ワ is used for words with the “wa” sound, like ワシントン (Washington).
My surname contains a “vee” sound. I noticed that if I spell it ヴィ older people really struggle to try and pronounce it.
Japanese has no /v/, but /b/ can sometimes have an allophone [β] like in Spanish. So adopting foreign /v/ as /b/ is natural, although even so there are exceptions (e.g. Warszawa -> ワルシャワ).
because it’s not “why-olin”.
Japanese generally hear v as b instead of w. Languages sort of vary about what sounds get heard as others depending on their phonology and other factors. Spanish speakers also hear v as b, but Chinese speakers hear it as w because they don’t have a voiced b sound.
and w is a less common sound, especially because there’s only ワ in modern Japanese on that line. The other characters, ヲヱヰ, (wo we wi) are antiquated, and pronounced /o e i/ in modern Japanese. In hiragana, を is now only used for a particle pronounced /o/, and ゑゐ are seldom used. And there was never a /wu/ syllable. Like, yeah, you can use ウォ ウェ ウィ in modern Japanese but it’s only recently become an option.
But confusingly, loanwords from Russian and German generally get borrowed as w or u, viz. ウォッカ、ウラジオストク (vladivostok > vuladivosutoku > wurajiwosutoku > urajiosutoku)、フォルクスワーゲン, etc. In German you could attribute that to it being spelled with a w, but no idea why it happens for Russian.
Bcz /v/ is not /w/. And to our ears it sounds more similar to /b/ and that’s it.
Dear god – I thought it was bad enough listening to my students say “byeolin”, now you have me thankful that it’s not “whyolin”.
The “ba” at least starts with something similar to the v. A V is not just “wa”.
バ is b. ワ is w. ヴァ despite not being used often, is v.
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ワ is used for words with the “wa” sound, like ワシントン (Washington).
My surname contains a “vee” sound. I noticed that if I spell it ヴィ older people really struggle to try and pronounce it.
Japanese has no /v/, but /b/ can sometimes have an allophone [β] like in Spanish. So adopting foreign /v/ as /b/ is natural, although even so there are exceptions (e.g. Warszawa -> ワルシャワ).
because it’s not “why-olin”.
Japanese generally hear v as b instead of w. Languages sort of vary about what sounds get heard as others depending on their phonology and other factors. Spanish speakers also hear v as b, but Chinese speakers hear it as w because they don’t have a voiced b sound.
and w is a less common sound, especially because there’s only ワ in modern Japanese on that line. The other characters, ヲヱヰ, (wo we wi) are antiquated, and pronounced /o e i/ in modern Japanese. In hiragana, を is now only used for a particle pronounced /o/, and ゑゐ are seldom used. And there was never a /wu/ syllable. Like, yeah, you can use ウォ ウェ ウィ in modern Japanese but it’s only recently become an option.
But confusingly, loanwords from Russian and German generally get borrowed as w or u, viz. ウォッカ、ウラジオストク (vladivostok > vuladivosutoku > wurajiwosutoku > urajiosutoku)、フォルクスワーゲン, etc. In German you could attribute that to it being spelled with a w, but no idea why it happens for Russian.
Bcz /v/ is not /w/. And to our ears it sounds more similar to /b/ and that’s it.
Dear god – I thought it was bad enough listening to my students say “byeolin”, now you have me thankful that it’s not “whyolin”.
The “ba” at least starts with something similar to the v. A V is not just “wa”.
バ is b.
ワ is w.
ヴァ despite not being used often, is v.