[β] /b/ and /v/

Eric, a former student, wrote:

Hi Marilí! As usual, I go off the track on the web when looking up a word in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Before typing any word, when you open the dictionary a random word appears; in this case the word was "pueblo". Despite the fact that I was curious about that word being in the English lexicon, something else caught my attention: the Spanish phonemes. I saw [ˈpwe βlo] and stared at it for a while, wondering why we have a different sound for the English /b/ (thought it was the same). I looked up the phoneme on google, and read that in Wikipedia the phoneme /β/ was -is- called voiced bilabial fricative. When reading the examples given in the page, "lava" had /β/. Immediately I clicked a link to "Spanish Phonology" in the same web page, and saw no sound for the Spanish spelling "v". I also confirmed /β/ for spelling "b" and sometimes "p".

Then I stopped. I was having you in mind during my search, and I thought that that was the time to ask you. Do you know any (preferably) web page to see a about the Spanish phonology system? Or can you tell me a little about our sounds for "b" and "v", and if they actually differ from the English /b/? Because I find myself speaking with /b/ for "b", I don't produce a fricative. My error?

Thanks in advance, hope to see you soon! Miss ya already!

And just in case:

"(letter)" - spelling

/(phoneme)/ - sound

ANSWER:

Eric,

In Spanish we use the voiced bilabial fricative /β/ to produce sounds represented by letters “b” and/or “v” in ordinary spelling . This sound is mainly used in intervocalic position and is an allophonic variant of the Spanish /b/, sound which we also have in our system. The plosive is more likely to be used in initial position.