Why in lesson 1.10 is the speaker NOT saying V like a B for Vosotros, vosotras, and voy?

In the beginning of this course, it was stated that the Spanish V is pronounced the same as B.
However in lesson 1.10, the woman is clearly saying V and not B when saying the word Vosotros, Vosotras and Voy in the section entitled Addressing a group of friends or family in Spain.  

Why is this? Is this an error?

This confused me when I first started learning Spanish as an adult (I don't remember this at all in high school Spanish). I did a fair amount of reading and listening to YouTube on this topic.

The V and the B are pronounced the same (although I have heard some Spanish speakers say they do pronounce the V more like an English V), but V/B can be pronounced two different ways.  

There is a hard B/V (plosive) which sounds similar to an English B (but a little less pronounced ). This is typically  used after a pause, such as a B/V at the begining of a sentence or when a word stands along, and after the letters M and N. Vacio, veinte, vamos, bueno, barra, and ambos are examples where the plosive V is used.

There is a soft B/V which sounds closer to the English V (approximant or bilabial fricative), but is formed by the lips barely touching (and for some people, just get really close) and allowing air to continue to flow (rather than the top teeth on the bottom lip as air continues to flow in the English V). This sound doesn't exist in English, but like I said, sounds similar to a English V (but not  formed the same way). Centavos, trabajar, avena, and hablar are examples of soft B/V words.

It sometimes leads to “problems” because two different words can sound the same. Basta vs Vasta, Vaca vs Baca are examples, and like so many times in Spanish, you have to use context to know the difference. 

Since the two letters are typically pronounced the same, when someone is spelling in Spanish they often  use “beh grande” or “beh alta" to mean B and “beh pequeña” or “beh baja” to mean V. More recently they have officially started calling B the “letra beh" and the V the “letra uh beh”.

Hope that helps!

hay una regla??

Voy is definitely pronounced Voy, not boy. I don't know what the rules are and it is probably regional but Spanish speakers that I speak to use a V sound for Voy, vivir, llevar, ver, viajar etc. Liss can probably explain it more fully. 

This is consistent with what I wrote above. There are two sounds the letters  B / V make - a light B sound and a V-like sound, but not made the same way English speakers make it.  But the important point is both the B and the V can make the bilabial fricitive v-like sound (and the bilabial plosive b-like sound). 

I personally think it is confusing when people say “The B and the V make the same sound." While technically true, it doesn't explain that they both make the same two sounds.

According to the Diccionario panhispánico de dudas of the Real Academia Española de la Lengua (The Real Academia Española (RAE), or Spanish Royal Academy, is the institution charged with safeguarding the correct use of the Spanish language.) :

"There's no difference in the pronunciation of b and v in Spanish: both represent nowadays the bilabial voiced sound /b/. Spanish Orthography has mantained both letters, which represented different sounds in Latin, for reasons of tradition [...] The pronunciation of v as labio-dental has never existed in Spanish, and only happens occasionally in Valencian and Majorcan speakers, and in some from Southern Catalonia, when they speak Spanish, because of the influence of their regional languages, and in some places of America by influence of Amerindian languages. In every other case, it's a mistake some people make because of an excess of scrupulousness, based in recommendations from the past, for even if the Academia had recognised in its Diccionario de Autoridades (1726-1739) that "We Spaniards don't differentiate between the pronunciation of both letters", several editions of the Academia's Ortografía and Gramática in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries described, and even recomended, the pronunciation of v as labio-dental, believing it convenient at the time to differentiate it from b as many of the great European languages, including French and English, that were then so influential, did ; but since the 1911 Gramática, the Academia ceased to explicitly recommend this differentiation. In short, the correct pronunciation of the letter v in Spanish is identical to that of b, so there's no oral difference in our language between words such as baca and vaca, bello and vello, acerbo y acervo.

As always, I also look forward to what Liss has to say!

¡Hola a todos!
 

It's great to examine this question, because it does certainly cause confusion for Spanish learners. Scott_C's findings are correct - but before we get into that, I think it's useful first to look at what B and V sound like in English.

The English B sound is created by pressing your lips strongly together and then releasing them with a puff of air. The English V sound, meanwhile, is created by touching your top teeth to your bottom lip and pushing voiced/vibrated air past them. Try saying words like "berry" and "very" to yourself, and notice how differently you position your lips and how distinct the sounds are.

In Spanish, those same B and V sounds don't exist. Instead, the Spanish B and V are pronounced identically to one another, and can have two different sounds. Scott_C described this very well in his first post, but let's go through it again while considering what we just discussed about the English sounds:

• 
  - The first sound (which is a "hard" sound) is closer to the English B, but it's not as forceful: it's formed by touching your lips together and then releasing them with a slight puff of air. You'll hear this sound after a pause (e.g. at the start of words) or after the letters M or N.
• 
  - The second sound (which is a "soft" sound) is slightly closer to the English V. However, you still form it using just your lips: you position your lips very close to one another (or just very lightly touching) and puff air past them. If you really lean on this sound as you're saying a word, you'll notice that it creates a slight, soft vibration between your lips. You'll hear this sound when the letters B or V are sandwiched between vowel sounds.

While these are the general rules, it's important to note that native Spanish speakers from different regions may have differences in their pronunciations - and as the passage that Scott_C quoted from the Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (an excellent resource) notes, a V pronunciation similar to the English V can exist in some parts of Latin America. The female native speaker whom you hear in Lesson 1.10, Daniel-rF, is from Central America, and her initial Vs do tend to sound closer to the English V when she speaks slowly.

Ultimately, my advice to beginner Spanish learners is to not concentrate too hard on the B/V pronounciation to begin with - it's something that can be hard to hear at first, and is one of those things that is easier to pick up after more exposure to the language.

I hope that this helps!

Saludos,

Liss

Thanks Liss, you always have such helpful explanations!