June 21, 2021

Minimal Pairs: b vs. v

11 minutes

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Let's start with a vowel warmup. Repeat each word after me.

[pure vowel sounds]
Heat heat
Hot hot
Hut hut
Hoot hoot
Hit hit
Hurt hurt
Hood hood
Head head
Haughty haughty
Hand hand

[dipthongs]
Hay hay
Rhyme rhyme
Round round
Boys boys
Gold gold

Hot dang! You just repeated all the vowels and diphthongs, which are the [the sounds in] words like hay, say, rhyme, time, and so forth, where vowel [sounds] move into other vowels--you just said all of them: all the vowels, all the diphthongs in English. Well done!

Now let's get to our minimal pairs. In this podcast you'll have a chance to practice with minimal pairs that contain either B--the first sound in BOY or BEAT or BAT--and V, like VERY or VEST or VOW. So B sound or the V sound. B is made with your lips together, and the V sound is made with your upper teeth touching your lower lip.

So I'm going to start with some minimal pairs that include words that do not really exist in English. The sounds are correct for English but the words themselves are not, and they're marked with an asterisk * in the show notes. So the first nine words, nine pairs, include at least one word that's not a real English word.

First I'll say the pair like this:
1. Beat -- *Veat
Then I'll repeat it:
Beat -- *Veat
Then I'll repeat with spaces so you can repeat.
etc.

2. Bot -- *Vot
3. But -- *Vut
4. Boot -- *Voot
5. Bit -- *Vit
6. Burt -- *Vurt
7. Bood -- *Vood [both are imaginary words]
8. Bed -- *Ved
9. Bought -- *Vought

Starting with number ten, the minimal pairs are real English words. I'll say each one three times with spaces for repeating.
10. Boat -- Vote
11. Berry -- Very
12. Ban -- Van
13. Bat -- Vat
14. Beer -- Veer
15. Bowl -- Vole
16. Serb -- Serve
17. Best -- Vest
18. Bow -- Vow
19. Bowels -- Vowels
20. Gibbon -- Given
21. Curb -- Curve