaniard saw the city Havana or spelled Habana, they would say it the same. It is spelled both ways depending on the country spelling it. Also, in Spanish even the B is softer than in English. Both V and B in Spanish the lips don’t quite meet as opposed to in English the sounds are much more definite and clearer. But, again, I think it varies somewhat by the Spanish speaking country.

I figure maybe this is how the name Bill is short for William, but I don’t know it for a fact, maybe @DominicX does. Since W and V are so similar in some language and B and V in others, I assume that there might be some sort of logic there to explain the nickname.

@JLeslie Ah, thank you for the explanation – I actually just remembered that I know that. I’m pretty sure the V and B are tightly connected in Spain too.

In Spanish, the letters b and v are both a bilabial fricative /β/.

English w is a glide. I describe it as the vowel /u/ pronounced quickly.

@JLeslie I don’t think the similarity in sound has anything to do with William/Bill. I think it’s just a alteration, similar to Bobby/Robby and Ed/Ted. But I could be wrong.

@LostInParadise “Continuant” is the term that would apply here, although technically both /v/ and /w/ are continuants because neither of them involve closure of the vocal tract like /p/ and /b/ do. Although I agree they don’t seem to have the same degree of “continuity”...

@morphail Good point, could very well be the case.

@tups “I thought the German letter V was pronounced as an F?”

I don’t know German but it’s my understanding that “F” is the voiceless equivalent of “V”. IE when you pronouce a V you force air out from your lungs, F is produced with the same positioning as V but the lungs aren’t really involved. I learned a bit about voiced and voiceless consonant pairs when I was studying Russian as it’s really important when it comes to where the accent is a word is in that language. You can sort of see it in the variation of Latin letter transcriptions in names—enterchanging F and V in patronimics seems to happen a lot. You know, it’s names like Rachmaninov that have a way of getting written Rachmaninoff. You see, in Russian it’s written with a В (V) but the accent is elsewhere in the name so it tends to sound a bit like an Ф (F).

Personally I notice this all the time as my nickname ends with a V but it is often mistaken for an F when I introduce myself. A consequence of us English speakers always putting the accent at the beginning of our words I’m sure.

@fundevogel Interesting. I think in German some words it is pronounced as V and some F. I think there is some sort of rule? I’ll send the Q to a German jelly. I never studied German, I just know little bits here and there about the language.

In standard German, the letter v is pronounced /f/. The letter w is pronounced /v/.

There is no actual rule that defines the pronunciation of v in German.
In words like ‘Vater’, ‘Vogel’ and ‘Verbrechen’ (or any word beginning with the syllable ‘ver’) it is pronounced as an f. But there are also words like ‘Vase’, ‘Vokal’ or ‘Pulver’, where v is pronounced v.
You just have to learn to pronounce each word.

I didn’t know that! It looks like it pronounced /v/ in borrowed words.

that much closer to knowing how to pronounce my name.

thanks @ragingloli!