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Comment by konschubert | Hacker News Reader

To German ears, the difference between v and w is really difficult to hear.

I speak from experience…

What part of Germany are you from? Isn't there a clear distinction between Wolke (cloud) and Volk (people). I ask this as Dutch speaker (so, speaker of 'West Germanic') where there is a very clear distinction between volk and wolk (which presumably have the exact same meaning and origin as their German counterparts).

Anecdotally, I once spoke with Russian students (this was long ago) who insisted that there was a Russian 'v/w' sound in the word Berenburg (the name of a distilled spirit). I couldn't hear it...

Yes, but "volk" is IPA /fɔlk/ while Wolke is /ˈvɔlkə/. That's a major difference.

But in this context, the "v" we're talking about is the English IPA /'v/ (e.g. valley /ˈvæli/) vs. IPA /w/ (e.g. wool, IPA /wʊl/) and that difference is far less noticeable.

Ah, yes. IPA. Now it's super obvious how it sounds.

I find IPA terribly confusing myself, but I think the starting sounds give a decent indication to people how the starting sound of Volk differs more from that of Wolke than that of "valley" from "wool", and it's that latter distinction that is hard for those of us used to languages where that distinction is near non-existent or one of the sounds is rare/not in use.

For an English speaker, to put it differently, while the words as a whole are not pronounced exactly the same, the starting sound of German "Volk" is the same as for English "folk", while the starting sound of "Wolke" is the same as for "valley".

My wife is in charge of the wacuum cleaning.

Edit to add: she’s German, we laugh about it.

Surely you meant your vive?

How often does your wacuum need cleaned?

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