• collapse_already@lemmy.ml
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    7 hours ago

    In English, my lips touch when I make the “f” sound at the start of four. I am also pretty sure they touch for one.

      • topherclay@lemmy.world
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        1 hour ago

        The F sound is usually a labialdental fricative in English. So you are putting your bottom lip on your teeth and letting some air go by to make the F sound.

        English has bilabial plosives where you touch both lips together and let air stop for a moment which makes the P or B sounds.

        English doesn’t have a bilabial fricative so you might be doing this in your dialect and it doesn’t stand out to anyone because it doesn’t otherwise have a phonetic meaning. But, interestingly, in other languages a bilabial fricative has distinct meaning from a labial dental fricative. I believe I’ve read that in Japanese the “F” in “Mount Fuji” is actually a bilabial fricative and not the normal F that English speakers use.