accents and pronunciation, ready?
I used to teach accent rules. So, this doesn't seem to make sense: catéter is pronounced with the emphasis on the "a", not the "é"... right? Or is it just me? Here are the rules: If a word ends in a consanant, emphasis on last syllable. If a word ends in n, s, or a vowel, emphasis on 2nd to last, or penultima silaba. If you break the rules when you pronounce the word, that syllable gets an accent. I listened to pronunciation on Spanishdic and am convinced the accent is either misplaced, or the Spanishdic pronunciation is incorrect. Somebody, prove me wrong please. Really.
5 Answers
What I meant was that the English word catheter has the stress on the first syllable in which a falls. The Spanish word catéter is stressed on the second/penultimate syllable which is why the tilde is over that é. Without that tilde the emphasis would, according to Spanish orthography, fall on the last syllable.
Dana-Bates if you wish to flag me for saying stress instead of "emphasis" by all means do so. I do believe I understand where you're coming from.
The text portion of the dictionary is correct, the word is catéter.
The pronunciation is done by a bot, not by a recording, and it seems to me that none of the syllables are accented.
Curiously, this translation bot does the same thing. But this one (using Maria) seems to get it the way I would expect.
I think the problem is just a weakness in the text to speech converter that we are using for the dictionary pronunciation.
Firstly, you are putting the cart (orthography) before the horse (pronunciation). Words are pronounced the way that they are pronounced (ignoring those that simply mispronounce words). The (ideal) function of orthography is to accurately reflect the pronunciation (writing is recorded speech). In some cases orthography (especially in the case of English) is influenced by other (usually historical) concerns and may, therefor, reflect how the word was (at some time) pronounced. In Spanish this is mainly reflected in the presence of the letter "h" in some words. It's never pronounced. It might as well not be written but, for historical reasons, it persists.The same is true of the "b" / "v" distinction. For all practical purposes, they could all be replaced by either "b" or "v" or some arbitrary symbol. However there are historical reasons for preserving the distinction (that have nothing to do with modern pronunciation).
As a point of clarification, I just asked two other medical interpreters to pronounce this word, I am actually a medical interpreter, and heard emphasis on all three syllables. One guy even changed his own pronunciation, hahaha. I believe usage may be the problem. So since there are variations, to be grammatically correct, I will pronounce it orthographically, with the emphasis on the accented syllable. Thanks for all your input.
I listened to it and found the emphasis to be on the last syllable which would mean the é is wrong but you said the emphasis is on the a. So I'm confused either way, but I would think the dictionary is wrong in accenting the e. Maybe someone else can clarify this.
