Me gusta la lengua de Español

[Apalánter]

Hola! Bienvenido to Tomísimo, Gesualdo.

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by gesualdo

Bibliotecaria. Gesualdo fue un compositor con una historia colorida.

¡Bienvenida entonces!

(But Gesualdo is a first name for a male, besides it being an Italian surname -we have many Gesualdos here in Argentina-. That's why you are getting so many "bienvenido" instead of "bienvenida" or "bienvenid@")

Gracias por referir ese personaje de historia tan interesante.

[Caballero]

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

(But Gesualdo is a first name for a male, besides it being an Italian surname -we have many Gesualdos here in Argentina-.

¿El nombre se pronuncia en Argentina igual como en Italia? ¿En X-SAMPA [dZeswaldo]? ¿o es [Zeswaldo] o [geswaldo]?

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by Caballero

¿El nombre se pronuncia en Argentina igual como en Italia? ¿En X-SAMPA [dZeswaldo]? ¿o es [Zeswaldo] o [geswaldo]?

/he'sualdo/ using IPA; the -sw- is choosing a consonant instead of a vowel to avoid pronouncing a schwa in a non-tonic syllable, and it gives Spanish or Italian a strong English accent.

[Caballero]

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

/he'sualdo/ using IPA; the -sw- is choosing a consonant instead of a vowel to avoid pronouncing a schwa in a non-tonic syllable, and it gives Spanish or Italian a strong English accent.

I'm a little bit confused. How do you tell when to make a diphthong, and when not to?

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by Caballero

I'm a little bit confused. How do you tell when to make a diphthong, and when not to?

What would have diphthongs to do with some sound being a vowel and not a consonant? In order to pronounce Spanish or Italian properly you have one major advantage: the alphabet. The fact that English doesn't have its own alphabet like Russian does is just a historical accident (I'd love it, as spelling and pronunciation would be much easier and a lot of variation would have disappeared). Pronouncing /swa/ where /sua/ is expected is the reversed mistake of that one we Spanish speakers do when we say /ðɪ ˌɪuːnɪˈvɜːʳsɪtɪ/ instead of /ðə ˌjuːnɪˈvɜːʳsɪtɪ/ replacing a consonant with a vowel because it resembles better our own language.

[Caballero]

According to Wikipedia, it seems like usually Spanish uses diphthongs.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angloph...guages#Spanish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_phonology#Vowels

How can one tell when to make a diphthong, and when to pronounce them separately from the writing system?

[aleCcowaN]

¿Por qué no lees bien lo que se te contesta?

[Caballero]

to avoid pronouncing a schwa in a non-tonic syllable

No entiendo este parte.

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by Caballero

No entiendo este parte.

English follows the rhythm of the tonic accent so every non tonic syllable is pronounced with toneless vowels, mostly schwa (ə), horseshoe u's (ʊ) and small i's (I). When trying to pronounce Spanish, in order to avoid muting the non tonic syllables English speakers use every structure in English tonic syllables, adding sounds (pronouncing "rulo" as /'ru:loʊ/ to avoid saying /'ru:lə/, and with a little effort an intermediate sound that resembles Spanish /'ru:lo/) or inserting consonants to replace vowels (as already discussed).

Some phonetic transcriptions like those in the links you provided have such pervasive consonants as they take popular pronunciation in the Caribbean to justify that and make Spanish "in our image and our likeness".

The fact remains that the rhythm of Spanish is syllabic, so any syllable is fully pronounced and its vowels are 100% vowels, no matter they are alone, in diphthongs or triphthongs. As I said, using vowels to represent consonant sounds and grouping many letters to represent just one sound is a problem of English using the wrong alphabet.