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-   -   How many syllables in Nacional? (https://forums.tomisimo.org/showthread.php?t=11287)

How many syllables in Nacional?


jrandlib July 14, 2011 12:43 PM

How many syllables in Nacional?
 
It's back to the basics trying to learn syllables for me.
My Spanish pronunciations are bad mostly because I am having problems with dividing words into syllables.

Today the question is about nacional. I am using a web site spanishdict.com and the dictionary option.
It pronunciation key shows "nah-the-o-nahl".
When clicking the speaker it sounds like "nash-u-nal".

Are the syllables na/ci/on/nal?

thanks

AngelicaDeAlquezar July 14, 2011 12:53 PM

Three syllables: na·cio·nal :)

Luna Azul July 17, 2011 11:11 AM

Angelica's answer is correct: na-cio-NAL (emphasis on the third syllable)

chileno July 17, 2011 09:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jrandlib (Post 113712)
It's back to the basics trying to learn syllables for me.
My Spanish pronunciations are bad mostly because I am having problems with dividing words into syllables.

Today the question is about nacional. I am using a web site spanishdict.com and the dictionary option.
It pronunciation key shows "nah-the-o-nahl".
When clicking the speaker it sounds like "nash-u-nal".

Are the syllables na/ci/on/nal?

thanks

Ah!

That "nah-the-o-nahl" sound is supposed to be "na-thee-o-nahl" and it corresponds to how a Spaniard would pronounce it.

The way it is pronounced in América is "nah-sseeo-nahl" with the emphasis in the last syllable.

Awaken July 18, 2011 08:23 AM

I vote 4. nah see oh nahl <- (that is American English sounds) Of course the see and oh portions are pronounced almost as one, but it still has 2 vowel sounds (in my head at least).

This is coming from a non-native speaker though.

Maybe it is just an enunciation thing? In the US, certain regions don't pronounce all the real syllables in certain words.

Can you post a link to the clip you are referring to?

Luna Azul July 18, 2011 11:08 AM

@ Awaken: This is the rule of thumb:

In Spanish vowel groups that form diphthongs or triphthongs are not separated.

Diphtongs are formed by a strong + a weak vowel (ai = a-mai-nar), a weak + strong vowel (io = na-cio-nal) and a weak + a weak vowel (ui = cui-dar).

Strong vowels are A, E, O and weak vowels are I, U.

All in all, there are 13 diphtongs in the Spanish language:

ai - ie - au - ei - io - ua - eu -ue - oi - uo- ia - iu - ui

Awaken July 18, 2011 03:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Luna Azul (Post 113853)
@ Awaken: This is the rule of thumb:

In Spanish vowel groups that form diphthongs or triphthongs are not separated.

Diphtongs are formed by a strong + a weak vowel (ai = a-mai-nar), a weak + strong vowel (io = na-cio-nal) and a weak + a weak vowel (ui = cui-dar).

Strong vowels are A, E, O and weak vowels are I, U.

All in all, there are 13 diphtongs in the Spanish language:

ai - ie - au - ei - io - ua - eu -ue - oi - uo- ia - iu - ui

Thanks Luna. Learned lots of new things today.

Luna Azul July 18, 2011 05:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Awaken (Post 113881)
Thanks Luna. Learned lots of new things today.

You're welcome, it was a pleasure. Thanks to you for thanking me.. :love:

jrandlib July 21, 2011 04:03 PM

Awaken..here is the link http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/nacional

Luna.. thanks for a good lesson.

My pronounciation problems really are coming from not being able to get the syllables correct. This is a big help.

Awaken July 22, 2011 07:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jrandlib (Post 114152)
Awaken..here is the link http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/nacional

Luna.. thanks for a good lesson.

My pronounciation problems really are coming from not being able to get the syllables correct. This is a big help.

When I listen to that speaker say it, it still sounds like 4 syllables. Yeah 'cio' is pronounced quickly, but it is two distinct vowel sounds to my ear.

Luna,

Is that speaker not saying it correctly? I can easily hear the see oh sound and I was expecting a native to blur those 2 vowels into 1 syllable.

For instance, in English "tion" is pronounced "shun" which is 1 syllable. This reminds more of a word like "stereo" in English. The 'eo' sounds just like 'io' in nacional when that guy says it.

AngelicaDeAlquezar July 22, 2011 07:51 AM

@Awaken: There's only three syllables in his pronunciation. He's saying it as any average Latin American would say it.
A dypththong does not blur sounds; in Spanish all sounds are pronounced. :thinking:

aleCcowaN July 22, 2011 08:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Awaken (Post 114207)
When I listen to that speaker say it, it still sounds like 4 syllables. Yeah 'cio' is pronounced quickly, but it is two distinct vowel sounds to my ear.

It's one syllable with a diphthong, though. But you may hear a lot of diphthongs pronounced as hiatuses (not the case with "nacional") from speakers of some countries like Spain and Argentina. That points to the fact that the "io" unit is not as solid as it looks, and your English is adding the expectation of a syllable to be a tonic one when an /i/ sound is involved. Then, you "hear" two syllables, or maybe you conceptualize two syllables there but you'd pronounce just one to our ears. Try and find some native speakers and ask them if you are pronouncing the diphthong in a native way.

Rusty July 22, 2011 09:33 AM

@awaken: You may want to conceptually equate 'io' with 'yo'. There's clearly only a single syllable in the latter and this is what is said immediately after the 'c' in the second syllable of 'nacional'.

aleCcowaN July 22, 2011 10:49 AM

Nobody understands me when I pronounce English "yo" like Spanish "io". It's much worse than those "good-a-books" or "meet-a-ball" moments.

Awaken July 22, 2011 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rusty (Post 114220)
@awaken: You may want to conceptually equate 'io' with 'yo'. There's clearly only a single syllable in the latter and this is what is said immediately after the 'c' in the second syllable of 'nacional'.

Ok. When he says the full sentence is normal form, it sounds much more like 3 syllables than when he is trying to "sound it out" with the 3 syllables in the beginning. I'll try to think of it more in that way ('yo' way).

I just looked up syllable and maybe my English definition of it was causing me problems. I always think of syllables as vowel sound based because that is the normal way in English I guess. In Spanish, the "uninterrupted element of speech" can be a sound like the cio with the diphthong. Thanks for helping me to understand.

Luna Azul July 22, 2011 07:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Awaken (Post 114207)
When I listen to that speaker say it, it still sounds like 4 syllables. Yeah 'cio' is pronounced quickly, but it is two distinct vowel sounds to my ear.

Luna,

Is that speaker not saying it correctly? I can easily hear the see oh sound and I was expecting a native to blur those 2 vowels into 1 syllable.

For instance, in English "tion" is pronounced "shun" which is 1 syllable. This reminds more of a word like "stereo" in English. The 'eo' sounds just like 'io' in nacional when that guy says it.

He's saying it correctly. If there were two syllables there there would be a short space betwen the "i" and the "o" sounds and there's none.

Let's do an excercise. Pronounce this:

Awake asks Luna:

-¿Oyes?

Luna replies:

- Sí oigo. (no comma after 'sí')

A native speaker will leave a short space of time between the two vowels, very noticeable by expert ears, even if he's speaking fast. That's not something that happens in the recording. The two vowels are close together, they don't change sound as it happens with other diphtongs but still you can tell it's a single syllable.


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