How to pronounce the B sound /b/
/b/ is a voiced consonant made with both lips (bilabial). Press both lips together, exactly as for P. Switch your voice on while the lips are still shut — you should feel a hum in your throat.
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How to make it
- 1Press both lips together, exactly as for P.
- 2Switch your voice on while the lips are still shut — you should feel a hum in your throat.
- 3Release the lips gently; there is no puff of air.
- 4Hold the hum into the vowel that follows so the B does not sound like a P.
- Lips
- Pressed together, then released softly.
- Tongue
- Low and neutral.
- Jaw
- Almost closed, opening into the vowel.
Feel it
Put a hand flat on your throat and say the sound. It should buzz under your fingers from the very start — if the buzz only arrives with the vowel, you are making the voiceless version.Where the sound appears
Keeping it through a whole line
The baby dropped a big blue book by the bed.
Bob brought back a bag of bread from the bakery.
Minimal pairs to drill
Each of these is two words separated by exactly one sound. If a listener hears the wrong one, the problem is the contrast, not the effort.
If your first language is…
Nothing here is about ability. Every one of these is a sound system doing exactly what it was built to do, applied to a language that asks for something else.
- HindiUrdu
Hindi and Urdu also have an aspirated bh, so English B sometimes arrives with extra breath; English B has none.
- Tamil
In Tamil, b appears only as the voiced version of p inside a word, so word-initial B in 'big' has to be learned as its own sound.
- Cantonese
Cantonese has no voiced stops at all, so B is heard and produced as an unaspirated P; the throat hum is the whole fix.
- Korean
Korean sorts stops by aspiration rather than voicing, so B and P sit in the same box and the contrast has to be built on the hum.
- Vietnamese
Vietnamese b is made with an in-drawn (implosive) burst, which English listeners hear as a different, tighter sound.
- Thai
Thai has a b, so the start is easy, but final stops are unreleased, which makes 'job' hard for an English listener to catch.
- Spanish
Spanish b and v are the same sound, and between vowels it softens to a lip-to-lip buzz, so 'about' can lose its hard B; keep the lips fully closed.
- German
German devoices final obstruents, so 'cab' can come out as 'cap'; the voice has to stay on right through the release.
- Russian
Russian devoices final consonants too, which turns 'club' into 'clup'; hum through the end of the word.
- Turkish
Turkish devoices word-final stops, so final B needs the voice held on deliberately.
Straight answers
Is /b/ voiced or voiceless?
It is voiced. Put a hand on your throat and say it: you should feel a buzz the whole time. Every English vowel is voiced too, so the buzz never stops between this sound and the vowel next to it.
What words start with the B sound?
Common ones include big, book, beach. In the middle of a word you get about, rabbit, number, and at the end job, club, cab. Every one of those links to its own pronunciation page here.
How is /b/ spelled in English?
It is written "b", "bb". English spelling and English sound came apart centuries ago, so the same sound turns up under several spellings and the same spelling carries several sounds — which is why the sound, not the letter, is the thing to learn.
Why do Hindi & Urdu speakers find /b/ hard?
Hindi and Urdu also have an aspirated bh, so English B sometimes arrives with extra breath; English B has none.
Record the B sound and see if it landed
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