How to pronounce "cuy" (aka cobayo)
I'm a beginning Spanish student. Tonight my class will be going to a restaurant that serves foods from the Andes. We are to do all of are ordering in Spanish - in fact the wait staff has been told not to use any English when speaking to us.
I plan on ordering the cuy. I'm assuming the correct pronunciation would be "kwee" and not "koo-ee". I'm thinking that the "uy" is treated like a dipthing.
The question might seem rather basic to most of you but I tend to stumble alot over dipthongs at this point - though not as bad as a month ago.
Gracias.
2 Answers
Whether it forms a diphthong or not, it would be pronounced the same. If the "y'' was considered a consonant it would be a single syllable word. If the "y" is considered either a strong vowel (open) or a weak vowel (closed) a diphthong is formed and it is a monosyllabic word. Only if two strong (open) vowels were together would it become two syllables and the "u" is a weak vowel so it can't happen. (or if an accent mark was used to prevent the formation of a diphthong).
So, your assumption is correct. It is pronounced similar to "muy"
Welcome to the forum!
In Ecuador we said 'kwee' 
