See the difference
In the drawing, watch the lower lip. For v it comes up to touch the top teeth. For w it doesn't touch anything: the lips round and the back of the tongue lifts.
Try it in a mirror
- Bite your lower lip very gently with your top teeth. Now push air out and turn your voice on. That buzz, which you can feel in the lip, is v.
- Say "vvv-ery". Keep the teeth on the lip until the vowel starts.
- Now round your lips as if you were about to blow out a candle. No teeth. Open them into a vowel: "w-et".
- Go back and forth: "very, wet, very, wet". In the mirror, you should see your teeth for one and not for the other.
Pairs to practice
- vestwest
- vinewine
- vet
- verseworse
- vowwow
"Wave" has both, one at each end, so it is a good word to practice on.
What we don't know
We looked for a study that trains v and w with Mandarin speakers and didn't find one. The advice above comes from how the sounds are made. Since the lips and teeth are visible for both, practicing in a mirror is a reasonable place to start.
What to do next
Reading how a sound is made helps, but a page can't tell you whether your own tongue got there. In Language Boss, every sound you say in a scene is scored after the call, and you're told what it came out as. X-ray Mouth draws the tongue and lips over your own cheek while you say a phrase to the camera, so you can see what to change. X-ray Mouth is free.
Questions
Why do Chinese speakers mix up v and w?
Mandarin doesn't separate the two. Many speakers make one sound for both, often a soft v without much contact, and how it is said varies by region. In English the two sounds change the word, so the difference has to be built.
Is v the same as f?
The mouth is in the same position. F has no voice and v has voice. Put a finger on your throat: v buzzes, and f doesn't.
