How many syllables in Nacional?

[jrandlib]

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]

Three syllables: na·cio·nal

[Luna Azul]

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

[chileno]

Originally Posted by jrandlib

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]

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]

@ 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]

Originally Posted by Luna Azul

@ 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]

Originally Posted by Awaken

Thanks Luna. Learned lots of new things today.

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

[jrandlib]

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]

Originally Posted by jrandlib

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]

@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.

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by Awaken

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]

@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]

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]

Originally Posted by Rusty

@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]

Originally Posted by Awaken

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.