That’s something I’ve never understood about German or Russian. Both languages have letters that make the English w sound yet they have trouble with it? It’s not like the “th” sound which doesn’t exist in German so it makes no sense to me.
If you can pronounce the sound why can’t you pronounce it for w’s??
The German w sounds like the English v, while the German v sounds like the English (and German) f.
IPA of the German word “wir”: /viːɐ̯/
IPA of the English word “with”: /wɪθ/
I actually had to look it up, but in German the /w/ sound doesn’t really exist? In some dialects the “qu” string is pronounced as /kw/ [according to Wikipedia] but in most it’s pronounced as /kv/ - at least that’s how I’d pronounce it and I’m mostly talking in Standard High German.
That’s something I’ve never understood about German or Russian. Both languages have letters that make the English w sound yet they have trouble with it? It’s not like the “th” sound which doesn’t exist in German so it makes no sense to me.
If you can pronounce the sound why can’t you pronounce it for w’s??
The German w sounds like the English v, while the German v sounds like the English (and German) f.
IPA of the German word “wir”: /viːɐ̯/
IPA of the English word “with”: /wɪθ/
I actually had to look it up, but in German the /w/ sound doesn’t really exist? In some dialects the “qu” string is pronounced as /kw/ [according to Wikipedia] but in most it’s pronounced as /kv/ - at least that’s how I’d pronounce it and I’m mostly talking in Standard High German.