B's and V's

... apparently I get them mixed up. 

When I first learned the spanish alphabet, with the fun song and everything, I learned that B was pronounced 'bay' and V was pronounces 'vay'. But, at least here in Spain, people pronounce B's and V's the same.. or there is a VERY subtle difference..

Anyway, two examples where my misunderstanding of the B's and V's have gotten people confused.

1. I was asking my host mom how to spell her nephew's name (the one I just met when he walked into the house randomly a couple days ago right as I left the bathroom). I said, is it J-A-V-I?  Except I said (spelling these HOW THEY SOUND) - 'hota, ah, vay, ee?' ... but since I thought everyone else does it this way, I guess my 'vay' sounds more like 'bay'...

And Soraya was like no, not 'bay', it's OO-BAY. And I know I'd heard this before (I think this is how my sister learned the spanish alphabet..), but at first i was like Jaui??? That's weird, that's not Spanish.. Then I realized that the letter V is called 'oo-bay' in Spanish.. because bay and vay are way to similar sounding...

SO I TECHNICALLY SPELLED HIS NAME RIGHT, I JUST DIDNT SAY THE SPELLING RIGHT.

2. Last night, my host dad and I were talking about what you can do when you turn 18, and I said you can vote. 'Vote' in Spanish is 'votar'... and like I said, B's and V's are pronounced SO similarly, I just assumed they were pronounced exactly the same. But when I said 'votar' like 'botar'... my host dad was like UHH WUT?

Then he started making a motion with his hand - palm down towards the floor, raising it up and down kind of fast.. and was like 'This is botar'. And to be honest it looked like spanking and I was like OH GOD WHAT DID I SAY. But then he clarified, that you botar un balón (a ball).. the gesture he was making was to BOUNCE a ball. That's what botar is. Bounce.

But yeah, B's and V's are NOT pronounced the same.. but they're SO FREAKIN CLOSE you gotta make sure you don't say that you were allowed to bounce at 18 instead of allowed to vote.

BAHAHA (or should I say Vahaha???)