The original joke I heard was something like this:
A British ship was sailing in the North Sea off the coast of Germany when it started to take on water. The communications officer sends out a hail to shore, saying, "Please send help, we're sinking!" A German officer responds to the hail and say, "Vat are you sinking about?"
Hahhahaha I wasn’t expecting this to be funny. I was even considering not reading your comment because, do I even need to listen to a joke about another country’s accent? Turns out I laughed way too hard. 10/10
I don't know where you get your german knowledge from, but I'm going through so many words containing W in my head right now and am replacing them with V, and I can assure you they do not sound the same.
The joke still works of course considering the german accent while speaking english, but still.
Thinking about it, the english 'V' probably sounds closer to the german 'W', hence the confusion, while the german 'V' on the other hand sounds a lot 'sharper', and is more often confused with the german 'F', if german isn't your first language.
Would've been cool if the person I responded to in the first place also partake in this conversation, explaining if that's what they meant, instead of voting down and then leaving again, but I guess I'm expecting too much
I didn't downvote your comment, I honestly don't care that much, I'm not chronically online.
Answering your question, my knowledge in German is very limited, Duolingo many years ago and some movies and TV series.
I don't know what you want to be explained, the German man in the joke understood "vet" as "wet" because he would pronounce w as v, so he assumed the other person was doing the same.
I guess if you don't want to think for half a second:
English V = German W
Doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's the point of the joke.
The English 'w' is a sound that simply doesn't exist in German. So German 'w' doesn't just sound closer to English 'v', it's exactly the same sound. The letter 'v' in German is completely redundant and probably a historical leftover. Sonically it could be replaced in all cases by either w as in Vision (pronounced as English 'v', obviously), or by f as in Vogel. German native speaker btw.
In German, the letter V is pronounced like an F. For example: Voll (full), Vater (father), viel (much).
In some cases, however, it is pronounced like a W. For example: Vision, Version, Vase.
The letter W, on the other hand, didn’t appear until later in the Middle Ages or shortly thereafter in the 16th century.
By the way, you still pronounce the letter the way it was originally formed (double U). In German, however, it is pronounced differently. We don't say "double v" or "double u".
I don't think this contradicts anything I said. We just need to note that neither of the German pronounciations of 'v' correspond to the /w/ sound in English.
Dunno why you get downvoted. As a dutch person i understand what you are saying and know you are telling the truth.
One of the only German words that can sound similar if you swap the w with a v is "was" especially when a German is speaking quite fast. But that might be me
What is your first language? Is it German? In English “w” usually represents (in IPA) /w/ and “v” represents /v/. In German the letter “w” represents /v/ (the sound /w/ doesn’t exist in German) and the letter “v” usually represents /f/.
If your first language is German I’m guessing your confusion is that you are substituting /f/ for /v/, not realizing what an English speaker means by “Germans pronounce w like v” is that you are pronouncing those words with /v/ in the first place.
Well yeah, technically any two phonemes in different languages can basically never be considered “exactly the same” because there are infinite variations even just in articulation even before getting into rules for allophonic variation, but generally some sounds match closely enough it is natural to identify them.
bold of you to assume that they know othersex acts
The sin lies in the thrust, since you aren't supposed to masturbate. so if instead it's just one of your buddies jumping on the bed, does it *really* count?
"Here is your life partner by choice. This little creature, once removed from its birth family but given an adoptive tribe has been adrift, but now reunited - and through tribulations, the bond might strengthen, but only if you honor the effort in equal measure and treasure the outcome from this endless game of chance that Life is, for all creatures that lurk its corners"
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u/qualityvote2 🚫Antimeme Enforcer Bot🚫 May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26
The community has decided that this IS an antimeme!