Question by Tobias: What is the exact pronunciation of the Russian letter ‘B’? V or W?
I learnt that the Russian (Cyrillic) letter B is pronounced “V” in the past, but I often hear some people say “Wladivostok”, “Samowar” and “Wodka”, instead of “Vladivostok”, “Samovar” and “Vodka” respectively.
What’s its exact pronunciation?
Answers and Views:
Answer by -o-
V
there’s no W sound in russian language
if you mean that some people write ‘Wladiwostok’ instead of ‘Vladivostok’ then it maybe because they learned german not english
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Julian Crane says
yes it has always been "V" and no other sound
मिखेल says
B is always [v]; that is correct. The phoneme [w] doesn't exist in Russian, and thus, can't be represented in Russian Cyrillic (however, the Belorussians use ў for this purpose). However, the phoneme [ʋ], which occupies a sort of middle grounds between [w] and [v] (it doesn't exist in English, so many English speakers tend to confuse it with [w]) appears in some Russian dialects in place of [v].
You're probably hearing [ʋ]. While this is acceptable, [v] is standard, so the "exact" pronunciation of B would be as you've learned.