/f/ and /v/ are a consonant pair. This means that the only difference between them is whether or not you use your voice when you make these sounds.
/f/ and /V/ are a consonant pair. /f/ is voiceless and /v/ is voiced. The upper teeth rest on the bottom lip and air is pushed out. The sound comes from the friction of the air escaping through the teeth /f/ or, if I use my voice, /v/. Let’s look at some examples. We’ll start by looking at some examples of /f/ in word- initial position: fame, fall, phase, fat, far. Now in word-medial position: duffel, sniffle, coffee, safer, coughing. And finally here in word-final position: thief, half, graph, wife, enough. All right, now we’ll look at some words that have /v/. We’ll start here at the beginning, word-initial: vest, void, vent, vex, verb. Now in word-medial position: raven, even, several, never, severe. And actually, since we’re here, this is one word. If I change the spelling just a little bit, that’s a different word. That E makes a difference. The word here is pronounced severe, which means like very bad, very serious, and this word is sever, which means to cut. Okay, let’s take a look up here, word-position: leave, drive, dove, alive, save. Okay, let’s take a look at some minimal pairs. I will say a word that’s either in this list or in this list. You listen and you decide if I’ve said the word on the left or on the right and in the end, I’ll give you the answers. Let’s begin: leave, fan, feel, serf, vox, vole, veer, belief, prove, halve, right. Now, this one, just since we’re here, this L should be silent. This should be half. This L is pronounced; this is a noun, this is a verb, so we can see that changing from a /f/ sound to a /v/ sound changes the part of speech; two different forms of the same word. Alright, so, I’ll give you the answers. The words that just got bolder are the words that I said. How did you do? If you’d like some more practice, look below.