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From: rickw@eskimo.com (Richard Wojcik)
Subject: Re: German pronunciation of English "v"
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Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 11:46:46 GMT
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In article <4kuik3$118@aim.et.iupui.edu>,
Laura C. Snyder <LCSnyder@grace.edu> wrote:
>I have never been able to figure out why Germans who learn English have a 
>hard time with English "v," saying things like "wery" for "very."  German 
>already has a sound exactly like English "v" ("w" as in Wasser).  It 
>seems to me that a German would be more likely to say "ferry," like Dutch 
>speakers of English often do.  Does anyone have any insight into this?

First of all, German speakers will treat English /v/ differently, depending
on their native dialect of German.  It is characteristic of a Swiss German
accent, for example, that initial /v/ is devoiced, just as final /v/ is for
all German speakers.  In other words, not all German speakers can pronounce
initial voiced fricatives.  For those who can, they can still mispronounce
a word like "very" if they use German rules of spelling pronunciation.  If
English followed German rules, then it would be spelled with an initial
"w".  The initial letter "v" represents the phoneme /f/ to a German reader.

-- 
Rick Wojcik  rickw@eskimo.com     Seattle (for locals: Bellevue), WA
             http://www.eskimo.com/~rickw/
