English Sounds F f and V v Consonants How to make the F and V Consonants

In this American English pronunciation video,

we’re going to go over how to pronounce the F and V consonants.

These two sounds are paired together because they take the same mouth position.

FF is unvoiced, meaning only air passes through the mouth,

and VV is voiced, meaning you make a sound with the vocal cords.

To make these sounds,

the bottom lip lifts and touches the very bottom of the top front teeth.

Ff– Vv–

The top lip lifts a little bit to get out of the way of the bottom lip.

You don’t want to see your bottom lip disappear.

Ff–

It’s actually the inside of the lip, here,

that makes contact with the teeth.

Ff– Vv–

The tongue should stay relaxed so the air can easily push through,

causing the bottom lip to vibrate against the top teeth.

Let’s look at the sounds up close and in slow motion.

The top lip lifts so the bottom lip has room to vibrate

against the bottom of the top front teeth.

Very. Bottom lip goes to the bottom of the top front teeth.

Flavor. The bottom lip goes to the top front teeth for the F

and again for the V.

Enough. Bottom lip to top front teeth.

When you work on these consonants and words with these consonants,

watch yourself and make sure your bottom lip doesn’t curl in.

Ff– Vv–

Remember it’s the inside of the lip that makes these sounds.

The F and V consonants.

Very

Flavor

Enough

Example words. Repeat with me.

Live, vv–, Live

Value, vv–, value

Provide, vv–, provide

Fresh, ff–, fresh

Offer, ff–, offer

Tough, ff–, tough

This video is one of 36 in a new series, The Sounds of American English.

Videos in this set will be released here on YouTube twice a month,

first and third Thursdays, in 2016 and 2017.

But the whole set can be all yours right now.

The real value of these videos is watching them as a set, as a whole,

to give your mind the time to take it all in and get the bigger picture.

Most of the materials you’ll find elsewhere just teach the sounds on their own in isolation.

It’s a mistake to learn them this way.

We learn the sounds to speak words and sentences, not just sounds.

Move closer to fluency in spoken English.

Buy the video set today!

Visit www.rachelsenglish.com/sounds

Available as a DVD or digital download.