IPA reference · consonant
v — voiced labiodental fricative
The voiced counterpart of /f/.
How to make the voiced labiodental fricative
Top teeth on bottom lip, blow through with the voice on.
English reference points: very, love. If you speak English natively you already produce this sound — the work is recognising it and placing it where the target language wants it.
Languages that use it
Sounds it gets confused with
Most pronunciation errors are not random — they are a substitution of the nearest sound the speaker already owns. These are the usual substitutions for v, and each one is a minimal-pair drill waiting to happen.
Spanish has /β/, made with the lips only — no teeth. Learners who use /v/ sound wrong.
Dutch w is an approximant — the same place as /v/ but without friction.
What this means for learners
Spanish speakers famously merge /b/ and /v/ because Spanish has no /v/ phoneme at all; the letter v is pronounced /b/ or /β/.
Teaching this sound
Describing a sound in words gets a student roughly half the way there. The other half is hearing it produced correctly, immediately after producing it incorrectly, with both versions available to replay. That is the argument for recording during the lesson rather than after it: the student leaves with your model of v attached to the actual words they got wrong, not to an abstract chart.
Frequently asked questions
What sound does the IPA symbol v make?
v is the voiced labiodental fricative. The voiced counterpart of /f/. In English you can hear it in: very, love.
How do you pronounce v?
Top teeth on bottom lip, blow through with the voice on.
Which languages have the voiced labiodental fricative?
Among the languages covered here: Greek (βιβλίο, “book”); Russian (вода, “water”).
What is the difference between v and β?
Spanish has /β/, made with the lips only — no teeth. Learners who use /v/ sound wrong.