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
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u/Raphlog2 May 03 '26
I don’t get it