V and F pronunciation: how to tell them apart

Practise one V and F line now

Open the V and F exercise

The exercise opens on one line from William McRaven’s talk at 2:03: “No one was over five foot five.” It has both sounds side by side: V in “over” and at the end of “five”, F in “foot” and at the start of “five”. Listen to it, record your version, then open Compare and play your take beside the original.

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What Sada can and cannot tell you

Sada checks which of your words came across and how your timing compares with the speaker. It does not grade individual sounds. When a mistake makes another word (van → fan, prove → proof), that word may show as missed. When no other word exists, as with “very” said with an F, the recogniser usually guesses the right word from context, so a matched word does not prove your V was right.

Judge the sound by ear: play your take next to the speaker. To hear one word on its own, use a dictionary with audio such as Cambridge’s pronunciation dictionary; for sound-by-sound grading you need a teacher or a tool that scores individual sounds.

How to make V and F

Both sounds are made in one place: the edge of your upper front teeth rests lightly on your lower lip, and air flows between them without stopping. They differ only in voice:

• F is voiceless: it is the Arabic ف, with no buzz. Say a long “fff” with your fingers on your throat: you feel nothing.
• V is voiced: keep your teeth and lip where they are and turn your voice on, and you hear a buzz. Start with a long “fff” and add your voice without moving your mouth: F turns into V.
• Keep the lips apart: V is a long sound you can hold for as long as your breath lasts. If your lips close, it has become a B.
• At the end of a word: in “five”, “love” and “give”, the buzz fades at the very end, but the teeth stay on the lip to the last moment. The vowel before a V is longer than before an F: compare “save” with “safe”.

Minimal pairs: when V or F changes the word

Say each pair aloud, F first. These are the places where Sada may catch a mistake, because the mistake makes a different word:

Five real lines, from short to long

Each line opens in Sada at its place in the talk. Start with the first, and move on only when you can say it whole without looking at the caption:

“No one was over five foot five.”

William McRaven · 2:03 · V and F side by side: “over, five, foot, five” · Practise this line →

“In fact, we've found that every single business outcome improves.”

Shawn Achor · 10:24 · F in “fact, found”; V in “we’ve, every, improves” · Practise this line →

“You know this, if you're doing something you love, an hour feels like five minutes.”

Sir Ken Robinson · 14:17 · V at the end of “love” and “five”; F in “feels”, from a British speaker · Practise this line →

“Believing that the best way to prove yourself is to improve yourself,”

Adam Grant · 14:45 · V in “believing, prove, improve”; F in “yourself” · Practise this line →

“face down the bullies, lift up the downtrodden, and never ever give up.”

William McRaven · 5:23 · F in “face, lift”; V in “never, ever, give”; and a B and a P from the P and B guide · Practise this line →

Line 3 is British English; for more British speakers, see British accent practice.

Common mistakes of Arabic speakers

• F for V: Standard Arabic has no V, and foreign words with a V are written with ف, as in فيديو (video) and نوفمبر (November), so they are said with an F. “Very” and “video” then start with an F. The fix is the throat test at the start of the word, then the whole line.
• “Of” said as “off”: “of” is written with an F but ends in a V sound, and it is usually short and weak. “Off” is the word that ends in F.
• V at the end of a word: in “five”, “love” and “improve”, the V turns into an F or disappears. Lines 3 and 4 have “love”, “five”, “prove” and “improve”: keep your teeth on your lip to the end of each word.
• Overcorrecting: after practising V, some learners turn real F sounds into V, so “fact” starts with a V. Line 2 has “fact” and “found”: no buzz in either.

How to practise

1. Open an exercise from this guide. Rest your upper teeth on your lower lip and say a long “fff” with your fingers on your throat; then add your voice without moving your mouth until you feel the buzz: that is V.
2. Say the pairs aloud, F first: fan, van; fine, vine; safe, save. Keep the buzz on V only.
3. Play line 1, then say it after the speaker in Repeat mode, slowly, with a buzz in “over” and at the end of “five”.
4. Record a take, then open Compare and play your recording and the original. Review words and timing; Sada does not grade individual sounds.
5. Move down the lines from short to long, and go back to any line where a word with V was missed.

Keep going

The other guides in this series, all written for Arabic speakers: P and B pronunciation, TH sound practice: “think” and “this”, -ed endings pronunciation: t, d or id, Word stress practice, Question intonation: rising and falling and Sentence stress: content and function words. All of these problems in order of how much each affects being understood, with one line for each and a short self-check: English pronunciation for Arabic speakers. For more lines to practise, from famous talks: Cameron Russell: Looks Aren’t Everything. Believe Me, I’m a Model.; Carol Dweck: The Power of Believing That You Can Improve; Terri Trespicio: Stop Searching for Your Passion. To see what Sada checks in every take, read the pronunciation checker. For a wider plan, with word stress and -ed endings: how to improve your English pronunciation.

Sources: word pronunciations, including “of”, from the Cambridge Dictionary; the two sounds from Voiceless labiodental fricative and Voiced labiodental fricative; Standard Arabic having no /v/, and writing it with ف, from Standard Arabic phonology.